5 Tips for Reducing Workplace Anxiety

How often do you feel anxious at work? No matter if you work from home or are still going to the office, workplace anxiety can cause a lot of damage. It drains your mental and physical health, makes you more risk-averse, more likely to make mistakes, and it may tank your productivity. On top of that, high levels of stress and anxiety — the two often come together — can make you more vulnerable to overwork and burnout, which can cause further damage to your career.

What can be done about workplace anxiety? Well, there’s no universal solution. The tips in this list, however, should at least help reduce your anxiety levels, if not eliminate the anxiety entirely.

1 – Acceptance

Denial can turn anxiety into a positive feedback loop. You start to feel anxious at work, you then feel stupid because “there’s no reason to be anxious,” and feeling stupid makes you even more anxious, repeating the loop until your hands start shaking. At that point, you may feel like everyone at the office is staring at you, making matters worse.

Don’t second guess yourself. If you feel anxious is because there is a reason for it, even if you can’t explain why. The reason might be uncertainty, job insecurity, deadline pressure, or it could just be something wrong with your diet that is giving you anxiety symptoms — make sure to lay off the caffeine if you suffer from anxiety. Regardless of the cause, you need to accept both the anxiety and its cause as being real, lest you fall into the loop described above.

2 – Breaks

Don’t let your anxious brain fool you: there’s always time for a break. Once your anxiety and stress levels start to skyrocket, often the best thing you can do is take a short break and get some distance for what you’ve been doing. That can help you gain a sense of perspective and ground yourself, reducing the severity of the symptoms.

Of course, sometimes you can’t take a long break. In times like that, having a calming ritual is very useful. Closing your eyes and taking deep breaths while slowly counting to ten often works. If you are into meditation, this is a good time to try to clear your mind for a moment. You might not have time to take 10 minutes off, but how often do you not have time to stop and count to ten? Even a break that short can do wonders towards helping you manage your anxiety.

3 – Help

Get to know the name of people around the office and what they do. Offer help to them when necessary. Human contact and feeling like you belong somewhere can both help mitigate the symptoms of anxiety. On top of that, it’s nice to have people who can help you if things go wrong. That makes it much easier not to panic about the possibility of error.

4 – Time

One common cause of workplace anxiety is over-promising. Avoid taking on more tasks than you can realistically deliver. It’s often hard to be assertive when you are feeling anxious, but saying no to an unreasonable request can be the difference between a peaceful day and a chaotic one. It’s a good idea to practice how to reject such requests.

5 – Health

As mentioned above, following a bad diet can accentuate the symptoms of your anxiety. Try to avoid caffeine and processed foods if you suffer from anxiety, especially during work hours. Exercising regularly and following a stable sleep schedule can both help reduce the symptoms of your anxiety as well. You can further mitigate the symptoms by using natural remedies, such as Cibdol’s CBD.