FOR the past couple of weeks I’ve been waking with a sense of apprehension. Bill Forsyth would describe it as that sinking feeling, which is exactly right. In ordinary times this means the day holds a medical appointment, or a public talk, the sort of things you wish you could wriggle out of, but which have simply to be got through.

Now, however, despite the arrival of blue skies and springtime, and the chirping of birds at first light – who needs an alarm clock? – the pall still hangs heavy. I’m guessing most of us feel it looming over us, an invisible cloud of unease, or even fear.

The war in Ukraine, and the hourly images and reports of devastation and disaster has shocked everyone. Images of the injured, the dead, of children in terror, are branded on our thoughts. Just when it seemed the pandemic was in retreat, here is a calamity on our doorstep, with the potential to kill millions within Ukraine, and conceivably spread across Europe.

It’s not just Ukraine’s plight that sets the nerves jangling. In my lifetime – I was born weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis – I cannot remember such an unrelenting barrage of bad and unsettling news, stretching back now for years. I used to think Brexit was as vile as it got. How embarrassingly naïve.

READ MORE ROSEMARY: Scots uni's trigger warning is embarrassing

As if war and a fast-escalating humanitarian crisis were not enough, each day brings grim tidings on various fronts. We’re now told global heating is beyond repair, and we must learn to live with and adapt to its consequences rather than expect to reset the thermostat.

With steeply increasing food and fuel prices, the cost of living will soon be at its highest in 50 years, and if the exponentially soaring price of oil continues, might top even that. Nor is the pandemic fully over. People are still dying, while those who have Long Covid struggle to return to normal, months after they were infected.

It's enough to make anyone leap onto a plane and head for warmer climes, to put their troubles behind them beneath a parasol, to the sound of lapping waves. Should they trust themselves to the skies while Putin is on the prowl, that is. Personally I don’t, though I suspect that borders on paranoia and an over-active imagination. For the moment, at least, the war does not impinge on our basic way of life, even if it is already eating moth-like at our bank balances and morale.

The point is, how do we deal with the onslaught of alarming information we’re receiving every day? I know lots of folk who have given up tuning into the news or reading the papers; often, though, they become dupes of social media that distorts the truth and makes scarier reading than anything Putin could devise.

I confess I can only take so much; I read and listen to news coverage about three times a day, and after that carry on with other things. For me, that takes willpower. Not only is there is an almost mesmerising fascination with calamity and despair, but there is a sense of letting down the victims, whether of war or climate change, illness or poverty, by tuning out and trying to stay upbeat.

READ MORE ROSEMARY: Confessions of a Wordle addict

Scotland’s immediate and generous response to appeals for aid for Ukraine, and individuals personally taking essential goods to those fleeing the conflict, has been humbling. For many people, doing something practical to help is the best way to cope with awful events. But there is a limit to how much support most of us can offer, either in donations or time and effort.

Here in the Borders we have beds to spare for refugees in need of a berth, but who knows when or if they will reach these parts? Until then, we can do little more than pray that things will take a turn for the better, even though we are not religious and don’t really believe the conflict will be over anytime soon.

It’s the sense of helplessness that makes relentless worrisome news so corrosive. As prices rise, we all know how to trim the fat off our budgets, assuming we’re not already on the breadline. At the same time, those less fortunate weigh heavily on our conscience. Concern for others as well as for ourselves, and for the future of the planet, and for upcoming generations inheriting a world hellbent on self-ruination, takes a huge emotional toll.

There are no easy answers on to how to cope. It’s a matter of finding something that lifts your mood and fills the mind with diverting alternatives to dread. Music works for me, and I turn up jazz, rock, classical and country so loud you can’t hear a knock at the door.

Like many people I’m happiest outdoors, walking in the woods or working in the garden, in the company of trees and birds. For some, holding vigils, meditating or praying has a steadying effect. Those who are religious believe their intercessions are of positive benefit to those in need; I hope to God their prayers are answered.

I suspect one of the reasons those of us in Europe and the West are so rocked is that it wasn’t supposed to be this way. We have grown up believing serious troubles were in the past, not something we’d have to deal with. Blind to the fault lines beneath our way of life, and confident that science would cure most of our ails, we have lived with a false sense of inviolability and security.

Now, following terror attacks, bank crashes, pandemic and war, all such assurance has been shattered. The fundamentals of our comfortable, high-tech, globe-trotting lives have been shown to be as fragile as egg-shells.

Almost every generation before us lived with grave uncertainty and the possibility of warfare, hardship or pestilence on the horizon. They had no option but to get on with things, some with a philosophical outlook, others tight-lipped and stoical. And that, I suppose, is how we have to be.

The present cascade of problems requires us to put ourselves into historical perspective, and realise we are neither literally nor metaphorically immune from their consequences. These are difficult and dark times, but we have weathered worse. Cold comfort this may be, but it’s surely better than none.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Herald.