Five effective ways to handle work anxiety

Anxiety is a very common disorder today and it increases with the increase in lifestyle imbalances. At office, when you are anxious about some assigned tasks or meeting some deadlines, it doesn’t allow you to focus, which in turn, affects your efficiency. The situation becomes worse when you try to calm down and re-focus on your task, but eventually end up being more anxious.

The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) provides a useful guide, documenting available therapies for anxiety and depression, and offers a directory, in which, a person can search for available therapists near his/her location.

Below discussed are five ways to effectively tackle anxiety at work place:

1. Think anxiety as real as a headache: “Anxiety disorders are real, serious medical conditions-just as real and serious as physical disorders such as heart disease or diabetes,” states ADAA (Anxiety and Depression Association of America).

In fact, anxiety disorders are the most common and pervasive mental disorders in the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), among every 5 Americans, 1 is suffering from anxiety.

A study on workplace anxiety reported that 38% of the employees, detected with anxiety and stress, do not reveal this to their seniors or bosses because they think that their bosses would interpret it as a lack of interest or unwillingness to do the activity.

To cope with this situation, just think like that your anxiety problem as real as some bodily pain and you need to handle it the same way as you handle a headache.

2. Do not be against the anxiety: A proponent of self-accepting and self-compassionate therapy for treating anxiety, Professor Hayes developed acceptance commitment therapy (ACT), a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. It includes, the adoption and non-judgmental observation of those thoughts that are negative, so that the person with anxiety can shift his/her thoughts towards the current scenario to lead a meaningful life.
3. Don’t fear of being sacked: With all pressure and stress, anxiety has now become pretty common at workplace. However, a person should avoid taking too much of stress by overthinking the work situation as this would not solve the problem at all. In support of this, The Americans with Disabilities act (ADA) has been created to help employees with anxiety for various office situations. As per the act, if an employee tells his/her employer that he/she has a “physical or mental impairment,” then the employer needs to, by law, to not only retain you, but also support you with “reasonable accommodation.”
4. Consider stress as your buddy: You should just start thinking as if the stress is your friend and make it work for you by thinking positive about every situation you are in. So, improve your work and capability to channelize the energy in a better direction. A psychologist and famous speaker, Kelly McGonial, author of the book, “The Upside Stress,” suggests to follow 3 steps to deal with the stress:

• Accept stress when you have it.
• Be a little welcoming towards the stress as it is something you care about.
• Channelize the energy that stress is giving you in some productive things.

5. Do what makes you feel good: Try doing things that make you happy as this would help you alleviate your stress significantly. So, adopt things or activities in which, you feel good at workplace or home. These may include practicing yoga, listening to music, playing musical instruments and indulging in sports activities; depending on the choice of a person.