Anxiety With Work
For every nine employees at your company, odds are that one of them will
suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in his or her life. Left
untreated, as two-thirds of them are, they can make work a lot harder and a lot
less productive. Employees experiencing symptoms on the job often report
problems concentrating, excessive fatigue, irritability, and less productivity
as a result of having to repeat work or correct mistakes.
What does anxiety feel like?
If your heart has ever pounded before a big presentation or you’ve stressed
about an upcoming performance appraisal, you’ve gotten a taste of what anxiety
feels like. Imagine you always felt this way – 24 hours a day; antsy,
irritable, dreading any amount of additional stress because you feel so maxed
out already.
Or what if your heart would suddenly start racing, you couldn’t catch your
breath, and you felt like you were “going crazy” out of the blue – with no
warning and for no reason. It wouldn’t take too many of these blitzkriegs
before you’d start worrying about when the next wave of anxiety would
hit.
What if it happens again? What if other people notice? What
if it happens in front of my boss?” If you do see some kind of pattern to your
panic attack (it tends to happen while you’re driving, meeting with your boss,
giving a talk) you might begin to avoid those events like the plague – even if
it ultimately costs you career-wise.
Anxiety Because of Work
While we don’t know exactly what causes anxiety disorders, we do know they
tend to run in families. Apparently, some of us inherit a genetic
predisposition that, in combination with our personality and life experiences,
can send us down the anxiety path.
However, if our job is stressful enough, it can impact even the hardiest of
us. A groundbreaking study out of New Zealand found that 1 in 7 women –
and one in 10 men – in high pressure jobs reported clinical levels of anxiety
even though they had never experienced a mental health difficulty. In
fact, researchers concluded that half of the anxiety reported by the 900 people
they followed over 30 years (and who had undergone regular psychological testing
since they were children to rule out other contributing factors) could be
attributed to workplace stress.
High Pressure Job = Distressed Employee
So what is it about work that can send us into an emotional frenzy?
Researchers are still in the information-gathering stage but we have some pretty
good clues.
Long hours, demanding supervisors, high workloads and lack of clear direction
are clearly culprits, especially when they occur together. In particular,
jobs with high demands (such as workload, time pressure, and role conflict) and
low control (with low autonomy and authority) and rewards (money, esteem, career
opportunities) increase stress and, hence, risk for psychiatric ill health
Perceptions of fairness (or lack thereof) have also been linked to mental
health in the workplace. For example, when managers are inclusive and
transparent in their decision-making, employees are more likely to feel more
secure and less anxious (even if the actual decisions are unpopular).
Another aspect of fairness relies upon the quality of the interactions
between manager and subordinate. Employees expect the organization – and
its managers – to treat them with respect, dignity, honesty, and to extend equal
treatment to all its members. When this psychological contract is broken through
insensitive, humiliating, or abusive treatment, it adversely impacts the
subordinate’s emotional wellbeing as well as his or her job satisfaction.
If it happens often enough, it can be emotionally debilitating.
suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in his or her life. Left
untreated, as two-thirds of them are, they can make work a lot harder and a lot
less productive. Employees experiencing symptoms on the job often report
problems concentrating, excessive fatigue, irritability, and less productivity
as a result of having to repeat work or correct mistakes.
What does anxiety feel like?
If your heart has ever pounded before a big presentation or you’ve stressed
about an upcoming performance appraisal, you’ve gotten a taste of what anxiety
feels like. Imagine you always felt this way – 24 hours a day; antsy,
irritable, dreading any amount of additional stress because you feel so maxed
out already.
Or what if your heart would suddenly start racing, you couldn’t catch your
breath, and you felt like you were “going crazy” out of the blue – with no
warning and for no reason. It wouldn’t take too many of these blitzkriegs
before you’d start worrying about when the next wave of anxiety would
hit.
What if it happens again? What if other people notice? What
if it happens in front of my boss?” If you do see some kind of pattern to your
panic attack (it tends to happen while you’re driving, meeting with your boss,
giving a talk) you might begin to avoid those events like the plague – even if
it ultimately costs you career-wise.
Anxiety Because of Work
While we don’t know exactly what causes anxiety disorders, we do know they
tend to run in families. Apparently, some of us inherit a genetic
predisposition that, in combination with our personality and life experiences,
can send us down the anxiety path.
However, if our job is stressful enough, it can impact even the hardiest of
us. A groundbreaking study out of New Zealand found that 1 in 7 women –
and one in 10 men – in high pressure jobs reported clinical levels of anxiety
even though they had never experienced a mental health difficulty. In
fact, researchers concluded that half of the anxiety reported by the 900 people
they followed over 30 years (and who had undergone regular psychological testing
since they were children to rule out other contributing factors) could be
attributed to workplace stress.
High Pressure Job = Distressed Employee
So what is it about work that can send us into an emotional frenzy?
Researchers are still in the information-gathering stage but we have some pretty
good clues.
Long hours, demanding supervisors, high workloads and lack of clear direction
are clearly culprits, especially when they occur together. In particular,
jobs with high demands (such as workload, time pressure, and role conflict) and
low control (with low autonomy and authority) and rewards (money, esteem, career
opportunities) increase stress and, hence, risk for psychiatric ill health
Perceptions of fairness (or lack thereof) have also been linked to mental
health in the workplace. For example, when managers are inclusive and
transparent in their decision-making, employees are more likely to feel more
secure and less anxious (even if the actual decisions are unpopular).
Another aspect of fairness relies upon the quality of the interactions
between manager and subordinate. Employees expect the organization – and
its managers – to treat them with respect, dignity, honesty, and to extend equal
treatment to all its members. When this psychological contract is broken through
insensitive, humiliating, or abusive treatment, it adversely impacts the
subordinate’s emotional wellbeing as well as his or her job satisfaction.
If it happens often enough, it can be emotionally debilitating.