Back in January, the Doomsday Clock was reset to 89 seconds to midnight, the nearest it has ever got to its figurative “end times” since its conception in 1947. Set up by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Clock originally offered a visual representation of the threat that nuclear warfare posed to humanity. In 2007, its remit was expanded to include climate change. Artificial intelligence, biological weapons and nanotechnology are now also factored in.

Turn on the news today and you’ll likely find other potential existential threats to add to the list. What with the pandemic, the polycrisis and certain world politicians bent on brinkmanship, you’re probably done with living through unprecedented times. And where do you go to escape? From The Last Of Us and Black Mirror to 28 Years Later and the recent musical drama The End, popular culture offers no shortage of imaginative scenarios for our demise.

While we can’t guarantee the world won’t end tomorrow, we can at least provide a little perspective, hope and suggestions of positive action. Here, then, is how to cheer up. Because it might never happen.

“It is when we feel frozen that anxiety turns into despair,” says SJ Beard, senior research associate at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the author of the forthcoming book, Existential Hope: Facing Our Future When The Signs Look Bad. “It is better to be curious about the future of our species and to ask what you can do about it. Our brains [have] evolved to deal with risk every moment of our lives. But we always evolved to respond to risk via action.”

Megan Kennedy-Woodard, the co-director of the consultancy Climate Psychologists and co-author of Turn The Tide On Climate Anxiety, sees the gnawing unease of climate worry or distress as something to harness. “It is not something that we necessarily want to ‘cure’, rather help people to move to a place of sustainable and collective action.”

“We like the idea that we’re doing something,” the broadcaster, speaker and coach David Baker says. “That’s an important aspect of us humans: ‘At least I’m doing something.’”

There’s a reason why polycrisis is the phrase du jour – many of the crises we face, from climate change to war to pandemics, are interlinked. But don’t let that trouble you. “The important thing is to engage with a problem and work on solving it,” Beard says. “Not to worry that unless you are solving all the problems simultaneously then you are getting it wrong. We have to address all these problems together, but there are more than eight billion of us, so it’s fine if most people don’t worry about everything.”

“If we look at each crisis, where do you start? What do you commit to?” Kennedy-Woodard asks. “We don’t need everyone fighting every battle, because that isn’t sustainable for mental health.”

“We’re projecting our fear of our own individual death onto these wider anxieties,” Baker says. He draws on the work of the mid-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, linking our worries to attachment theory and the impact of our very earliest experiences on our adult mental health.

“Winnicott argued that the first anxiety, which comes from the first time the mother doesn’t come quickly enough, lives with us,” he says. “We bury it deep, but unconsciously that wells up in our anxieties about the end of our life.” Once this is unpacked, we can learn to better deal with our actual concerns.

“There is a reason they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others,” Kennedy-Woodard says. “I can’t say it better than Audre Lorde: ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.’”

Kennedy-Woodard suggests spending more time in nature – hiking or forest bathing, for example – which won’t just be a pleasurable activity, but serves as a reminder of what we could potentially lose to ecological collapse. “Identifying and then taking time to do what restores you is essential,” she says.

“Make sure your psychological centre of gravity is in your real and immediate world,” the author Oliver Burkeman recently wrote. “The world of your family and friends and neighbourhood, your work and your creative projects, as opposed to the world of presidencies and governments, social forces and global emergencies.”

“Human connection is the best and only way to deal with our current situation,” agrees Douglas Rushkoff, the theorist, author of Survival Of The Richest and presenter of the podcast Team Human. “For me, the best way to ignite connection is to make eye contact. Sounds simple, but it works, and it doesn’t have to be scary. Go borrow something from a neighbour. You’ll be surprised how helpful your neighbours want to be.”

“Anxiety loves isolation,” Kennedy-Woodard says. “Find a community that is working on something you are interested in – they are countless and ever popping up around the world. That gives me hope.”

“The Doomsday Clock is still only at 89 second to midnight,” Beard says. “We do have time; we are still here.”

Beard notes that previous flashpoints – 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis and the arms race of the 1980s – have resulted in the sharpest swings away from disaster. “The good news is that whether it happens or not is up to us, collectively, to decide,” Beard says.

Rushkoff says he leans into existential threat. “How do you want to live what is left?” he asks. “Fighting for scarce resources or living compassionately? Even if we can’t save the world, we can start delivering care to ourselves and our friends and neighbours. And as we do that, maybe the world doesn’t have to end anymore.”