Does your heart start racing when you see a new email from your supervisor? Do approaching deadlines make it difficult to concentrate? Maybe you find yourself replaying a conversation from a meeting, wondering whether you said the wrong thing or how someone interpreted your response.
Experiencing occasional stress at work is normal. Deadlines, difficult conversations, heavy workloads, changing expectations, and competing responsibilities can all create pressure.
But when worry becomes persistent, difficult to control, or continues even after the stressful situation has passed, anxiety may be playing a larger role. Over time, workplace anxiety can affect your concentration, productivity, confidence, sleep, relationships, and overall well-being.
You may begin wondering: How to calm anxiety at work without allowing it to interfere with my day?
There are practical strategies that can help. Setting boundaries, challenging anxious thoughts, taking intentional breaks, and learning how to mentally disconnect from work can all make a difference. However, if anxiety is persistent, follows you home, or begins interfering with your ability to function or enjoy your life outside of work, professional support may also be beneficial.
In this blog, we’ll explore what workplace anxiety looks like, how it differs from everyday work stress, strategies for managing anxiety during the workday, and when it may be time to seek professional help.
What Is Workplace Anxiety?
Workplace anxiety refers to anxiety that is connected to your job, work environment, responsibilities, or professional performance. It is not a specific diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR, but it is a useful way to describe anxiety that occurs primarily or becomes particularly noticeable in the context of work.
A stressful day at work does not necessarily mean you are experiencing problematic anxiety. Most people occasionally feel overwhelmed by a demanding schedule, an important presentation, a difficult interaction with a coworker, or a long list of unfinished tasks.
Workplace anxiety tends to be more persistent.
You might worry excessively about making mistakes, disappointing your supervisor, meeting expectations, or being judged by coworkers. You may repeatedly check your work, overprepare for meetings, or have difficulty making relatively minor decisions because you are afraid of choosing incorrectly.
For some people, the anxiety begins well before the workday starts. You may notice yourself thinking about Monday morning on Sunday afternoon, mentally reviewing your upcoming responsibilities, or feeling a sense of dread about returning to work.
Common signs of workplace anxiety can include:
- Excessive worry about making mistakes or being criticized
- Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
- Racing or repetitive thoughts during the workday
- Frequently second-guessing your work
- Feeling tense, restless, or on edge
- Irritability or becoming easily frustrated
- Avoiding meetings, presentations, coworkers, or difficult conversations
- Procrastinating because you are worried about completing something incorrectly
- Overpreparing or repeatedly checking your work
- Feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities you would normally be able to manage
- Difficulty mentally disconnecting from work at the end of the day
- Physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension, stomach discomfort, or a racing heart
- Difficulty sleeping because you are thinking about work
Not everyone experiencing workplace anxiety will have all of these symptoms. What matters is how frequently the anxiety occurs, how difficult it is to manage, and how much it affects your daily life.
Is Workplace Anxiety Different From Stress?
Yes, although stress and anxiety can overlap considerably.
Stress is typically connected to an identifiable demand or challenge. You might feel stressed because you have an important presentation tomorrow, three deadlines in the same week, or an unusually heavy workload.
Once the situation is resolved, the stress often decreases. You give the presentation, submit the project, or make it through the busy week, and your mind and body begin to settle.
Anxiety does not always resolve as easily.
You might submit a project on time but continue thinking about whether it was good enough. You may reread the email you sent with it, wonder what your supervisor will think, or imagine what could happen if you made a mistake.
The project is finished, but your mind has not moved on.
This is one reason understanding the difference between stress and anxiety can be helpful. Stress often has a clearer external trigger, while anxiety can persist after the immediate stressor has passed or involve anticipating problems that have not occurred.
It is also important to avoid assuming that worrying about mistakes will necessarily cause those mistakes to happen. Anxiety does not “manifest” negative outcomes. However, high levels of anxiety can make it more difficult to concentrate, make decisions, remember information, or work efficiently, which may affect how you feel and function at work.
If work-related anxiety is persistent, difficult to control, or affecting your performance, relationships, sleep, or ability to enjoy your time away from work, talking with a mental health professional can help you understand what is driving the anxiety and develop strategies for managing it more effectively.
Physical Symptoms of Workplace Anxiety
Workplace anxiety does not only affect your thoughts and emotions. It can also show up physically. In fact, some people notice physical symptoms before recognizing that anxiety may be contributing to how they feel.
For example, you might develop a headache after a stressful meeting or notice that your shoulders and jaw feel tense at the end of the workday. While headaches and muscle tension can have many causes, stress and anxiety can contribute to these symptoms.
Understanding the connection between anxiety and headaches is one example of how emotional stress can affect the body.
Other physical symptoms that may occur with anxiety include:
- Muscle tension: Anxiety can cause you to unconsciously tense your muscles, particularly in your jaw, neck, shoulders, and back. You may not notice the tension until discomfort develops later in the day.
- Rapid heartbeat or heart palpitations: During a stressful meeting, presentation, or workplace conversation, you may notice your heart beating faster or more forcefully than usual.
- Sleep difficulties: Work-related worry can make it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. You might find yourself mentally reviewing the day, thinking about unfinished tasks, or anticipating what could happen tomorrow.
- Digestive symptoms: Anxiety can affect the digestive system and may contribute to nausea, stomach discomfort, changes in appetite, diarrhea, constipation, or other gastrointestinal symptoms.
- Fatigue: Persistent anxiety can be mentally and physically exhausting. You may feel tired even after getting what would normally be an adequate amount of sleep, particularly if your sleep quality is poor or your body remains in a heightened state of tension throughout the day.
- Headaches: Stress, muscle tension, sleep disruption, and other factors associated with anxiety may contribute to headaches. Some people also report that stress or anxiety can trigger or worsen migraines.
Physical symptoms should not automatically be attributed to anxiety. New, severe, persistent, or concerning physical symptoms should be discussed with an appropriate healthcare professional to rule out other possible causes.
How to Calm Anxiety at Work in the Moment
When anxiety increases during the workday, it can become difficult to concentrate, make decisions, or stay focused on what you need to do.
You might notice your heart racing before a presentation, feel overwhelmed by your workload, or continue replaying a difficult conversation long after it has ended. While you cannot always eliminate anxiety immediately, you can learn strategies for responding to it without allowing it to take over the rest of your day.
Here are a few techniques you can try when anxiety starts to build at work.
Focus on One Task at a Time
When you are anxious, everything can begin to feel urgent. Looking at an entire day’s workload at once can make that sense of overwhelm even stronger.
Instead, identify the next specific task that requires your attention. If the task feels too large, break it into smaller, manageable steps.
For example, instead of thinking, I have to finish this entire presentation today, start with something more specific: For the next 20 minutes, I’m going to outline the first three slides.
Focusing on what you can do next helps bring your attention away from everything that might happen and back to the task directly in front of you.
Use a Grounding Technique
Grounding techniques can help redirect your attention from anxious thoughts to what is happening in the present moment.
One commonly used strategy is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Take a moment to identify:
- 5 things you can see
- 4 things you can feel
- 3 things you can hear
- 2 things you can smell
- 1 thing you can taste
You do not necessarily need to complete every step for grounding to be useful. Before a presentation, for example, you might simply notice the feeling of your feet against the floor, the chair supporting your body, or the sounds around you.
Grounding is not about replacing “negative” thoughts with positive ones. Instead, it can help you disengage temporarily from anxious thinking and reconnect with the present moment.
Take a Brief Movement Break
If possible, step away from your workstation for a few minutes. Walk down the hallway, refill your water, stand up and stretch, or spend a few minutes outside.
Physical activity can support stress reduction and provide a mental break from a frustrating or demanding task. It can also help relieve some of the muscle tension that often accompanies anxiety.
A brief break is not about avoiding your responsibilities. Sometimes, stepping away for a few minutes can make it easier to return to the task with better concentration and a clearer perspective.
Challenge Anxious Thoughts
Anxiety often encourages us to treat possibilities as though they are probabilities.
Imagine that you stumble over your words during a team meeting. Your anxious mind might quickly jump from That was embarrassing to Everyone thinks I’m incompetent or even I’m going to lose my job.
Instead of automatically accepting the thought as true, examine the evidence.
Ask yourself:
What do I actually know?
Did anyone respond negatively, or am I assuming what they thought?
Am I predicting the future?
What evidence do I have that the outcome I fear will actually happen?
Is there another reasonable explanation?
Could it simply be that I stumbled over my words during a meeting, something most people do occasionally?
What would I tell someone else in this situation?
We are often much more balanced when evaluating another person’s mistake than our own.
Learning to question anxious predictions does not mean convincing yourself that everything will always turn out perfectly. Instead, it means recognizing when anxiety is filling in missing information with the worst possible outcome.
If you frequently find yourself caught in repetitive thinking, these strategies for how to manage racing thoughts may also help you interrupt the cycle and redirect your attention to what you can actually address in the moment.
Practical Ways to Manage Anxiety During the Workday
In-the-moment strategies can help when anxiety suddenly increases, but managing workplace anxiety also involves changing some of the patterns that contribute to stress throughout the day.
If you regularly feel overwhelmed at work, it can be helpful to look at how you prioritize tasks, respond to expectations, set boundaries, and manage perfectionism. Small changes in these areas can reduce some of the pressure that builds over the course of the workday.
Here are several practical strategies to consider:
Set Realistic Priorities
When your to-do list feels overwhelming, it can be tempting to treat every task as equally urgent. Anxiety can make this even harder by creating the sense that everything needs to be handled immediately.
At the beginning of your day, identify the tasks that genuinely require your attention and prioritize them based on importance and deadlines. Breaking larger projects into smaller steps can also make them feel more manageable.
Rather than asking yourself, How am I going to get all of this done? try asking, What is the most important thing for me to focus on right now?
Create Boundaries Around Work
When work is always accessible, it can be difficult for your mind to recognize when the workday has ended.
When possible, establish boundaries around after-hours emails, notifications, and work-related tasks. This might mean turning off email notifications after a certain time, avoiding checking work messages from bed, or creating a routine that signals the transition from work to personal time.
Of course, not every job allows complete control over your schedule. The goal is to identify boundaries that are realistic within your particular work environment.
Pay Attention to Perfectionism
Perfectionism can make ordinary work responsibilities unnecessarily stressful. You may spend excessive time checking your work, struggle to delegate, or delay completing a task because you are worried that it is not good enough.
Try shifting your standard from perfect to effective.
Ask yourself whether additional time and effort will meaningfully improve the outcome or whether anxiety is pushing you to keep working on something that is already sufficient.
Learning to tolerate minor imperfections can reduce self-imposed pressure while still allowing you to produce high-quality work.
Stay Connected With Supportive People
Anxiety often becomes more difficult to manage when you feel as though you have to handle everything alone.
When appropriate, communicate with a trusted colleague, mentor, or supervisor about challenges you are experiencing. This does not necessarily mean disclosing personal mental health information. Sometimes simply asking for clarification about expectations, discussing competing priorities, or requesting feedback can reduce unnecessary uncertainty.
Support outside of work matters too. Maintaining relationships and activities that are separate from your professional identity can help prevent work from becoming the center of your emotional life.
Dealing With Anxiety at Work During Difficult Situations
Certain workplace situations naturally create more anxiety than others. Presentations, performance reviews, difficult conversations, increased workloads, organizational changes, and unexpected responsibilities can all increase uncertainty.
You may not be able to eliminate these situations, but you can change how you prepare for and respond to them.
Prepare for High-Pressure Conversations
If an upcoming meeting, presentation, or client call is making you anxious, preparation can help you feel more confident. The key is finding the difference between helpful preparation and anxious overpreparation.
Write down the most important points you want to communicate, anticipate a few reasonable questions, and practice if doing so would be helpful. Then give yourself permission to stop preparing.
Repeatedly rehearsing every possible version of a conversation can actually increase anxiety by reinforcing the idea that you need to be prepared for every possible outcome.
Your goal is not to control exactly how the conversation unfolds. It is to feel prepared enough to respond to it as it happens.
Separate Feedback From Self-Worth
Constructive feedback can feel particularly difficult when you already struggle with self-doubt or perfectionism.
Try to separate feedback about your work from conclusions about your worth or competence as a person.
If your supervisor tells you that your reports need more detail, the feedback is about a specific aspect of your work. It does not automatically mean that you are bad at your job, that your supervisor is disappointed in you, or that your position is in jeopardy.
Ask yourself: What specifically am I being asked to change? Focusing on actionable information can help prevent your mind from turning one piece of feedback into a much broader judgment about yourself.
If this is a pattern you recognize, learning how to stop taking things personally can also help you develop a more balanced response to workplace feedback.
Adjust to Change One Step at a Time
Organizational restructuring, a new supervisor, changing responsibilities, or starting a new position can create considerable uncertainty.
Give yourself time to adjust rather than expecting yourself to immediately feel comfortable and confident.
Focus first on what you need to understand today. Ask questions when expectations are unclear, identify available resources, and allow familiarity to develop over time.
Feeling uncertain when something is new does not necessarily mean that you are unprepared or incapable. Sometimes it simply means that you are still adjusting.
Focus on What You Can Control
Anxiety often pulls your attention toward outcomes you cannot fully control:
What if my supervisor doesn’t like my work?
What if the presentation doesn’t go well?
What if I make a mistake?
Instead of trying to find certainty about an outcome that has not happened yet, ask yourself:
What is within my control right now?
You can prepare thoughtfully for the presentation. You can proofread your work. You can ask a question when instructions are unclear. You can communicate professionally and respond to feedback.
What you cannot completely control is how another person responds, whether an unexpected problem occurs, or whether everything goes exactly as planned.
The goal is not to convince yourself that nothing will go wrong. It is to recognize that you do not need certainty about the outcome before deciding what to do next. Shifting your attention from predicting the future to taking the next useful action can make anxiety feel more manageable.
Healthy Habits That Can Reduce Work Stress and Anxiety
Strategies such as grounding, challenging anxious thoughts, or focusing on one task at a time can help you manage anxiety when it arises. But managing workplace anxiety is not only about what you do during stressful moments. Your habits outside of those moments can also influence how well you cope with stress.
Building routines that support sleep, physical health, relationships, and time away from work can help create a healthier separation between your professional and personal life.
Here are several habits that may help:
Make Time for Life Outside of Work
When work takes up most of your mental and emotional energy, it can become difficult to truly disconnect. Even after the workday ends, you may find yourself thinking about unfinished tasks, replaying meetings, or anticipating what needs to happen tomorrow.
Make intentional space for activities that have nothing to do with your job. Take a walk, exercise, spend time with friends or family, pursue a hobby, read, or simply allow yourself to do something you enjoy.
Having meaningful experiences outside of work can provide an important reminder that your identity and sense of accomplishment do not have to revolve entirely around your career.
Fuel Your Body Consistently
When work gets busy, meals, hydration, and other basic needs are often some of the first things to be neglected.
Try to eat regularly and choose foods that provide sustained energy throughout the day. Staying hydrated is also important, particularly if you tend to rely heavily on coffee or other caffeinated beverages.
Caffeine affects people differently, but too much can increase physical sensations such as jitteriness, restlessness, and a racing heart. If you notice that caffeine seems to intensify your anxiety, consider reducing your intake or avoiding it later in the day.
Taking care of your physical needs will not eliminate anxiety, but it can help prevent hunger, dehydration, excessive caffeine, and fluctuations in energy from adding to the physical sensations you are already experiencing.
Practice Self-Compassion
Workplace anxiety often comes with a harsh internal dialogue.
You may tell yourself that you should be able to handle more, criticize yourself for making a mistake, or assume that struggling with a task means you are not capable enough.
Pay attention to how you speak to yourself during difficult moments. Ask yourself whether you would use the same language with a friend or colleague who was facing the same situation.
Self-compassion does not mean ignoring mistakes or lowering your standards. It means responding to setbacks realistically rather than using self-criticism as motivation.
For example, instead of thinking, I can’t believe I’m overwhelmed by this. I should be able to handle it, you might acknowledge, I have a lot to get done in a short amount of time. I’m feeling overwhelmed, so I’m going to identify what needs my attention first.
That small shift can help you move from criticizing yourself to addressing the actual problem.
Create an Evening Wind-Down Routine
Logging out of work does not always mean your mind immediately follows.
If you frequently replay conversations, check email throughout the evening, or mentally prepare for the next workday, creating a transition between work and personal time may help.
Your routine does not need to be complicated. You might change clothes after work, take a walk, listen to music, read, spend time with family, or practice a brief relaxation exercise. If you work from home, physically putting away your laptop or leaving your workspace can also help create a clearer boundary.
The goal is not to force yourself to stop thinking about work. Instead, it is to give your brain consistent cues that the workday is over and that you can redirect your attention elsewhere.
This can be especially helpful if you notice that anxiety feels worse at night after the distractions of the workday are gone.
When Should You Seek Professional Help for Workplace Anxiety?
Some degree of work-related stress is normal. Professional support may be worth considering when anxiety becomes persistent, difficult to control, or begins affecting how you function at work or how you feel when you are away from it.
You do not need to wait until anxiety becomes severe or your job performance declines before talking with a therapist.
Therapy can help you understand what is contributing to your workplace anxiety. Depending on your symptoms, this might include perfectionism, fear of failure, difficulty tolerating uncertainty, imposter feelings, people-pleasing, workplace conflict, unrealistic expectations, or broader anxiety that becomes especially noticeable at work.
Evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help you identify patterns of thinking and behavior that contribute to anxiety and develop more effective ways of responding to them.
Consider reaching out to a mental health professional if:
- Physical symptoms are becoming more frequent. Persistent headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, sleep difficulties, digestive symptoms, or a racing heart may accompany anxiety. Because physical symptoms can have many causes, persistent or concerning symptoms should also be discussed with an appropriate medical professional.
- You spend a significant portion of your workday worrying. If your attention is frequently consumed by concerns about performance, deadlines, mistakes, coworkers, or how others perceive you, anxiety may be interfering with your ability to stay present and concentrate.
- You are avoiding important responsibilities or opportunities. Anxiety may lead you to postpone difficult conversations, avoid presentations, decline opportunities, or procrastinate on tasks that make you uncomfortable. Avoidance can provide short-term relief while making anxiety stronger over time.
- Work anxiety follows you home. If evenings, weekends, vacations, or time with family are regularly interrupted by work-related worry, it may be a sign that anxiety is affecting more than your workday.
- Your sleep or relationships are being affected. Difficulty sleeping because you are thinking about work, becoming increasingly irritable, or struggling to be present with people you care about are important signs that work-related anxiety is affecting your overall well-being.
- The strategies you have tried are not enough. Self-help strategies can be useful, but they are not a substitute for treatment when anxiety is persistent or causing significant distress. Therapy can provide a more individualized understanding of what is maintaining your anxiety and which strategies are most appropriate for you.
Most importantly, you do not have to be performing poorly at work to benefit from therapy. Some people experiencing significant workplace anxiety continue to receive positive evaluations, meet deadlines, and appear highly successful.
How well you are functioning on the outside does not always reflect how much effort, worry, and emotional energy it takes to maintain that performance.
Work Through Workplace Anxiety With Snead Psychological Services
Workplace anxiety can develop gradually. A demanding workload, difficult interactions, pressure to perform, fear of making mistakes, or difficulty disconnecting after work can create patterns of worry that become increasingly difficult to manage.
Learning how to calm anxiety at work can begin with small changes. Grounding techniques, focusing on one task at a time, setting realistic priorities, and challenging anxious thoughts can help you respond differently when anxiety increases during the workday.
Your habits outside of work matter too. Getting adequate sleep, eating regularly, staying physically active, maintaining relationships, and making time for activities you enjoy can help create a healthier separation between your work and personal life.
Sometimes, however, self-help strategies are not enough.
At Snead Psychological Services, Dr. Alex Snead, a licensed clinical psychologist, provides evidence-based psychotherapy for anxiety, stress, depression, and related concerns. Therapy can help you better understand what is contributing to your workplace anxiety and identify patterns that may be keeping it going.
Using evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), treatment may focus on challenging unhelpful thinking patterns, reducing avoidance, addressing perfectionism, improving boundaries, and developing healthier ways of responding to uncertainty and workplace stress.
You do not need to wait until anxiety affects your job performance to seek support. If work is consuming a significant amount of your mental energy, following you home, interfering with sleep, or making it difficult to enjoy your life outside of work, therapy may help.
Contact Snead Psychological Services to learn more about treatment for anxiety and determine whether our services may be a good fit for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How Can I Calm Anxiety Quickly at Work?
If anxiety increases during the workday, start by bringing your attention back to what is happening right now. Focus on one manageable task, slow your breathing, take a brief movement break, or use a grounding exercise such as the 5-4-3-2-1 technique.
Keep in mind that the goal is not necessarily to make anxiety disappear immediately. Trying too hard to eliminate anxiety can sometimes make you even more focused on it. Instead, use these strategies to help yourself remain present and continue with what you need to do, even if some anxiety is still there.
2. What Are the Most Common Symptoms of Workplace Anxiety?
Workplace anxiety can affect your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and body. Common symptoms may include excessive worry, difficulty concentrating, irritability, restlessness, racing thoughts, muscle tension, fatigue, headaches, digestive discomfort, sleep difficulties, or a racing heart.
You may also notice yourself repeatedly checking your work, overpreparing, procrastinating because you are afraid of making a mistake, avoiding difficult conversations, or continuing to think about work long after the workday has ended.
Symptoms vary from person to person, so experiencing one or more of these signs does not necessarily mean you have an anxiety disorder.
3. What Causes Anxiety at Work?
Workplace anxiety can have many contributing factors. Common triggers include heavy workloads, tight deadlines, workplace conflict, unclear expectations, job insecurity, difficult relationships with coworkers or supervisors, organizational changes, and increased responsibilities.
Personal patterns can contribute as well. Perfectionism, fear of failure, difficulty tolerating uncertainty, people-pleasing, or concerns about disappointing others can make ordinary workplace stressors feel more threatening.
Identifying what triggers your anxiety and how you respond to those triggers can be an important part of learning to manage it.
4. Can Workplace Stress Lead to Anxiety?
Ongoing workplace stress can contribute to anxiety symptoms, particularly when demands feel persistent or difficult to manage. However, stress and anxiety are not exactly the same, and experiencing prolonged work stress does not necessarily mean that you will develop an anxiety disorder.
One difference is that anxiety may continue even after the immediate stressor has been resolved. For example, you might finish an important presentation successfully but continue replaying it afterward, worrying about what others thought or whether you made a mistake.
If work-related anxiety persists or begins affecting other areas of your life, it may be helpful to talk with a mental health professional.
5. How Do I Stop Overthinking at Work?
Trying to force yourself to stop thinking often has the opposite effect. Instead, practice noticing when your mind has shifted from productive problem-solving into repetitive worry.
Ask yourself: Is there something useful I can do about this right now?
If there is, identify the next concrete step. If there is not, acknowledge the uncertainty and redirect your attention to the task in front of you.
It can also help to distinguish facts from predictions. For example, “My supervisor asked me to revise this report” is a fact. “My supervisor thinks I’m terrible at my job” is an interpretation that anxiety may be adding to the situation.
Breaking larger tasks into manageable steps, limiting repeated checking, and challenging catastrophic predictions can also help reduce workplace overthinking.
6. When Should I Seek Help for Workplace Anxiety?
Consider seeking professional support when workplace anxiety becomes persistent, difficult to control, or begins affecting your sleep, relationships, physical well-being, job performance, or ability to enjoy your time outside of work.
You may also benefit from therapy if you are spending significant amounts of time worrying about mistakes, avoiding responsibilities because of anxiety, experiencing panic symptoms, or finding that the strategies you have tried on your own are no longer enough.
You do not have to wait until anxiety becomes severe. A psychologist or other qualified mental health professional can help determine what is contributing to your symptoms and develop an individualized treatment plan to help you manage anxiety more effectively.
