It’s a Lot Right Now. And That’s Worth Taking Seriously

You don’t need to be following the news closely to feel it.

Maybe it shows up when you fill the tank and notice the number is higher than last month. Again. Or when you do the mental arithmetic at the supermarket without meaning to. Or when someone asks how you’re doing and you say “fine” because what else do you say, and where would you even start?

This is not anxiety about nothing. This is a nervous system responding to something real.

What has actually changed

In late February, a new escalation began in the Middle East. Another conflict. Another region. And for many people in Britain, the response was a quiet, tired recognition — not shock, but something heavier. Not again.

Within weeks, wholesale gas prices rose sharply. Fuel costs followed. The Bank of England flagged inflation risks. Government forecasts began planning not for months of disruption, but for years.

This matters not because you need to track commodity prices, but because the effects arrive in ordinary life whether you are paying attention or not. In the weekly shop. In the heating bill you are already dreading. In the calculation you find yourself making about whether a particular journey is worth it.

These are not small things. And the effect they have on mental health is real, even when it goes unnamed.

Why the body reacts even when you tell it not to

The nervous system does not distinguish cleanly between different types of threat.

Financial insecurity: not knowing whether you will have enough, watching the gap between income and expenses quietly narrow — registers in the body as a threat to survival. Not metaphorically. Biologically. The same alarm system that responds to physical danger responds to the sense that the ground beneath you is becoming less stable.

And when that alarm runs continuously not as a single acute event, but as a low-grade, background hum of uncertainty. It produces exactly the kind of symptoms that are easy to dismiss or misattribute. Tiredness that sleep doesn’t fix. Irritability over small things. Difficulty concentrating. A vague sense of dread that doesn’t have a clear object.

If this sounds familiar, it is worth knowing: this is not weakness. This is a nervous system doing what it was built to do, in conditions it was not built to sustain indefinitely.

The particular weight of right now

For many people, this moment carries layers.

If you are living on a minimum wage, on a zero-hours contract, in a sector hospitality, retail, care — where hours can be cut without warning, the current climate is not abstract. It is in every shift you work, every rota you wait for, every conversation with a manager that might go either way. The precariousness was already there. The current moment has simply made it sharper.

For those who came to Britain from elsewhere, from Ukraine, from other parts of the world where conflict is not distant there is something additional. Another war. Another escalation. Another reminder that the world is not becoming more stable, and that the end of your own uncertainty recedes further each time.

I know this from the inside. I left Ukraine with two children, two suitcases and a cat. I have been watching the war in my country from a distance for four years. And when a new conflict began — connected, as it is, to the same networks of power and instability. I felt it not as news, but as weight. A deepening of something that had already been heavy.

I am saying this not to centre my own experience, but because I think it matters that you know: the person writing this is not observing from a distance. I am in the same uncertain world. I am doing the same calculations. And I understand, not theoretically but personally, how much it takes to hold ordinary life together when the ground keeps shifting.

You are not alone in this even if it feels that way

One of the strange features of this particular moment is how quietly people are carrying it.

The worry about money, about what the next two years will look like, about whether things will stabilise — most of it is happening in private. On the commute. In the kitchen at night. In the small pause before you answer when someone asks if you’re okay.

There is something in British culture that makes these conversations difficult. Money is private. Worry is something you manage, not something you discuss. And fear, especially fear about things outside your control can feel like a confession of weakness rather than a reasonable response to a genuinely difficult situation.

But you are not imagining it. And you are not alone in feeling it.

What might actually help

The goal here is not to feel nothing. It is to remain functional, continue to live and work and care for the people around you without running entirely on stress hormones.

Control what is controllable. Release what isn’t.

Make a simple, practical list of what is actually within your reach right now not to fix everything, but to identify where you do have agency. A small financial adjustment. A conversation you’ve been avoiding. A routine that helps your body feel safer. Start there. The nervous system calms when it finds evidence that you are not entirely without resources.

Regulate before you problem-solve.

When anxiety is high, the thinking mind becomes less useful, not more. Before decisions, before difficult conversations, before the news: slow breathing, a short walk, a few minutes of something that is genuinely absorbing. This is not avoidance. It is giving your nervous system enough stability to actually think clearly.

Protect connection.

Isolation amplifies everything that is already difficult. This does not require large social effort, a regular conversation with someone you trust, a brief exchange that reminds you that other people are navigating the same world. The nervous system co-regulates: proximity to a calm other person is one of the most effective ways to shift out of a threat state.

Name what you are carrying.

Not to analyse it or resolve it, simply to acknowledge it. I am anxious about money. I am tired of uncertainty. I am worried about things I cannot control. Naming reduces the background noise. It creates a small but real distance between you and the feeling, and that distance matters.

Limit the information loop.

Choose when you engage with the news, don’t let it arrive continuously. The situation will not change because you are monitoring it more closely. But your nervous system will stay more activated the longer it is exposed to threat-related content. One or two reliable sources, at set times, is enough.

A final thought

Resilience right now does not look like not being affected.

It looks like being affected — noticing the weight of it, acknowledging that it is real — and continuing anyway. Getting through the week. Being present for the people around you. Finding small moments of ordinary life in the middle of an extraordinary situation.

If the current climate is making things harder for you, that is not a personal failure. It is a reasonable response to a world that is genuinely, measurably more difficult than it was.

And if the weight becomes too much to carry alone, that is worth taking seriously too.

I offer therapy online in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. If you are navigating anxiety, uncertainty, or the psychological impact of living through unsettled times, you are welcome to reach out.