What Is Workplace Anxiety?
Workplace anxiety is a high-intensity work-related stress that spreads over a long period of time, even outside of people’s working hours. The main difference from the general stress generated by deadlines and busy schedules is that workplace anxiety is here to stay. It’s that continuous feeling of worry and fear, lingering during your weekends and resting hours at home.
Workplace anxiety disorders significantly disrupt the work-life balance and show up through a high number of physical symptoms, including:
- Fatigue despite getting enough sleep and rest
- Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Changes in eating habits
- Shortness of breath
- Panic attacks
What Causes Anxiety in the Workplace?
During the post-pandemic era, a few specific conditions and behaviours were repeatedly noticed occuring around the modern workplace. Identifying these triggers can help both employers and employees tackle workplace anxiety disorders.
High Workload and Unrealistic Deadlines
We all know the phrase: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Hard times are an inevitable moment in every company. At the end, going through these tough times separates good from great companies. But, this phase requires great leadership capabilities from the employers and a resilient mindset from the employees. One without the other, and you get a panic-mode attitude, leading to a dysfunctional and unorganised company. Now, you can expect higher workloads and tight deadlines just to extinguish the fire.
Here, the task is not to tackle the end result, which is managing stress within the workforce, but to tackle the source, which is causing the increased pressure towards the employees in the first place.
Job Insecurity or Organisational Changes
Panic around insecurity rises every time new changes take place. Anxious thoughts begin to overtake your daily life, leading to complete emotional exhaustion. Executive functions are diminished, and your drive to complete tasks is long gone. Worst-case scenarios and fears emerge from nowhere, quickly spreading across the company like a virus. Everybody is left on their own, doubling down on the anxiety at work.
Poor Management or Lack of Support
What was once a friendly office is quickly turning into a hostile environment. Interpersonal relationships are the ones that are at stake first. The management starts acting negligently towards the employees who lack anxiety coping strategies and a person to support them. These poor management practices lead to poor worker results. The vicious circle continues indefinitely if no reasonable adjustments are made along the way.
Toxic Work Environments
Negative work behaviours that are overlooked become normalised. When this systematic deterioration becomes reality, it damages the core of the company and its reputation. If you are an employee and notice these harmful patterns around you, you should withdraw from the toxic work environment as soon as possible:
- Blame culture
- Gossip
- Harassment and bullying
- Discrimination
- Distrust
- Aggressive competition
Signs and Symptoms of Workplace Anxiety
The first step towards diminishing workplace anxiety and improving mental health is to recognise its signs adequately. Remember, if these symptoms continue for a longer period, affecting your ability to function at work and home, it’s time to take action. We’ve mentioned some of the physical manifestations earlier in this blog post, so that we will continue with the emotional and the behavioural symptoms:
- Work tasks, performance levels, or your job security become your daily worry, 24/7
- Sunday evening dreadfulness
- Overreaction to work situations and constructive feedback
- Feeling strange, distant, even paranoid, around colleagues
- Losing interest in work activities you previously enjoyed
- Feeling stuck and unable to cope with workplace demands
- Using procrastination as an anti-anxiety solution
- Minimising time at work
How Workplace Anxiety Affects Performance
Your job performance is deeply connected to the state of your mental health. When constantly anxious, your brain dedicates significant energy to managing stress, fear and worry, leaving less capacity for the cognitive and executive functions. As many of us know from experience, poor mental health at work causes people to question their skills and potential, leading to reduced confidence and proactiveness. The downward spiral of these negative thoughts requires individual coping strategies and organisational changes that stand behind the root causes. To tackle them successfully, let’s identify a few of these specific performance-impacting indicators:
- Reduced concentration: Anxiety defocuses your attention, making it difficult to start and complete tasks.
- Decision paralysis: Fear of making mistakes leads to double-checking and overthinking.
- Increased errors: When anxious, you’re more prone to mistakes.
- Decreased productivity, creativity, and problem-solving: The stress takes a lot of mental energy, leaving your cognitive skills at a minimum level.
- Withdrawal and stagnation: When fear of judgment occurs, the need for communication with colleagues and leaders becomes obscure.
- Physical and mental absence: Sick leave becomes a rule rather than an exception, and you don’t feel present even when in the office.
How to Manage Anxiety at Work
Except for the workplace adjustments, which are in the company leaders’ hands, there are a few practical strategies you can implement yourself to reduce anxiety levels and stress.
Start by identifying your workplace triggers. Which event spikes your anxiety? Team meetings? Filled inbox? Your manager’s questions? All you should do is take a notebook and write down every time this feeling shows up, including the trigger, how it felt, and how you reacted. This is the awareness technique, used by Cognitive-Behavioural Therapists (CBT). It helps you reduce stress effectively, because it simply diminishes the ambushing effect – you’re becoming more prepared and alert for the next stressor’s appearance. And also, it affects its intensity, lowering your reaction.
Another practical and effective tool for managing stress is deep breathing. When your worries start overtaking your brain, try the 4-4-4 breathing technique: breathe in for 4 seconds, then hold your breath for another 4 seconds, and lastly breath out for 4 seconds. Do this in a few series, and you will instantly notice how your fight or flight response calms down, based on this simple parasympathetic nervous system activation practice.
Additionally, you can break overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable sub-tasks. This way, you build momentum and confidence while you reduce anxiety paralysis. And our final advice is to set clear boundaries between working life and daily life. Your well-being needs time off, a complete shutdown of work-related triggers, including all the job app notifications. The home, and especially your bed, should be your sanctuary, your safe haven where you recharge your batteries in a healthy way.
Get Your Dream Job With Olive Recruit
You deserve a supportive work environment which doesn’t add to your anxiety, but rather diminishes it. Here at Olive Recruit, you will be welcomed by an experienced recruitment team that takes time to understand what matters to you, listening to your concerns and respecting your boundaries.
So, whether you are escaping a toxic environment, trying to establish a better work-life balance, or simply looking for a role where you will feel supported and valued, reach out to us. We treat each candidate with dignity and provide honest, personalised service that meets your needs.
The recruitment process itself can be anxiety-inducing, but it doesn’t have to be. We keep you informed at every stage, providing clear expectations, and offer genuine support if you have concerns about your application.
Grow your career without growing your anxiety! Get in touch with Olive Recruit today, and let’s find a perfect role that supports your professional ambitions without sacrificing your mental health.
