High Functioning Anxiety is a Trap, Here’s How to Escape

If friends and coworkers would say you “always have it all together,” but inside, you feel constantly on the verge of falling apart, the term high-functioning anxiety may apply to you. High-functioning anxiety is not a formal mental health diagnosis. Instead, it’s a descriptive term for a way of life in which you achieve your goals at the cost of your emotional wellbeing.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 19% of U.S. adults experience some form of anxiety disorder in a given year, and 31% of U.S. adults will experience any anxiety disorder in their lifetime.

Why does this matter? Because the “functioning” part of high-functioning anxiety can make anxiety harder to detect and treat. When you’re getting everything done and doing it well, it can be difficult to believe that you need support—or feel justified in asking for it.

This kind of thinking can keep you in a cycle of hidden distress that’s likely to end in burnout. You may also be unintentionally blocking your ability to share and connect with others, which can significantly detract from your quality of life.

My name is Sunni Jones-Ford and I'm a licensed clinical therapist. Let’s explore what high-functioning anxiety looks like and what you can do to begin easing the load.

Why “high-functioning anxiety” can be a trap

Using the term high-functioning anxiety can sometimes create a trap where you think, “Well, at least it’s high-functioning anxiety.” When you frame it this way, you may not take your anxiety as seriously or may even convince yourself that it’s worth enduring for the sake of productivity or success. In doing so, you might unintentionally dismiss your well-being and overlook your need for genuine support and care.

Instead, try removing the words high-functioning and simply name what you’re experiencing as anxiety. Doing so can help you acknowledge your experience more fully and open the door to deeper self-compassion. Acknowledging might sound like, “I function at a high capacity and I experience anxiety at a level that feels taxing. I want to feel better.”

Take a moment to drop the words high-functioning and focus more attention on your experience with anxiety. The reason for this invitation is simple: when you recognize your anxiety without qualifiers, you give yourself permission to care for it more intentionally. This shift allows you to begin addressing the signs of anxiety that interfere with your overall well-being and welcomes you to treat yourself with greater gentleness and care.

What it feels like to have high-functioning anxiety

High-functioning anxiety is not a clinical diagnosis, but rather a term used to describe the experience of people who live with ongoing anxiety while continuing to appear outwardly successful, capable and productive. On the surface, you may seem calm and composed, yet internally, you may often feel tense, restless or under significant pressure.

In other words, if you experience high-functioning anxiety, you might reach your goals at the expense of your nervous system, rest, and emotional well-being.

All of these signs and symptoms may go unnoticed by others and yourself until the severity increases. Now is a good time to start pausing and noticing signs and symptoms before they become more severe –your body and mind will thank you deeply for it.

3 Factors that fuel high-functioning anxiety

Below are three factors that contribute to high functioning anxiety. If you find yourself powering through your day and not taking time to pause now is a good time to take inventory and ask yourself if you experience any of these factors.

Contributing factors to high-functioning anxiety include:

1. Perfectionism

Put simply, perfectionism means tying your self-worth to the highest level of productivity and achievement. There’s nothing wrong with productivity and achievement, but the pursuit of near-impossible standards can be extremely stressful and draining.

2. Overscheduling

Overscheduling and a sense of discomfort with rest or unstructured time can contribute to anxiety. In addition, you may even experience saying no to requests as too risky.

If this resonates, try scheduling a window of downtime on your least-scheduled day. It could be just one hour. If relaxing at home doesn’t feel doable, consider scheduling a massage, going to a Yin yoga class, or finding a park or garden that you can stroll through.

3. Hyper-independence

Hyper-independence can often show up as difficulty asking for or receiving support. At times, you might not have the support you need at the moment, which can lead to over-functioning.

There are many reasons it can feel hard to get the help you need. You might not have the time to find the right kind of support or the resources to pay for it. Asking others for help may feel even more out of reach. One gentle starting point is to name it by simply acknowledging that asking for help feels challenging and/or inaccessible at the moment. Acknowledging and naming the challenge you are experiencing helps break the cycle of silence and self-blame that often comes with hyper-independence. When you put words to your struggle, you begin to soften the internal pressure to “have it all together.” It also allows others to better understand your experience, creating space for empathy, connection, and unexpected support to emerge.

Perfectionism, over-scheduling, and hyper-independence can be tough patterns to shift on your own. Working with a therapist can help you safely explore what’s underneath these behaviors and discover more sustainable, compassionate ways to care for yourself.

Emotional avoidance and “masking”

If you’re a high achiever living with unmanaged anxiety, you might have a habit of distancing yourself from your emotions. When certain feelings seem like they could interfere with your productivity or the way others perceive your competence, you may instinctively mask them by pushing them down in order to stay focused or appear in control.

One way you might mask anxiety is by walking into a room and presenting as calm, composed, or even stoic, while inside, you feel tense or uncertain. You might straighten your posture, keep your face neutral or avoid showing any signs of discomfort because you want to appear confident and in control. In doing so, you’re often covering up very normal human emotions, like feeling nervous, self-conscious or unsure of yourself.

When you don’t allow yourself breathing room to think about how you are feeling it can lead to difficulty naming your emotions and needs.

Here are three common reasons for ignoring emotions:

• Expressing your needs to others feels “selfish”
• You’re worried about being a burden or just “too much”
• It feels weak to acknowledge that you have emotions and needs

You may have learned to mask or avoid your emotions over time as a way to feel safe or to function in the world. This is a common adaptive response. Perhaps you were discouraged from expressing emotion or taught, directly or indirectly, that feelings only get in the way. So now, taking time to notice or sit with your emotions can feel unfamiliar and scary even.

The truth is, when you avoid or mask what you’re feeling, you’re not actually caring for yourself. You’re managing yourself. Deeper self-care begins when you start allowing and tending to your emotions and needs.

Coping strategies for managing high-functioning anxiety

It’s important to remember that high-functioning anxiety is still anxiety and it’s a common human experience. There’s nothing wrong with being successful, competent or high-achieving. The goal isn’t to lose those strengths. Yet, at the same time, it’s equally as important that success includes focusing on your inner well-being.

Here are three simple ways to begin soothing your anxiety throughout your busy day:

1. Pause Frequently to “Let Go”

If you’re dealing with high-functioning anxiety, it can feel like you’re holding your breath all day. You may not literally be holding your breath, but in some respects, you're holding it together. And, if you pay attention to your breath, you might find that your breath is actually a little bit short.

When you finish work or arrive home in the evening, you may finally feel able to exhale a deep sigh of relief that helps release tension and bring you back to yourself. In that moment, you might also start to feel some of the emotions you’ve been holding in or masking throughout the day.

What can be even more supportive is inviting those moments of relief throughout your day, not just at the end of it. This might look like pausing to journal for a few minutes, listening to music you love, or taking a short walk outside.

2. Name Your Emotions

You may already have language for emotions, and if you don’t, that’s okay. It’s very common for adults not to have a large vocabulary for naming emotions. You can start with a “Feelings Wheel” (you can find many versions of it online).

The Feelings Wheel is a practice in identifying feelings that resonate with you. Try not to get too caught up in picking the exact emotion you’re experiencing; just choose one that feels close. This is one way to start acknowledging and naming your emotions.

You might be wondering, “Why do I need to do this? What’s the point? How will it help me?” The reason it can be helpful is that once you start to create language around emotions, you can start to ask yourself questions like, “Based on how I am feeling, what can I do to take care of myself?” If you’re feeling sad, consider what helps lift your mood —maybe reaching out to a friend, moving your body, or listening to a comforting song. But sometimes, you don’t need to do anything with the emotion at all. You may just need to notice that you’re feeling sad, remind yourself that sadness is a natural part of being human and allow it to be there. Often, that simple acknowledgment is what helps the feeling soften and eventually pass.

Tip: Many people fear that they’ll get stuck in their emotions if they allow themselves to feel them. A simple tool that can be effective when you feel overwhelmed by emotion is to take a walk. Moving your body signals to your mind that you are not stuck; it reminds you that you can move forward physically, mentally, and emotionally.

3. Share Your Emotions

What’s so beautiful about emotions, whether you’re at work, in a leadership role, or at home with loved ones, is that expressing them fosters connection. It helps you feel more attuned to others, allows people to understand you more fully, and often gives them permission to open up in return.

There are many ways to share emotion, and it doesn’t have to look the same in every setting. For example, you might not express yourself at work in the same way you would with a close friend. But even small moments of honesty can make a difference. You might begin a meeting by saying, “I had a really full morning. I’m not feeling 100%, but I’m going to do my best to lead this conversation. If I’m unclear, please feel free to ask for clarification.”

Even in that brief exchange, you’re practicing vulnerability. You’re not naming every emotion or explaining the details; you’re simply acknowledging, “I’m not at my best right now, but I still care about showing up and being understood.” Little moments like this help us express our humanity and create space for genuine connection.

Because the truth is, everyone experiences anxiety; it just shows up in different ways and to different degrees. Anxiety is a normal part of being human.

You can be high-functioning without high anxiety

This is your invitation to pause, recognize, and acknowledge your anxiety, and to give yourself permission to care for your emotional and mental well-being. The reward is that, over time, you may begin to feel lighter, clearer, and more at ease.

You might even notice that you’re able to get things done with greater focus and less pressure. No promises, but it’s possible that as you start to address your anxiety, you’ll experience more clarity, satisfaction, and a deeper sense of balance. You’re still accomplishing what matters to you, just without the constant undercurrent of overwhelm or burnout.

Lowering your anxiety may also mean gently shifting away from patterns of overfunctioning, perfectionism or overscheduling. These habits often develop as ways to manage anxiety, but over time they can keep your nervous system in a constant state of alert. Learning to slow down, rest and create more spaciousness in your day can help your body and mind begin to regulate again.

If you identify as high functioning or tend toward hyperindependence, it’s especially important to remember that you don’t have to do this on your own. Working with a therapist can be one of the most effective ways to better understand and address your anxiety in a supportive and personalized way.

Treatment for anxiety may include:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Helps you identify and shift anxious thought patterns and behaviors.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Encourages you to accept difficult emotions while aligning your actions with your values.
• Mindfulness-Based Therapy: Teaches tools for grounding and being present in your body and mind.
• Somatic or Body-Based Approaches: Focus on how anxiety shows up physically and use techniques like breathwork or movement to regulate the nervous system.
• Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Parts Work: Helps you explore and care for the inner parts of yourself that hold anxiety, perfectionism or fear.
• Attachment-Based Therapy: Examines how early relationship patterns may influence your current sense of safety and connection.

Each of these modalities offers a pathway toward understanding your anxiety more deeply and learning new ways to care for yourself from the inside out.