Is the apocalypse making you too anxious to work?

We're not talking about The Omen or 666 but what's happening in the news.

- Howard Chua-Eoan

Is the end of the world getting in the way of your job? A poll of the labour force in seven countries late in 2023 had a remarkable result: 46 per cent of Gen Zs and 38 per cent of Millennials agreed with the statement "I am regularly so distraught over what is happening in the news that I am unable to function at work".

Those anxiety levels must be higher now. Edelman, the communications consultancy, conducted the survey in September 2023, well into the war in Ukraine but just before the Middle East erupted in massacre, bombings, death and destruction, raising fears of military escalation, including, as in Europe, the spectre of nuclear war.

The percentage of distraught older workers was lower but, as a late boomer, I can attest we aren't immune.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, I immediately ordered potassium iodide pills, even though at my age, the tablets - which can shield the thyroid gland from radioactive fallout - are probably less protective for a sexagenarian than they are for the young. I usually keep the bottle close to me, in a drawer in the office or in my valise. Happy to share.

We have lots of coping mechanisms, including macabre humour. Between the catastrophic hurricanes Helene and Milton in the southern US, my friend Rene Alegria posted a note saying he'd started binge-watching "apocalypse porn" - specifically the multi-episode How The World Ends series that's been streaming since 2017.

He'd just been through Helene, which swept through Georgia where he lives, to wreck a big chunk of neighbouring North Carolina. "It definitely tipped my imagination over the edge," he told me. Watching the series was "like fast-forwarding one's life to the end, just to save time and the prolonged misery." Then he added: "LOL".

Anxiety is not to be laughed at, of course. Things do go wrong - and just the prospects can be palpably terrifying. We are wired to worry.