Untangling Work Anxiety: A Therapist's Guide to Gaining Clarity

Sunday scaries. Meeting jitters. Constantly second-guessing yourself. Work anxiety reduces your quality of life on a weekly basis and can make you wonder: Is it the job or is it me? That question can be tricky to answer because it's not always easy to separate what's happening in your external environment from what's happening in your internal world.

I'm Sunni Jones-Ford, LCSW, a therapist who specializes in helping people navigate anxiety of all kinds. With a curious, compassionate approach and some targeted tools for gaining clarity, I believe small shifts in how you understand and respond to anxiety can create significant changes in how you experience your work life.

If you're ready to move from feeling confused and reactive about your workplace anxiety to feeling more calm and intentional, I hope the following insights will offer a practical, compassionate starting point.

Signs you might be dealing with work anxiety

Anxiety is a term that we often hear, whether it's on social media or in conversation with friends and family. Nonetheless, let's take a second to describe what anxiety feels like.

There are also physical signs of anxiety that you might notice. Your heart may be racing really fast. Shortness of breath can also be a sign of anxiety. If you're experiencing physical discomfort, you should absolutely go see your doctor as well, to also explore any underlying issues. We have to listen to our bodies, because our bodies tell us so much.

Now let's dig deeper and consider the internal signs of anxiety, which can include:

• Feeling disconnected from yourself or from your life
• Noticing that you find it difficult to enjoy things you used to
• Or even feelings of doom and/or dread

Job burnout vs. generalized anxiety

Because work takes up so much of our time, it's very understandable that you may think that you're feeling anxiety solely because of your job and the work that you do. Asking yourself some specific questions can help you gain more clarity.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Is anxiety just exclusively at work or am I experiencing anxiety in other areas of my life?
• Are there patterns in how I respond to pressure or feedback?
• Am I constantly people-pleasing, overworking?
• Do I have a fear of failure?

To examine if work is contributing to or exacerbating anxiety, ask yourself:

• Are there some things about my job that could be better?
• Are there ways in which I could be more supported?
• Is there an unresolved issue with a coworker that needs to be resolved?

Taking the time to consider your answers to these questions is an important step to untangling your work situation from your overall mental health.

What are some common ways that work can trigger anxiety?

All of our work lives are unique and complex, so how anxiety shows up may be very personal to you. For those who work in a corporate environment, here are just two typical sources of workplace anxiety.

Meetings and public speaking

Public speaking might be an area in your life where you just don't feel comfortable, which is very normal for a lot of us. Whether it’s speaking up in a departmental meeting or giving a presentation in front of an audience, it can come with a big wave of anxiety.

If this is true for you, you may want to reach out to someone who can provide you with coaching around public speaking or you can ask a trusted person to give feedback after the next time you speak publicly. Seeking support can help to lower your anxiety. But, remember, there is no eliminating anxiety, because anxiety is a normal part of our lives.

Ambiguity about your role and responsibilities

There may be areas within your work life where you could benefit from more clarity on what exactly your role is and what's expected of you. Because if you don't know what's expected of you, you're likely going to feel anxious because you don’t have a clear framework to work from.

As human beings, we crave clarity, and desire to have a meaningful idea of what’s being asked of us in a work setting. So in this case, there is an opportunity to gain clarity by going to your manager or someone within your company who can provide additional information on job expectations. Receiving an answer may provide you with reassurance, take the guess work out of the equation and result in a reduction in anxiety.

Within the workplace, the general advice here is to seek clarity, ask questions and identify areas in which you would like support–and then seek support.

Therapist-approved strategies to manage work anxiety

I like to recommend these simple tools that you can use to lower your anxiety when you’re at work or even at home.

Daily Check-Ins

A daily check-in is a space and time where you can ask yourself questions like: "where am I holding tension in my body and what do I need right now?" These are questions that are great to ask yourself whether you're at work or you're at home. If you are not used to asking yourself what you need —now is a great time to start so you can gain greater awareness of your personal needs.

Make your daily check-in into a routine. Choose a time when you check-in. It could be the first questions you ask yourself before getting out of bed, the questions you ask before you start your work day or the last questions you ask as you’re winding down for bed.

Boundary Setting

Another tool that you can use is boundary setting. It might sound cliché but boundaries are our friends. And it’s not a scary word. Boundaries are helpers that can make your life feel more easeful, make your relationships feel better and help cultivate a healthier relationship to your job. Boundaries require practice though and often feel foreign and uncomfortable at first because you are forming a new healthier habit.

Do you want to have a certain time that you stop answering emails? That's one boundary that you can set that could be really helpful. Another boundary that you may set is —right after 6 pm, you shut your work laptop for the day and don't open it back up until 9 am the next morning.

There's some give and take here, of course, because sometimes we need to make exceptions —but overriding the boundary should be the exception. So, once you set that boundary, generally speaking, you want to stick to that boundary so you can give yourself a fair opportunity to see how the boundary can improve your life and anxiety levels.

Specifically, this type of boundary may help you to get a little bit more clear on where your anxiety is stemming from. For instance, if you're starting to have better boundaries at work and feel a little bit better at work, but still feel anxious in other areas of your life, it’s likely time to explore where else in your life anxiety is showing up. Once again, anxiety does not live in a vacuum so it’s normal if you identify experiencing anxiety in other areas of your life.

Breathwork & Stretching

Two of my personal favorite grounding tools are breath work and stretching, which can both help you manage your anxiety in the moment.

Stretching is something you can do anytime and especially after sitting for a long stretch. Get up from your chair, take a deep breath, and mindfully stretch your arms and legs As a bonus add in box breathing. It calms the nervous system and all it takes is inhaling for a count of four, holding your breath for a count of four, exhaling for a count of four, and then holding your breath for a count of four. Repeat this cycle at least 4-5 times.

A Scenery Change

Another thing that can be really, really helpful is to disconnect completely from the environment in which you feel anxious. This can be at work or even within your personal life.

So, if you're feeling anxious and you have the opportunity to take a pause or can create one –take the pause. Stop what you are doing and do one or more of the following: walk to a different room, take a walk outside, stand or sit by a window or find the nearest sink and run your hands under cold water. Bring your focus back to the present moment by mindfully breathing or focusing on something you can see, touch, hear, smell or taste. Literally changing your environment can help you gain a different perspective.

How to put these tools into practice at work

When you start doing something new, you're likely going to feel resistance to it that leads to discomfort. Think about the first time you’ve started any new habit —nerves, irritation and/or a desire to give up may have presented itself. Yet, if you stick with the new experience (sometimes you need to talk yourself through it) it will start to feel more familiar.

Start with a simple pause

So, you're sitting at your desk, you're locked in and you're trying to get your work done. An email comes in, you see the subject line and automatically your body fills with anxiety. Your first reaction might be to quickly open the email and push forward and respond, even if you're feeling very anxious and even if you're starting to blank on what you want to say.

In that moment, doing something different is not going to feel intuitive. It’s not going to feel natural or comfortable to you. But, what can be really helpful is for you to pause. It might be uncomfortable to take that pause, but it's going to be helpful in the long run.

Take the pause and remind yourself that you're not just your fingers typing nor are you simply wired for continuous output. Remind yourself that you're a person—a living human being with needs. Take a breath. Then be the loving parent in your head that says “ hey, you need to go outside and take five.” Do it.

It’s likely that once you've gone outside and allowed your nervous system to start re-regulating –you will return with a greater capacity to discern the urgency of the email and more thoughtfully think about your response.

Reframe anxiety to stay productive and relaxed

A helpful way to think about anxiety is to get curious about what the anxiety is trying to tell you. Anxiety is like a check engine light –it is alerting you to pay attention to yourself and provide yourself with compassionate care.

Remember anxiety can live in any area of our lives. Instead of pointing a finger at work or personal life, become curious about what triggers your anxiety and learn ways to regulate your nervous system.

When you start digging deeper you may discover that your anxiety is tied to childhood experiences or internal narratives about self-worth or alerting you to a misalignment in your values vs. company held values.

Making friends with work anxiety

When you make friends with your anxiety you may come to realize things such as “okay, anxiety —you're showing up because you're trying to remind me that I don't need to overwork in order to prove my worth.”

The key is to remain curious about your experience with anxiety (ask yourself introspective questions), provide yourself with compassionate care when experiencing anxiety (take the pause) and consider working with a licensed mental health therapist who can assist you with obtaining relief from anxious thoughts and feelings.

When to see a therapist for work anxiety

Working with a therapist is a proven way to reduce your overall anxiety and learn personalized coping skills that will help you manage anxiety in the moment. If you’re struggling with anxiety at work, don’t wait until the situation feels unbearable—get help now so you can feel calmer and more confident at work, even on your most jam-packed days.

There are many different types of therapy that help with anxiety, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness based therapies (MBCT and MBSR).