Work anxiety: 10 Powerful Ways to Overcome it Without Getting Fired

Implementing coping strategies is one of the most effective ways to manage work anxiety. Here are a few self-applied coping strategies to help you with work anxiety.

• Setting Boundaries is a very effective way to reduce work anxiety. Healthy boundaries can protect your mental health while improving your ability to set goals to reach deadlines, finish projects, and stay on schedule. Examples of healthy boundaries might be: setting limits on working hours, saying no to working evenings and weekends, and evaluating your workload and project deadlines for feasibility. Self-boundaries might include: monitoring how you spend your time, minimizing distractions, cutting out social media or phone usage, and minimizing off-topic social interactions.

You may or may not have the necessary autonomy in your job to implement these boundaries. If they are not feasible, you can think about what boundaries you can implement to improve your work-life balance, increase productivity, and make your workload more manageable. This may require delegation and/or negotiation with your colleagues.

• Understand Your Anxiety: knowing your triggers can help you stay ahead of the game. For example, suppose headaches or neck/body tension are common triggers for your anxiety. In this case, learning a skill like progressive relaxation can help you mitigate stress.
• Mindfulness Practice: Mindfulness can help you lessen the signs of work-related stress and anxiety when you practice breathing exercises or short meditation sessions, as suggested in a publication from The American Journal of Medicine. Mindfulness involves embracing and observing situations without judgment while promoting acceptance and openness. This has been found to reduce stress and anxiety with daily practice.
• Chunking Down Tasks (breaking them into manageable steps): Sometimes, work anxiety is the result of feeling overwhelmed with a big project or task. There are many advantages to chunking down tasks. For example, manageable, bite-sized tasks can be accomplished more quickly and with less psychological resistance. Because the task is small and manageable, you’ll tend to procrastinate less. Chunking can be a great way to plan projects through time. After you have chunked a project down, you can plan your own milestones ahead of the actual deadlines. This can lower anxiety because if something goes wrong, you have built in an extra time cushion. A big part of effective chunking has to do with knowing your limits and working within them on a daily basis. Using your calendar, staying on schedule, and making adjustments as needed can prevent the need for the last-minute crunch.
• Another factor to consider is multitasking. Remember that multitasking can lead to overwhelm. Completing one task at a time can reduce anxiety and give you a heightened sense of mastery over your work. 

• Diet and Exercise: Fueling your body with fresh whole foods and avoiding processed sugar creates balance for optimum mental health. Exercise can help strengthen muscles, and reduce stress and reduce anxiety. Exercise also releases endorphins which improves your overall sense of wellbeing.
• Sleep Regimen: Lack of sleep tends to worsen anxiety. It can lead to serious health problems like anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and other health disorders. You should get enough quality rest to reduce your stress levels. While it can be tempting to cut down on sleep in the name of productivity, this is an unsustainable practice which creates more anxiety. Also, cutting back on caffeine can improve your ability to perform effectively at work. Some ways to improve your sleep are to listen to music, have low lighting before bed, use blackout curtains to give the room a dark setting, and avoid blue light emitted from electronics at least an hour before bed. It is important to note that completing a mindless task, such as folding clothes before bed can help you fall asleep sooner.
• Cutting Out Negativity such as Impostor Syndrome is one of the top ways to manage work anxiety. Impostor syndrome is the persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. Even if no evidence supports this notion, you may continue to believe this negative self-talk. Such self-talk may make you work beyond your limits or cause procrastination. Nearly every professional experiences imposter syndrome from time to time. Begin addressing it by recognizing these thoughts and shifting towards empowering and optimistic ones. For example, swap “This is impossible for me to handle” with “Every challenge is an opportunity for growth.” Through changing your thinking, you can lower anxiety levels and pave the way for mental clarity and self-assurance in your professional endeavors.
• Developing Meaningful Support: Building a support system is crucial for cultivating a positive outlook on life and personal growth. This may mean talking to friends and family about what you’re going through, becoming more active in your church or community, joining a support group for professionals with anxiety, or working on any weak job skills that may be contributing to work anxiety – such as giving presentations.