"Society is no comfort, to one not sociable."

We keep being told how exciting it is to be so connected to the rest of the world, but at the same time you and I know, don't we, that that little glowing box of the universe in our pockets isn't making us less lonely - if anything it's making things worse. This contradiction sneaks up on us and before you know it, to quote someone's podcast show notes about PTSD I just read, "your stress bucket can fill before you even realise you're running on empty." Which has now become my favourite mixed metaphor in the English language.

There are so many types of loneliness that it's difficult to know where to begin. Thankfully Shakespeare has helped us tremendously with so many of his plays, that before we work out our own problems we can start to separate out the different types.

So many of the plays deal with the loneliness of the person who rules the kingdom. It's tough at the top. Okay so I'm guessing that doesn't refer specifically to you and me, but these people are the same as us, they have the same desires and flaws, only their decisions have bigger consequences.

It's when we look at loneliness despite being connected that Shakespeare captures so beautifully that feeling of painful isolation. He examines grief, mismatched friendship, family differences and without pretending that the end result will always be rosy and cheerful, helps us navigate our way through and teaches us to cope.

Thanks to Shakespeare we can ensure that our stress bucket remains empty while our cars fill up with petrol.

Plays featured this week include Richard the Third, Hamlet, and Henry the fifth's greatest hits from Henry the fourth part one through to the play where he gets his own name in star billing.

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"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve..."

Just as we're learning to live with endless wars, warming oceans and a new series of Traitors, along comes a nerdy scientist who tells us that AI might possibly destroy humanity. Thanks for cheering me up mate.

Of all the worries that we have to face in the world, our everyday struggles and anxieties, there's nothing more guaranteed to raise the blood pressure than this little snippet of jollity reported recently that 'there's a 10 per cent chance the world is about to be destroyed by robots.'

How on earth are we supposed to get on with our lives with all this nonsense screaming in our ears? Shakespeare may have wondered this too, living in an era when the end of the world was expected every second Thursday.

Shakespeare found a number of ways to deal with the doomers and gloomers, not always with fun and laughs - although joking about it certainly helps. He also dared to confront the new King, James the first who was himself a true believer in the apocalypse, with plays that explained how every problem happening in the world was not created by celestial conjunctions, evil devils or the big hand of Him, but almost invariably a human being. A person, just like you and me.

I know I'm supposed to be reassuring you and I've probably just made things worse. But we have survived 180 separate predictions of the world's end since 1500 alone so you never know, there's life in the old planet yet.

Plays mentioned in today's show: Macbeth is the biggie, but honourable mentions also for Richard the Third and a selection of Sonnets dealing with the end of the world as we know it.

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“Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.”

Have you ever waited for a reply to your email and panicked after five minutes that the person hasn't got back to you because they've been made so angry by it they're never going to talk to you again, ever? Or been ever so slightly concerned when someone leaves an AI company because he's 10 per cent convinced they're about to destroy humanity, including you, your best mate and the entire neighbourhood?

It's okay my friend, let me take you by the hand and lead you, gently, to a place of rational equanimity. With a bit of help from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is a simple easy-to-apply therapy developed in the 1960s that helps you to take your darkest thoughts and dial them down to something you can cope with - but guess what, the whole thing is based on a singe line of Shakespeare's that's guaranteed to calm you an instant. I'd love to tell you what it is but in ye ancient time-honoured tradition of clickbait I'm afraid you have to listen to the show to find out what it is.

Listen to how Brutus justifies killing Julius Caesar and work out that in order to take action you don't necessarily have to go down the 'assassinate the supreme leader' route.

Plays mentioned in this episode are Hamlet and Julius Caesar, which are more than enough to solve all your cognitive behavioural issues.

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