Can you educate  me on ways by which I can manage my anxiety at work. I have been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder by a psychiatrist and placed on psychotherapy for now, with a tablet to take at night for just two weeks with a review after. For the past three days since I commenced the medication, I found out that I’m still very anxious with other symptoms that I just have to manage well while working . Please, help me with tips on what I can do while at work.

Nonso, Lagos

Permit me to tell you that you will gradually get better as long as you allow the medication to work over time. Three days of taking the medication wouldn’t show you much, but with time and seeing your doctor regularly for follow up will yield a better outcome.

These are some of the tips that can help you manage anxiety at work:

Navigating the workplace can be stressful, especially for individuals dealing with anxiety. Despite your struggle with anxiety, I will advise that you should strive to fully participate in life.

Also, you and others can manage the symptoms and use these strategies to change your entire mindset.

1. Don’t suppress your anxiety

Trying to suppress your feelings is counterproductive. It may surprise you to know that everyone experiences anxiety. It is a normal response to stress. Let it in when it shows up. You have to practice acceptance. Rather than trying to push it away (which tends to be futile, resulting in feeling more overwhelmed and less in control), make room for anxiety. It is showing up to try to bring your attention to something. By allowing space for some anxiety at work, you’ll render it less bothersome in the long run.

2. Practice self-care

Don’t forget to take care of yourself. Attend to your own feelings and healthy lifestyle practices: good nutrition, sleep, and exercise are important to well-being, resilience, and healthy stress management.

3. Invite anxiety along for the ride.

Confront your anxieties head on. If you’re nervous about public speaking, take point on a presentation. If you’re afraid of talking to your coworkers, try to strike up a conversation. Push yourself to enter situations that lead to anxiety in order to demonstrate to yourself that you can persevere and succeed despite anxiety. Exposing yourself to anxiety provoking situations, rather than avoiding them, helps to change your relationship to anxiety and increase your confidence in these situations.

4. Be mindful

Check in with yourself once in a while.

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Examine anxiety with curiosity when it shows up, rather than rejecting it. What do you notice when it shows up? What are you thinking and feeling? By realizing the answers to these questions, you will be able to deal with the anxiety better.

5. Relax

Engage in exercises that relax your body and set your mind at ease. Diaphragmatic breathing or other relaxation inducing practice (e.g., mindfulness meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery exercises, tai chi, yoga) can reduce stress by helping to encourage the relaxation response.

6. Take a break

Changing your pace or scenery from time to time actually helps with managing anxiety. You can do this by changing your work environment from time to time. Examples, rearrange your table weekly by giving it a new look. If possible, you can move to another office to work.

7. Stay connected

You can get by with a little help from your friends. Social support is vital to managing stress, in fact, this is very important. Maintain connections to family and friends. Talking with others can do a world of good.

8. Remind yourself that your mind is not always the best advisor

Sometimes, you can’t trust yourself. Our minds like to constantly tell stories, analyze, judge, give advice, and criticize. Sometimes these thoughts are supremely unhelpful to us. Observe what your mind does. Notice the thoughts. Note that they are not objective truths. You get to decide whether the thoughts are worthy of your attention.

9. Lay off the coffee

When it comes to managing anxiety, that late in the morning is your worst enemy. Keep caffeine consumption to a minimum, as it can increase heart rate and physiological symptoms of anxiety.

10. Seek professional help

Remember, you don’t have to go this alone. Seeing a specialist is a great step in your pathway to recovery. Sometimes anxiety can be difficult to manage without professional help. Cognitive behavioral therapy can assist you and other individuals in learning to better understand anxiety and change your relationship to your anxious thoughts and feelings. Concerned coworkers and employers might also choose to express their concern for a colleague and help to normalize the experience and encourage the individual to seek help. I will encourage you and any one reading this to seek for help once you notice any changes in your health status, see your physician regularly for follow up checks, have a healthy support system that will help you in your pathway to recovery.