Why you feel a sense of impending doom and how to soothe it

Feeling a sense of impending doom can be unnerving. You may feel anxious or short of breath and not know why. You might fear something tragic is about to happen without any evidence of danger. You may even go into full panic mode and feel as if nothing can calm you down.

A sense of doom can be brought on by stress, an underlying medical condition, or emotional triggers in your environment. Understanding where this feeling comes from and what you can do about it is key to calming yourself when it surfaces.

Physical symptoms of impending doom can be similar to signs of a panic attack, including the following:

• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain
• Heart palpitations
• Hot flashes
• Increased heart rate
• Shaking
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Intense worry
• Fear of dying
• Feeling disconnected from reality

While anxiety and a sense of impending doom are similar, they are different things. Anxiety is the fear that a threat may arise, while impending doom is a feeling that a threat is already present and something tragic is about to happen.

What causes a sense of impending doom?

Mental health conditions, physical health conditions, or emotional triggers such as collective trauma can cause a feeling of impending doom. It can be a symptom of anxiety or a sign of a serious medical condition.

A life-threatening situation or dangerous environment can also cause this sinking feeling. For example, you may be more likely to feel a sense of impending doom if you live in a neighborhood with high crime rates or one prone to natural disasters. You may also experience this feeling in a professional setting if you’re a minority working for a company that discriminates against you.

5 mental health causes

Mental health conditions like the following can cause feelings of impending doom:

• Anxiety disorder: Anxiety can cause either decreased or heightened activity in your brain’s prefrontal cortex and limbic system. This leads to an increase in stress hormones and can make it difficult to develop rational responses. These mental hurdles can lead to a feeling of impending doom.
• Bipolar disorder: People with bipolar disorder may experience a phenomenon known as fear of harm (FOH). This phenomenon can lead to unwarranted fears that physical harm will come to you or those around you. It can also cause you to misperceive neutral situations as threatening.
• Depression: Depression is characterized by feelings of negativity, hopelessness, thoughts of death, and other symptoms that can feel like danger is imminent.  
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): People who have experienced war or childhood trauma may feel anxious about the trauma repeating itself. This can cause them to be wary of signs of impending doom.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Someone with OCD may experience obsessive thoughts and fears that can cause them to worry excessively about leaving their home, harming others, or dying.

5 physical health causes

The following physical health conditions can also cause feelings of impending doom:

• Heart attack: A sense of impending doom can be an early symptom of a heart attack, so it’s important to take the feeling seriously. This feeling is often accompanied by restlessness, chest pain, and anxiety.
• Anaphylaxis: This condition is a severe allergic reaction that can cause your airways to narrow, making it difficult to breathe. Other symptoms include a fast pulse, a skin rash, and a sudden drop in blood pressure. Anaphylaxis can come on within minutes, creating sudden fear and a sense of urgency that may cause a warranted feeling of impending doom.
• Intraoperative awareness: When undergoing surgery, some patients regain a level of consciousness during the operation due to the anesthesia wearing off. They may hear their doctors talking or feel pain but aren’t able to move or let anyone know, which can cause extreme fear. 
• Seizures: Some people feel anxiety preceding certain types of seizures, such as focal seizures. These seizures cause visual changes, auras, and fear.
• Poisoning: Exposure to toxic drugs and chemicals can cause extreme anxiety in people who have experienced poisoning. 

Is impending doom a premonition or anxiety? 

Because a feeling of impending doom can be a sign of both emotional distress and a serious medical event, it can be difficult to know when it’s anxiety versus a forewarning of a bigger issue. However, there are a few ways to help you recognize its cause:

• Level of detail: Anxiety-based feelings of impending doom often lack specific details. For example, panic attacks can seemingly come out of nowhere for people with panic disorder. Genetics, underlying stress, or changes in brain chemistry can cause panic attacks. If you’re experiencing impending doom due to anxiety, you might not know why you’re feeling that way. In contrast, feelings of impending doom caused by a medical event may be in response to specific symptoms you’re experiencing, such as shortness of breath.
• Frequency: Anxiety is far more common than emergency medical situations, and panic attacks are also likely to happen much more frequently. However, it’s a good idea to check with a doctor or mental health professional when this feeling arises.
• Duration: Panic attacks usually last an average of 5 to 20 minutes, and they often go away on their own. Meanwhile, symptoms of medical emergencies, such as heart attacks, can last several hours or even an entire day. 

How to manage a feeling of impending doom

Impending doom is an uncomfortable feeling, but it doesn’t necessarily signal a life-threatening medical event. If you experience this feeling, you should talk to a trusted healthcare provider or mental health professional to rule out serious causes. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help with underlying mental health conditions.

There are many different coping mechanisms and treatments to overcome fear if your feeling of impending doom is driven by anxiety. Here are a few ideas that might help.

Use calming exercises

If you feel yourself spiraling into worry, using anxiety-calming exercises can also help with easing your feeling of impending doom. These include breath work, guided imagery, and other techniques to help slow your racing thoughts.

Try some grounding techniques

Grounding is the process of realigning with your environment to calm yourself during times of heightened worry. You can use grounding to reframe your approach to overwhelming situations. Grounding is also proven to reduce inflammation.

Some grounding techniques to try include spending time outdoors, stretching, and imagining yourself somewhere you feel safe.

Focus on the present moment

Anxiety often causes you to worry about the future rather than what’s right in front of you. For example, you might fear failure before trying a new activity or worry about disappointing others with decisions you plan to make.

Bringing yourself back to the present moment can redirect your mind to focus instead on what’s happening around you. A great technique to help you stay present is a body scan. This involves directing your attention to different parts of your body, enabling you to pay attention to internal cues to examine how your body is feeling. You can also try mindfulness activities to help stay in the present.

Do something that makes you happy

Sometimes the best way to ward off panic is to dive deep into distractions. This can help divert your mind to other activities, leaving less mental capacity for worries. It can calm your nerves without you even realizing it.

Some good distractions to try when you’re experiencing a sense of doom include:

• Listening to relaxing music or watching a music video
• Calling a trusted friend or loved one
• Playing a quick game on your smartphone
• Exercising
• Changing your body temperature (such as taking a cold or hot shower)

Journal

Getting your thoughts and fears out can ease your anxiety. Research shows that journaling can help reduce mental illness symptoms in some people and that those with anxiety disorders benefit most.

You can start journaling almost anywhere. It’s as easy as typing your thoughts into your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Try recording your thoughts as they flow through your mind, as if you’re venting to someone you know well. Focus on getting your worries out rather than on spelling errors. This can be done in five-minute exercises whenever you have a few minutes of free time. 

Face feelings of impending doom to find inner peace

A feeling of impending doom can come from a variety of causes, but it’s most commonly driven by anxiety. Learning which coping techniques work best to soothe your worries can help you fight it off quickly. Knowing how to manage this feeling starts with knowing yourself. 

An outside perspective, such as from a life coach or mental health counselor, can help you dig deeper into your fears and ways to overcome them. Connect with a BetterUp Coach and learn to understand yourself better to achieve inner peace.