When the World Feels Like Too Much: Understanding Global Existential Anxiety
It’s a weird effing time to be alive. Every day the world is throwing more at us than any human nervous system was designed to handle — fires, floods, war, politics, injustice, AI ethical crises — yet we’re supposed to just keep working, keep eating lunch, and keep answering texts like la-di-frickin-da.
Even when your own life is okay, the world feels heavy. You’re not imagining that. It’s not “just anxiety.” It’s what happens when your body can’t keep up with the sheer volume of everything it now has access to, which is very real and palpable.
Global existential anxiety is what happens when our care system overfunctions with nowhere to land. We’re full of urgency to help and heal, yet forced to watch as people with real power perpetuate the very crises we long to change.
Human beings weren’t built to hold this much or this type of information, but here we are trying to figure out how to stay open and caring without completely frying our systems and sinking deeply into hopelessness.
1. It’s Not Just You
If you’re exhausted by the news, or you feel guilty for not being able to care enough, or you shut down because it’s all too much, you’re not broken. You’re actually pretty tuned in. These are not signs that something is “wrong” with you. On the contrary, those are signs of a lot being very right because these things are supposed to impact us. Apathy and disconnection is actually far more concerning of a response and reaction than dread or guilt.
Remember, humans evolved in small, local groups. We were wired to respond to things we could see, touch, and fix in the very literal definitions of the words. Now, we can watch suffering across the globe in real time, but we can’t do anything about damn near most of it. Our empathy fires and our adrenaline surges, but there’s no physical release.
2. “Staying Informed” Has a Limit
Scrolling for hours doesn’t make us better citizens; it usually just makes us more anxious and less able to act, but we rarely notice that happening in real time.
Here’s something to try next time you’re deep in a scroll: Check in with your body as you do it, and give it a number — 0 to 10.
If you start around a two (calm, curious) and you’re at a six (tense, buzzy, hopeless), that’s your cutoff point. That’s your body saying: enough.
The goal isn’t to cut yourself off from information. It’s to stop before you hit the point where your empathy turns into paralysis.
3. Have a Plan for the Moment After You Put the Phone Down
Because otherwise, what happens? You hit the wall, put your phone down, stare into space, and now you’re just sitting with the weight of the world. That’s the moment that traps people — it’s rarely the scrolling itself, but the crash right after.
So, plan for that moment ahead of time. Some examples:
Do something physical within one minute: stand up, stretch, pet your dog, walk outside, unload the dishwasher, jump up and down…literally anything.
Then do something that ignites your senses: light a candle, run your hands under warm water, smell your coffee, listen to Enya, whatever works.
If you still have energy to release, start with one thing that connects to meaning instead of dread. One thing. Then stop. Let your system reset.
For example, that might mean organizing your desk so the space around you feels a little more coherent, reading a few paragraphs from something that reminds you humans are still capable of beauty, or feeding your dog and noticing that they trust you. It could be responding to one message instead of five, or choosing to stretch your body instead of scroll. The point isn’t productivity—it’s giving your care somewhere real to land.
This pause helps bring you back into your Window of Tolerance, the emotional range where your nervous system can stay regulated enough to think clearly, feel connected, and act intentionally. When we’re outside that window—too activated or too shut down—our systems can’t process or integrate; we react instead of relate. Coming back into the window means creating just enough safety in the present moment for your body to remember it’s not in immediate danger. From there, we can re-engage with the world more effectively and sustainably.
4. Guilt Isn’t the Same as Responsibility
A lot of people confuse the two. Guilt says, “If I really cared, I’d fix this.” Responsibility says, “I can care deeply and still know my limits.”
We can’t think or feel our way out of collective crises. We can only act within our slice of influence. Figure out what that slice is, and give it what you can without losing yourself along the way.
Your slice might be shaping your classroom to model respect and inclusion, using your platform to amplify a story that matters, or helping a neighbor who’s overwhelmed instead of trying to save the whole world online. It might mean showing up to vote, mentoring someone younger, or building a workplace where people feel safe to be human (wink wink!). Sometimes it’s as quiet as refusing to become numb—choosing not to look away, but also not to drown.
Responsibility lives in the space between denial and despair. It’s the practice of doing what’s yours to do, while letting go of what was disappointingly never within your control.
5. Put Some Structure Around Your News Consumption
Most of us don’t realize how chaotic our relationship with information has become. We check headlines between meetings, scroll during lunch, and open five tabs before bed, and then we wonder why our nervous systems are shot and our sleep is lousy.
You don’t need to disconnect from the world, but you do need some structure so your brain has time to process what it’s taking in, otherwise you won't really be able to do much to help it.
Some ideas:
Pick one or two news sources you trust and stick with those. Jumping between ten doesn’t make you more informed; it just keeps your system on high alert.
Decide when you’ll check the news each day — once in the morning, maybe once in the evening — and stay off it the rest of the time.
No scrolling right before bed or first thing in the morning. Let your brain have a buffer on both ends of the day. This is absolutely massive for nervous system regulation throughout your day and week.
When you’re done, do something that reorients you to real life: take a walk, play with your pet, talk to someone, stretch, or put on a show that makes you laugh.
It’s not about tuning out; it’s about not letting the world’s noise hijack every quiet moment you have.
6. Anchor Back to the Real World
The antidote to helplessness is small, tangible action—not performative action, just real life stuff.
Feed something alive: a plant, a pet, a neighbor’s cat, your roommate (I am running out of examples of living things, sorry everyone).
Make something: bread, art, a playlist, a mess.
Connect with an actual human being, in person, if possible.
Put your hands on something physical that reminds you of your presence in the here and now: dirt, fabric, dishes, skin.
Anxiety pulls you into abstraction. Touch brings you back into reality.
7. Sometimes, Despair Is Just the Honest Emotion
You don’t have to be okay all the time. It'd actually be really concerning if you were. You’re allowed to grieve the world. You’re allowed to feel disgust, numbness, rage. Those are human reactions to collective trauma.
The trick is to not build a house and set up for life there. Despair is like quicksand. If you struggle against it, it pulls harder, but if you name it and share it, it loses its grip. Call a friend or write it out. Let it move through you instead of calcifying in place.
8. Hope Isn’t a Mood, It’s Maintenance
Hope isn’t “things will get better.” It’s “things might not, but I’m still showing up.”
Hope is taking care of your body, voting, cooking, showing up for a friend, planting something, resting. It’s the stuff that keeps the lights on when the world feels dark.
Hope isn’t a feeling you wait for; it’s something you practice. The work of staying alive, even when you can’t feel hopeful, might be the most difficult and haunting part of being human.
My Bottom Line
Existential, global anxiety isn’t a disorder. It’s the cost of awareness in a hyperconnected world. The goal isn’t to become numb or blissfully detached, but to stay functional and operate from a place of love despite so much hatred swirling around us.
Again, we’re not built to hold it all, and that’s okay. The fact that you keep trying to meet the world with care and compassion is a beautiful sign of your humanity that I hope you never lose, no matter how much it hurts.
