Fear Of Impending Doom Anxiety
The feeling of impending doom, such as a sudden sense that you are in grave danger, something terrible is about to occur, and there isn’t anything you can do about it, is a common anxiety symptom, especially anxiety and panic attacks symptoms.
Most anxious people experience the feeling of impending doom due to their anxiety and hyperstimulation.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and a feeling of impending doom.
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Feeling of Impending Doom Common Symptom Descriptions
The “feeling of impending doom” anxiety symptom is often described as:
- Feel like something awful is about to happen.
- Have a strong sense that you are suddenly in grave danger.
- Suddenly get an overwhelming feeling that you are about to die.
- A strong feeling that something terrible is about to happen and there isn’t anything you can do about it, but you aren’t sure what the threat is or where it’s coming from.
- Suddenly have a sense of terrible fate.
- A powerful feeling of death and destruction that suddenly comes over you.
- A sudden overwhelming feeling of impending doom, destruction, and despair.
- A horrible feeling of doom that suddenly and out of nowhere washes over you.
- A strong feeling of impending doom that begins or accompanies a panic or anxiety attack.
- Feeling of impending doom can feel so strong that you believe you must escape immediately or something terrible will happen.
- This feeling can be so strong that you conclude you are on the verge of a complete physical and mental breakdown.
- Feeling of impending doom is often accompanied by other anxiety symptoms, such as heart palpitations, sweating, shortness of breath, trembling, etc.
This strong feeling of ruination can suddenly occur and wash over you anytime and anywhere.
The feeling of impending doom can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- Precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety symptoms or occur by itself.
- Precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" for no reason.
- Range in intensity from mild, to moderate, to severe.
- Come in waves where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next.
- Occur for a while, subside, and then return for no reason.
- Change from day to day, moment to moment, or remain as a constant background during your struggle with anxiety disorder.
This symptom can seem more noticeable when undistracted, resting, trying to sleep, or waking up.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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Causes
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
There are many causes of the strong feeling of impending doom anxiety symptom. The most common include:
1. Anxiety-Activated Stress Response
Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, causing many body-wide changes that prepare the body for immediate action – to fight or flee. This instinctual survival reaction is often referred to as the Fight or Flight Response [1][2].
Visit the “Stress Response” section in Chapter 3 for the many ways it can affect the body.
Some of the stress response changes include:
- Quickly converts the body’s energy reserves into “fuel” (blood sugar) to instantly boost energy.
- Increases heart rate, respiration, and metabolism due to the boost in energy.
- Stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing nervous system activity to be more sensitive and reactive to danger.
- Heightens most of the body’s senses to be more aware of danger.
- Increases activity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex (the rationalization area of the brain) so that our attention is focused on the threat and away from thoughts that could be distracting.
- Shunts blood to parts of the body vital to survival, such as the brain, arms, legs, and vital organs, and away from parts less vital for survival, such as the stomach, digestive system, and skin. It accomplishes this by constricting blood vessels in certain parts of the body and dilating them in others.
- Tightens muscles to make the body more resilient to injury.
- Creates a sense of urgency to take action to fight with or flee from the perceived threat.
The stress response changes are supposed to create a sense of urgency to take immediate action – to fight or flee.
Having a sudden sense of impending doom is a normal part of an anxiety and an active stress response. The higher the degree of stress response, the more pronounced the feeling of impending doom.
Most people get a feeling of impending doom, especially when anxiety and stress responses occur in the high to very high-degree ranges.
2. Stress
Stress can also activate the stress response, especially stress in the high to very high-degree ranges. High-degree stress can also cause a sudden feeling of impending doom and destruction.
If this symptom appears “out of the blue” and for what you think is no reason, it’s often caused by highly elevated stress, especially when stress becomes chronic.
3. Hyperstimulation (chronic stress)
Since anxiety and stress can cause a feeling of imminent disaster, so can chronic stress, which we call hyperstimulation since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation” [3][4].
Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being.
Moreover, just as an active stress response can cause an acute feeling of impending doom, hyperstimulation can cause chronic feelings of impending doom.
As such, hyperstimulation can cause a persistent feeling of impending doom, often characterized as a “black cloud of imminent disaster that follows you everywhere.”
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can present anxiety symptoms, including feelings of impending doom.
4. Voluntary and involuntary panic and anxiety attacks
Anxiety and panic attacks often cause a strong feeling of impending destruction because of the high-degree anxiety and stress associated with anxiety and panic attacks.
This symptom is often more disturbing during involuntary anxiety and panic attacks because the cause of the attack and the feelings of impending doom can seem unknown.
Many people trigger anxiety and panic attacks due to the strong feeling of impending doom that very often precedes the attack.
Involuntary anxiety and panic attacks are common indications of hyperstimulation since hyperstimulation is a common cause of involuntary anxiety and panic attacks.
5. Behavior
Anxious behavior, such as imagining worst-case scenarios (catastrophizing) and excessively worrying about them, commonly triggers high levels of stress that create feelings of impending doom.
Therefore, anxious behavior is also a common cause of this anxiety symptom.
6. Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
Any combination of the above can trigger feelings of impending doom anxiety symptoms.
Most anxious people experience this symptom.
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Treatment
When other factors cause or aggravate this anxiety symptom, addressing the specific cause can reduce and eliminate this symptom.
When an active stress response causes this symptom, ending the active stress response will cause this acute anxiety symptom to subside.
Keep in mind that it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. But this is normal and needn’t be a cause for concern.
When hyperstimulation (chronic stress) causes a feeling of impending doom, eliminating hyperstimulation will end this anxiety symptom.
You can eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Reducing stress.
- Containing anxious behavior (since anxiety creates stress).
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
- Passively accepting your symptoms until they subside.
- Being patient as your body recovers.
Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.
Recovery Support members can view chapters 5, 6, 7, 14 and more for more detailed information about recovering from hyperstimulation and anxiety disorder.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, it stops sending symptoms, including this one.
Symptoms of chronic stress subside as the body regains its normal, non-hyperstimulated health.
However, eliminating hyperstimulation can take much longer than most people think, causing symptoms to linger longer than expected.
As long as the body is even slightly hyperstimulated, it can present symptoms of any type, number, intensity, duration, frequency, and at any time, including this one.
Even so, since a feeling of impending doom is a common symptom of stress, including anxiety-caused stress, it's harmless and needn't be a cause for concern. It will subside when unhealthy stress has been eliminated and the body has had sufficient time to recover. Therefore, there is no reason to worry about it.
Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms stress the body, these behaviors can interfere with recovery.
Passively accepting your symptoms – allowing them to persist without reacting to, resisting, worrying about, or fighting them – while doing your recovery work will cause their cessation in time.
Acceptance, practice, and patience are key to recovery.
Keep in mind that it can take a long time for the body to recover from hyperstimulation. It's best to faithfully work at your recovery despite the lack of apparent progress.
However, if you persevere with your recovery work, you will succeed.
You also have to do your recovery work FIRST before your body can recover. The cumulative effects of your recovery work will produce results down the road. And the body's stimulation has to diminish before symptoms can subside.
- Reducing stress.
- Increasing rest.
- Faithfully practicing your recovery strategies.
- Passively accepting your symptoms.
- Containing anxious behavior.
- Being patient.
These will bring results in time.
When you do the right work, the body has to recover!
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Short-term strategies
Even though eliminating hyperstimulation will eliminate chronic anxiety symptoms, including a feeling of impending doom, some people have found the following strategies helpful.
However, keep in mind that each person can have a unique symptom experience since each person is somewhat physically, chemically, psychologically, and emotionally unique. What might work for one person might not for another.
Reduce stress – Since stress, including anxiety-caused stress, is a common cause of the feeling of impending destruction, reducing stress can reduce episodes of a feeling of impending doom.
Any stress reduction strategy can help improve this symptom. Recovery Support members can read the many articles in chapter 14 for natural and effective stress reduction strategies.
Regular good sleep – Regular good sleep can reduce stress, cortisol, and the body’s overall level of stimulation. Their reduction can reduce and eliminate anxiety symptoms, including this one.
Regular deep relaxation – Deep relaxation can also reduce the body’s overall level of stimulation and stress hormone production, leading to a reduction in anxiety symptoms, including feelings of impending doom and gloom. Recovery Support members can read the “Deep Relaxation” section in Chapter for more information about deep relaxation, it’s many benefits, and examples.
Contain anxious behavior – Containing anxious behavior is a great way to reduce anxiety and stress. As anxiety and stress diminish, so do the prevalence of anxiety and stress symptoms, including this one.
If you’d like help learning and applying containment – a skill vital to overcoming issues with anxiety – connect with one of our recommended anxiety disorder therapists.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to overcome issues with anxiety.
Passively-accept this feeling and let it pass – In most cases, the feeling of impending doom will pass if you don’t react to it. Reacting to it with concern and fear is one of the main reasons it persists.
Yes, the feelings can be strong at times. But if you let it be and let the feeling pass, you’ll see that it does relatively quickly.
Most often, this symptom will fade within minutes if we don’t react to it.
As you become familiar with this feeling and practiced at letting it pass, it will become a nonissue in time.
Again, most anxious people get a feeling of impending doom from time to time.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.
Addressing your underlying factors (Level Two recovery) is most important if you want lasting success.
Addressing Level Two recovery can help you:
- Contain anxious behavior.
- Become unafraid of anxiety symptoms and the strong feelings of anxiety.
- End anxiety symptoms.
- Successfully address the underlying factors that so often cause issues with anxiety.
- End what can feel like out-of-control worry.
All our recommended anxiety therapists have had anxiety disorder and overcame it. Their personal experience with anxiety disorder and their Master's Degree and above professional training give them insight other therapists don't have.
If you want to achieve lasting success over anxiety disorder, any one of our recommended therapists would be a good choice.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[5][6][7]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Research has shown that therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorder, and distance therapy (via phone or the Internet) is equally, if not more effective, than face-to-face in-person therapy.[8][9][10]
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Prevalence
In an online poll we conducted, 85 percent of respondents said they had feelings of impending doom because of their anxiety and hyperstimulation.
Closing Comments
Prognosis:
This anxiety symptom is highly treatable with the right information, help, and support. There is no need to struggle with this symptom long-term.
Comments:
Even though this anxiety symptom can feel powerful and seem like an ominous premonition, it’s just an indication of anxious behavior, stress, or chronic stress.
Consequently, it needn’t be a cause for concern. It will fade in time.
However, it indicates some work is required, such as reducing stress and addressing your anxious behavior.
Remember that this feeling could be warranted in some instances, such as when in real danger. But these instances are rare.
Dealing with the underlying factors that cause issues with anxiety and its symptoms is the best way to address episodes of feelings of impending doom.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to address anxiety issues and anxiety symptoms.
Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including Fear Of Impending Doom anxiety symptoms.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Elbers, Jorina, et al. "Wired for Threat: Clinical Features of Nervous System Dysregulation in 80 Children." Pediatric Neurology, Dec 2018.
4. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
5. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
6. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
7. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.
8. Kingston, Dawn.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
9. Markowitz, John, et al. “Psychotherapy at a Distance.” Psychiatry Online, March 2021.
10. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.