Anxiety is a part of everyday life, but it can become a significant hindrance for us in the world of business. There’s more than just one type of anxiety, and they affect each person differently. Here’s a guide on how to keep anxiety from affecting your workplace.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety is our body’s response to stress, which results in a feeling of fear and apprehension. Feeling extreme anxiety or feeling anxious for over six months may be signs of an anxiety disorder.
Ordinary anxiety is something that comes and goes. It may pop up at inconvenient times, but eventually, it disappears. In an anxiety disorder, that feeling of fear never leaves us. This can leave you feeling trapped and alone and can be dangerous if you don’t get the help you need.
Having an anxiety disorder can cause us to stop doing things that we once found enjoyable. In extreme cases, this disorder can be debilitating, preventing us from using elevators, talking to others, crossing the street, or leaving our homes.
Types of Anxiety
There are many types of anxiety, but these are the ones that we think can affect your business the most.
Panic Disorder
This is the type that makes us experience recurring panic attacks. We might find ourselves continually fearing the next panic attack each time we get nervous. This is the sort of problem that breeds on itself and you need to take it seriously and seek help if it starts happening to you.
Obsessive-compulsive Disorder
We all know about this one. Even though it is harmless, suffering it may cause us to perform specific and repeated actions, such as constantly straightening a blind or fixating on little details.
Health Anxiety
Most of us are concerned about our health at some point, but those of us suffering from health anxiety always believe that a second opinion is needed. A person diagnosed with this disorder generally takes a mild symptom and believes it to be a sign of something unlikely yet deadly, such as cancer. This form of anxiety can be especially dangerous due to the placebo effect. If you know somebody who is suffering from this, please visit drmtherapy.com
Why Anxiety Is Bad
Both employers and employees can suffer from anxiety, and it can easily affect the workflow. One major symptom of anxiety is difficulty falling asleep, which may even lead to insomnia. Without the necessary amount of sleep, we can’t be at our optimal productivity level.
Anxiety also results in an increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and restlessness. One of the worst symptoms we can have while working is lack of concentration. This can be particularly bad when we are in a meeting or handling machinery.
There’s also the panic attacks that come with anxiety. These, however, vary from person to person. Their results can be minor, such as having shortness of breath, or more severe, such as chills, hot flashes, and a plethora of other symptoms.
How to Minimize Anxiety
There are many quick ways to lessen stress and anxiety. They won’t work for everyone as we all process stress and anxiety in our own ways. However, biologically, most of these can help.
Deep Breaths
Mental stress will send your body into a state of fight-or-flight, a mode none of us enjoy. It’s during this reaction that stress hormones are released and we experience the physical symptoms of anxiety.
Breathing deeply will help to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the system in control of your relaxation response. Practicing deep breathing will also help slow down your heart rate, allowing you to feel calmer and more peaceful.
Laugh
We’ve repeatedly been told that laughter is the best medicine, and it’s true. It’s tough to stay in a bad mood or stay feeling anxious when we’re laughing out loud.
Laughing relieves the stress response and gets rid of tension in your muscles by relaxing them. In the long term, this can also help your immune system and improve your mood. Why not take a moment, watch a funny video of your favorite comedian and laugh a little?
Chewing Gum
This is a surprisingly quick help when it comes to relieving stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that people who chew gum have a higher sense of wellbeing and decreased stress. The harder you chew, the better your relief.
Chewing gum may align your brainwaves with that of relaxed people. It can also aid in the increase of blood flow to your brain. Just remember to keep your mouth closed when chewing.
Cut the Caffeine
We all love our coffees and feel like we can’t live without them. If you’re not a coffee person, you probably still enjoy energy drinks like many others. Energy drinks contain high amounts of caffeine as well.
High doses of caffeine can increase our anxiety levels. The hard thing is that we all have individual thresholds for how much caffeine we can have before it becomes harmful. If you start to notice that caffeine is making you anxious, nervous, or jittery, then you’ve probably exceeded that threshold. At this point, you should be cutting back on your caffeine consumption.
In moderation, however, caffeine can be beneficial for you. Try to keep to fewer than 5 cups of coffee per day as more than that can make you feel a little strange and possibly hyper-active.
Anxiety in a Nutshell
Dealing with anxiety is a part of life; it can be very helpful for us to learn about it in order to overcome it. There may be many types, but it is possible to avoid having them impact negatively on our business or our lives. It’s important to remember to take those deep breathes, letting them calm you down.
