Do often you overthink?
Struggle to fall asleep at night due to racing thoughts?
Feel like you can’t take a break because you haven’t been ‘productive' enough?
Have a tendency to people please?
Are a perfectionist?
If you answered “yes” to any of these (or all!), it’s possible that you may be experiencing High Functioning Anxiety.
Now, it’s not a diagnosable condition, but describes anyone who seems to be ‘functioning’ well on the outside, but internally they’re experiencing anxiety in some way.
I definitely relate to this! I became aware of it most during the pandemic when I noticed my body giving me very clear signs that I was experiencing anxiety. Tightness in my chest and sinking feeling in my gut, racing thoughts, pushing myself to keep working because I didn’t feel I ‘deserved' a break…
And it becomes a negative cycle - the more you do these things, the more anxiety you feel, which causes you to do more of these things.. and the cycle self-perpetuates. It can affect how confident you feel at work and how much pressure you place on yourself to deliver.
So, if to other people, you look calm, composed, confident… like you’ve got everything sorted out… but internally that’s not how you feel at all (instead you feel exhausted, you overthink, you have a need for reassurance or validation and you have an inner critic always ready to shine a spotlight on your weaknesses)…
In this video I explain 5 signs of High-Functioning Anxiety and 3 ways to overcome it.
RELATED RESEARCH:
Bedtime Procrastination: Kroese, F. M., De Ridder, D. T., Evers, C., & Adriaanse, M. A. (2014).
Bedtime procrastination: introducing a new area of procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 611. Productivity Guilt (‘Productivity Orientation’) Keinan, A., & Kivetz, R. (2011).
Productivity orientation and the consumption of collectable experiences. Journal of consumer research, 37(6), 935-950.