When Anxiety Interferes with Work
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stein and I made me gallow. I imagine many of us have been feeling anxious lately with everything going on in the world like the U. S.

Presidential election and the war in the middle st. And artificial intelligence. And I could go on, but I want then .

there's everything going on in our personal lives. For me, it's the upcoming holidays and ongoing work pressures.

me, my daughters college applications and my mom's recent fall and health scare, plus a ridiculous battle with my health insurance to cover .

a medication I need. Worrying is effect of life becomes and goes, usually because another fact from the U. S. Food and drug administration is that women are twice as likely as meant to develop anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, as highly treatable as anxiety disorders are. The fda also says that most adults aren't treating theirs.

I would wake up and cry and just count the minutes until I had to start work that's marry one .

of our listeners whose mornings went on like that for a couple of months before he saw therapist.

And that was that there appears who said that I have generalized anxiety disorder. So I believe what triggered that really low point was now a former colleague who at the time was being let go from the company. So I would be taking on their responsibility, lie s having more responsibly t ie.

S of my own to really lead the team I had been part of for several years. And so you know, looking back on that, I think IT was really in pasture syndrome that was showing up in the most severe, worst way. In hindsight, I think I did that rule quite well.

And all my prior work had been leading up to these expanded responsibility. So IT wasn't such a stretch. But for some reason, the anxiety just would not let me see you in that positive ways. This is a Normal career growth next step. But at the time, I didn't know how to process or how to handle the feelings that didn't really match up with the facts of what I could do and how I could succeed at this role.

Ten years later, mary exercises to keep symptoms from becoming severe again in her job as a risk and compliance sleep SHE takes regular breaks, SHE journals, and she's careful to get enough sleep. When something disrupt those preventative measures, like insomnia or too many meetings.

my emotions are higher and I can become tear fall. I then worried that i'm not coming across as strong as I want to be, but I can't help IT because i'm so tired and so drained that the tears will just come out. You know, also, in meets, another way I S I I D can show up is I might three years and not say the thing I really wanted to say.

Anxiety, likewise, messes with code. Another listener of hours who is a diagnosed disorder. She's a nurse who used to treat patients in the emergency department until the stress of those shifts was more than her body could bear.

I had trembling, a chess pain, headaches, all of them for .

the sake of her health. SHE moved into management as a nurse manager and upside to her anxiety is that he pushes her to get things done and fast.

But sometimes if um I become overwhelmed with a lot of ice and I feel like I can't think about one thing at a time, or what do I need to get them first? If I start having a trial, a lot of things you can start to become overwhelming. I think dealing with crucial conversations can sometimes make me anxious and IT comes across as a the ability I hate that I have to deal with this thing.

I hate that this person may not take this constructive criticism well. And sometimes, I mean, I have responded very shortly in an email because I ve just been so eagle with somebody and is the anxious of, I wants to control this situation. I wanted to go this way because you are not doing a thing that I need you to do and you're not hearing me, you're not understanding. And so I might say, per my last email.

But now cody knows to let her irritation settle before pressing sand. Because therapy.

I see a therapies once every six weeks, and i've been through a few therapies. But this is the first therapist who really know, anxious, and has given me action items of what to do with. I'm having a panic attack or just having anxiety period, because anxiety manifests in so many different areas, like once you become a leader, IT shows up different. Once you become a mom, that shows that differently. And so she's been able to help recognize how was showing up in different aspects.

So if you've been worried for a while, wondering, is this healthy? Should I see someone take a sick day, a sick week on my bath? Let's talk these questions through with an expert.

Michelle dragon is a clinical psychologist and behavioral scientists who specializes in anxiety and panic disorders. Michelle has a lot of change advising people how to cope at work, not only with physical symptoms like shortness of breath and diss, but also with negative habits like repetitive and catastrophic thinking, those habits that make the work day harder.

She's here to share that advice so that you can understand how to Better manage anxiety at work, whether you have an anxiety disorder, suspect you might or want to support a colleague.

Michelle, help us understand the difference between run of the milk anxiety and anxiety disorders.

So there is some interesting new answer, but the real short answer is everyone stressed. But if that stress starts to pop over into the functions that really empire your life, so you're not enjoying life, you're avoiding things, you're not sleeping, you're having some physiological chAllenges like guest and testino chAllenges. Now of a student, we're talking about a disorder. And that's really when when we would give you a diagnostic code and when IT IT seems more clinical and likely needs treat, although I would argue that everything else leading up to that probably could react to .

treatment as well. So is there time box around that at all? I mean, you know i've had moments before giving a big speech or something where, you know, I definitely in testino disorders. Does that push me into the anxiety disorders category?

Probably not because if it's really unique and specific, although it's a little different with phobias. And so the short answer is that really depends on what we're talking about. You really want to be looking at a two week period or thirty day period.

Are you really struggling for most of days? And in general, we think about the impairment of your life and if it's getting in the way. So if you said to me if then the G I stuff is so bad that i'm not taking speaking events anymore, I can't do IT, then I would say that's that's a disorder.

That's a problem. Now you're avoiding IT to help you manage IT. That's that's a chAllenge.

And just briefly, why is that important to understand the difference .

so you understand what to do? And was then i'm going to argue to the end of the day that people get help sooner rather than later, right? And so if you're starting have stress, you like i'm not sure is, is the disorder or not the fact that you're even asking the question, talk to someone, get some help, engage in some strategies and tools to help manage and mitigate some of that before IT becomes a full of disorder.

And all of us that and you know you're in treatment, potentially you need an intense of our patient treatment program and potentially you need in patient and it's just or to take a leave of absence of work. And I think that's one the chAllenges we see with women is they ignore some of those early science. And so I think the more we empower folks to be educated, you and when we talk about managers to how do we help managers see kind of those warning signs or theo s potential warning signs so that we can enact and engage sooner so we're not dealing with crises. Later.

we've a clip from code, one of our listeners who was remembering for us when her anxiety really intensified.

I started to fill a lot of fear when taking care. My patients, I see all the trauma and how they suffer. Is this what I might have to go through one day or my stomach? Rs, do I do I have some cancer? You know, something like that, that i'm trading in just a lot of fear.

And I remember we had one patient come in and IT was a busy day and IT was a stroke patient. And I just started to feel light had IT and I started to feel like I had to flee mpt ton of a panic attack. I couldn't take care of the patient. I had to go in another nurse, pull me to the side de, put me on the heart monitor, my heart was racing. Um so just a lot of those physical manifestations in addition to like just being fearful of what I was seeing and what I was taking care of.

we sure. What would you say to women who are unsure whether their anxiety is a natural response to work stress or a sign of a disorder that needs attention?

I would say if you even asked game a question, IT would be really helpful if you talk to someone else who's in the field who can understand what might be Normative or typical likes. So she's a nurse. So I would talk to another nurse and say, hey, i'm wondering if I get your advice.

And what i've been experiencing lately, i've been having nightmares or haven't been sleeping, taking home. You know, some of the patients that have coded or the patients that we've lost her, my mind is just replying through them and wondering if that has happened. You or what what do you think is is typical now that person might say to work, oh yeah, that's actually really Normal when you start the job and he gets Better and here's how I managed to get out Better or someone might say, you know what, IT times lag, you're really struggling.

Why don't we get you to the employee system program or get have someone to talk to or more professional in the mental health el to really help you usss and figure this out going forward? So I don't know we think is an emotional sycom gist, but I know you think you need a psychologist or professional to talk to, I think, often starting with peers and connecting. But we're not always willing to out ourselves for how we're feeling. We tend to think we could like our own problems when we really need to connect with other people.

I love the idea of talking to someone in your field because, like you said, they can sort of help set the bar for what's no what? What's the Normal reaction for an E, R, nurse is going to be very different for the editor of a magazine, for example, right? The level of stress in your job, the reactions.

I love that idea of starting by talking to someone you work with. I have a question specifically about gender, which could apply really in any field, which is that we know that statistically, women are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, or at least be with the anxiety and depression than men are. And i'm curious if you have a sense of how much gender and equity things like, you know, pay in equity, caregiving, gender base violence can exacerbate or even influence how the anxiety disorder is show up in the workplace. Is that something you see happen?

absolutely. Because I think women, there's so much going on and there are so many different roles we hold. I think women sometimes feel like, where do we turn? How do we manage? Who do we talk to about this? And then sometimes we have the conversation and IT feels like IT gets turned back on us. And then there's almost like this gas late that feels like IT happens or victim blaming.

IT certainly has happened to me in my career where, you know, you'll have conversations about, well, how do I get promoted or why did I get promoted and it's like, well, because you have been asked enough for you're not good enough for well, what about all these other other stuff i'm doing well that that actually doesn't count towards promotion. And so there's a lot of this unpaid labor that women wind up doing as well. And and we're not really great always about advocating for ourselves because we're not socialized to do that. And so I think IT gets pretty complicated. And so some of those factors disempower us or marginalize us in ways I just don't think workforces not alone because I don't want to be universal because there are certainly some that are amazing, but I don't think they're set up to really support women in a flexible way to empower them.

Yeah, we have another listener in mary. And mary, I like the way you articulated how this bias and discrimination that talking about place into her own anxiety to hear from her.

I do think that part of my anxiety comes from being a woman in a corporate environment and feeling that there's something I have to prove. I tend to do a lot of over thinking about IT or a lot of additional worry about how I handled something or how I might handle myself or how this might go future setting like knowing that I am speaking to leadership about something. And it's mostly men.

I'm in a group with mostly men, and I know I have a really specific point I want to make sure is clear here. And so I do a lot to actually prepare for meetings, to write down what is the key point or the key thing I want to come across. If someone pushes back, think about that as well. Maybe write down a couple key points that I would say, and it's something because I don't know those things as I do, but because my anxiety, he is so strongly, I worried about how i'm coming across or how others might perceive me. I might not be able to think of those things as quickly as I .

would like in the moment. IT makes me anxious, even listening to her, right? Yeah, like her mind is worrying about the past. What did I do? It's worrying about the future, but it's not actually like hanging out in the moment and enjoying the the fruits of her labor. And I think this is why we see women really to burn out is they are overcompensating in ways that they think they need to, to just show up and feel like their equals to the other folks on their team. Just hearing how much worrying and thinking through in catastrophes all of the possible scenario is just it's exhAusting.

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Dim e flash L E A R N. All right, let's get into some practical advice. Michelle. Amy, you wanted to ask a question.

yeah. As we turn to this practical advice, I just want to clarify, Michelle, because some people listening will have a diagnosable anxiety disorder and others will experience anxiety that's not reach that level. And I would just wonder if the advice you give is true regardless of whether you have a diagnosis or not. Is IT applicable to anyone?

Yes, actually, if that's the one thing people walk away from listening to this, is that any of these skills or tools are helpful regardless of what you're experiencing. And if we had more people leveraging these these tools and skills more often, we probably would have less anxiety disorders. Just more people are having stressful times .

or moments of one, okay.

so making a mistake or cause anyone to experience anxiety, but for people with an anxiety disorder, IT could really cousin to spiral. And if you've made a mistake, how do you not spur? What do you tell people who are are more apt to to spiral after a mistake?

So first, well, not everyone's bother when they make a mistake. Who are no, there is funny people just like, oh, oops, you know, I made a mistake and they move on and they just don't have anxiety or stress about IT. I think women tend to be a lot harder on ourselves.

And then you're right, if you have an anxiety as sort your height. And so one of things I often talk about with people I work with is we're like a pot of water on a stove, right? And there is always heat honest. And the goal is to keep the heat as low as possible into notice when it's getting high, so that when you do something like make a mistake or get some criticism or something happens, you don't boil over.

So you have to first be aware though of wires or temperature at managing yourself and thinking about all of those tools and strategies that you can use to help keep yourself a little bit more level with the heat down, not all the way off. There's always stress in our life, always, always, always stress, but keeping IT a little bit lower. So if I were working with someone for whom mistakes was a particular trigger, we would have a lot of conversations about this.

But one of those would be to reframe what is the mistake and what are you taking away from IT. And so reframing IT as a learning opportunity, potentially first and foremost, and then potentially doing a root caused analysis of, well, how did you get there? How did the mistake happen? How do we prevent those going forward? And so it's both this psychological flexibility approach of managing the mistakes do happen and how you navigate them, but then also thinking about preventing them going forward, which you know, a manager, a leader would particularly want to do with someone. And Normalizing mistake has happen, right?

Everybody makes yeah, I think that makes anything game about our failure episode. We did an episode last season about mistakes we made, specifically what we learn from the how do we sort of reframe. And part of the fun of that episode was getting to hear someone you know has accomplished the A, B, B or former co.

C. R. Michael, talk about, oh yeah, they messed up to, right? That's part of the supportive nature of our relationships to be able to help us Normalize those things.

You know, you just made me think about something, amy, that which is that we both know people. We work with people who do not spire or when they ve made a mistake yeah and in fact, I don't even think they talk about IT and IT makes me wonder, Michelle, whether substance talking about the mistake will actually prompt the spiral.

meaning IT doesn't discharge the end up and up.

I have felt that I mean, one of the things I think about is, you know, a major league baseball pitcher pitches a ball that turned into a grand slam home run. And what really good pitches do is they shake IT off and they throw the next pitch to strike out the next batter, right? IT just feels like something we should all be able to do, and many of us can.

What your describing is being in the moment, right, that present moment awareness and almost practicing a beginner's mind to each opportunity, as opposed to taking all of that history with you. But I think we just Carry stuff with us chewing on IT in our head over and over again, thinking that bad actually going to help us. But I think, amy, this is where you are getting out, right? As IT doesn't always help us to chew on IT and ruminated and talk about IT unless you're doing IT in a way that's effective to help you drive forward, right? In fact, if your therapies is only sitting there and letting you bitch at them for an hour, they are not doing a good job because data actually show that sitting and just talking about stuff without having tools or strategies to manage some of that effect is not getting IT off your chest is not an effective intervention.

So we've .

talked about the mindset shift. What do you actually have to do? So like you're outward, you mess up, what do you actually want to do?

The first thing you want to do is take a breath, find your feet, which is really just code for being in the moment, so stable as yourself a little bit. And then think about, actually, this is a dialect al behavior therapy D B T strategy of something called wise mind. And it's the intersection of rational, reasonable mine.

So asking yourself, what was the mistake? What were the consequence? Like just the facts, right? Just the fact was that a real big mistake now is are going to cost the organization billions of dollars.

Or is IT like a typo? Or you missing an email by accident, it's really not that big of a deal. And then you look at emotion, mind, how you're feeling about IT.

And then you find wise mind IT, which is that intersection of all the emotions and irrational. So I feel this, and I know this, and this is what i'm going to do. And then you figure out what path forward makes more sense, wise minded. But IT starts with stopping because some guys, we panic. And when you're panic cking, you're not rational and thoughtful fall and you're not actually can be able have an effective conversations to stop, breathe and find your feet.

And that's really an important thing for women who want to lead to. Keep in mind, mary, our listener, has some really good advice for not letting anxiety stop her in her tracks.

I can think about times in my career where I have accepted in some different rules. We're looking back. Wow, my anxiety really could have stopped me from taking those other rules or responsibility. E, S, i'm so thankful that I didn't, and I took a chance and took that risk because I learned so much.

And I look back, and how much that change I made helped me to build up brazilians over time, even going through when I experiences ten years ago, a feeling so low that I ve taken so much from over the years. And I can see how far i've come and how the new idea is not just going to go away at some point, I will always be here. But looking back and reflecting on difficult things that i've done or difficult moments that i've been through that gives me confidence and it's part of my tool kit.

So what did you hear in that?

So I think there's two things going on in what he saying. One is this radical acceptance for this willingness, that anxiety or stresses that is gonna on that, right? So it's kind like that paddles that we're on the stove, there's always going be some heat on IT, and we are not shooting for no heat on IT.

So there's never any stress in our life. No anxiety. You know what that means? We're dead, right? And so there's always so that stress and anxiety is like is mobilizing and engaging in that motive IT. It's actually motivating for us. And so so it's it's flipping existing and stress on its head. And a little bit, the other piece that she's talking about, which is a really important toller strategy, is something we call perspective taking going back and kind of tapping that version of yourself on the shoulder and thing.

Or what do you know? What did you learn? How did you get through that? The other piece of perspective taking, and is actually one of my favorite things, is I I generally zoom forward to when I, like eighty five years old, sitting on my porch on a rocking chair and I say, hey, old lady, my hell.

I'm pretty stressed out about this, like H, B, R. Interview that i'm doing. What you, what do you think I should do? How to imagine? And SHE just cracks up in my face and she's like, oh, that is like nothing and that is I can't believe your stress out. You are so adorable um and just go you know go do your best and you'll be fine and I often consult with her because I know that sometimes in the moment I have my head down and the stress is just who flaring but if I pick my head up and I look just we heard from the listener, then it's not so bad, right? And so that perspective, taking exercise just really enables that psychological flexibility to manage to just kind of ride the waves, right, and manage more .

effectively. I do a version of that with myself, which is, I imagine, a friend or family member coming to me with the thing i'm experiencing and how that would sound to me, yes, if I were listening as an empathetic tic friend, right?

The other thing i'd like to do is if i'm gna engage in catastrophic thinking, which sometimes I am going to, I remind myself, I have to also think a new fork thinking. So if i'm really, really nervous about this talking about to give, and I think i'm going to lose my place in the middle, no one's gonna engage. People are going to walk out in the middle.

I also have to tell myself, well, to think about, what if you knock IT out of the park? What if I get to stand the innovation? And somehow that sort of helps to baLance the worry for me because IT makes me also realize how absurd both of those are is probably something in the middle, which is really what's going to happen.

Well, you know, it's interesting in my reaction to that is women aren't often socialized to think about our success in that way. We have this much trigger internal critic.

And so it's much easier first to go to the worst case scena than IT is to imagine the best case in area IT all starts with the awareness in the moment of where head is at and what we're feeling in our bodies as well, like the heart racing a little bit of and so it's really just connecting with your own body and mine to know when you are experiencing that so that then you can. Well, oh, I have this tall box. Only pull out those tools and leverage .

them more effectively. Yeah, there's a stat from delay will include the link in the the show notes, that is, two thirds of women don't feel comfortable discussing mental health at work. And cody, the earners who we heard from earlier, has felt this little, little year from her.

again in our earth for eleven years. And R, R, saying, you come across, you look that as being a hero. And disclosing initially felt like a weakness to mean. And I know that now that that's not true, but that was my hesitancy. Like will you see me and attached that stigma to me that, oh, he has a weakness even though he appears to have IT all together.

So given that we're telling women to talk with people in their field, to talk with others, how can women with anxious disorders advocate for themselves without worrying about that stigma or even having job related consequences?

This is a happen because I don't think we're there yet where univerSally you can out yourself for what's going on. And that makes me really sad to say that I wish that weren't the case. And so you do have to be careful and judicious.

And so I feel like this is like the old school of ice. Fine, the helpers figure out who is a safe person at your organization, talk to empty system programs. And here's the other thing.

And I i've worked with multiple patients who we've had to sign out of take leaves of absence because of their anxiety. And so one that I worked with drawing the pandemic SHE was really struggling and would not disclose. In fact, he was ready to quit before SHE be willing to disclose what was going on.

And actually, SHE doesn't need to disclose because it's a medical condition, right? And so you don't need to disclose if you have a medical condition. Why should you have to disclose if you have a psychological condition? But we were able to take her out for a medical leave of absence, scatter the treatment that you needed to put me in a psychiatry working collaborative to help her, and then get get her back in.

Her organization was a large buying head, the resources and tools where they had kind of inner media who knew what was going on. I wrote in some accommodations for her, and so all her manager really needed to know is what accommodations SHE needed. And then he couldn't be discriminated against in her performance.

And you know what, she's been promoted since then because he was able to get the treatment he needed in a safe space and then to reintegrate into her role in a way that was helpful. And I can say that all stories have happy endings like that, right? Because we live in a world where there's just um chAllenging and problematic people who just don't understand mental health and had a had a manager in a workplace.

Let's talk a little bit more about that say you wake up in the morning and you just really can't face going to work. You're that anxious. How do you recommend handling that in redit? We saw some people say they have a, they have a stomach bugger migraine or something that see excuse.

So give what do you advise people to do? Do they come out to their boss? You say in some places that doesn't work.

but yeah, I think you need to know you're setting in your boss. And I mean, I think we could talk about managers could do to make IT more open and supportive environment. But if you don't know, I I mean, I would just say, hey, i'm not feeling well, i'm feeling off today when I take a day off, you don't need to specify whether.

I mean, it's kind of like people don't like to say, oh, I have diary so you don't have to say that you're having a say and you know I hope for a world where we could say i'm having a really rough day. My anxiety is just really peaked. I'm going to take some time to see how I can manage IT, and i'll check back in with you later.

That's okay. And then a manager might write back and say thank you for sharing. Let me know how I could be helpful or how I could support you um if you're feeling Better or if there's things I could do and that there's a collaboration around that is opposed to people hiding in the corner and ashamed of how they're feeling yeah.

the team I work most closely with that each year. We will say i'm taking a wellness day, but that's been very Normalized by the leader of that team defining what a welcome day is that it's okay to take IT, right? Like it's it's been set up as the norm. It's not someone doing that on their own well.

And I think that's one of the things managers and leaders can do best is by modeling all of that, right? So I often will say in my organza, i'm taking a recovery day like I will lock on on and taking a day just kind of recover and spend some time with my family and just talking about when you are stressed as opposed to being super polyana about IT and saying everything everything's great or oh yes, I know we're in the middle of a merger and acquisition and you're not really sure if you're going to have a job in six months.

But isn't change amazing? Change is amazing, right? And it's just and I think that toxic positivity leads to an environment where people don't feel safe talking about what's going on with them and then we can help them and we can't help them manage through.

And as leaders and managers were not their psychologists or therapies and yet, we have a responsibility to help them thrive in a way that makes the most sense for them. And I think that I think more managers and leaders are becoming more and powered and wise about how to do that. And we still have so so far to go ah.

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Learn that. H B S dim e slash L E A R M. So if I manager see that someone of my team might really benefit from taking a day, she's clearly off. I don't know if you think I or what, but I want to be there for her. How do I handle that?

So first, good for you if you notice that, right, that someone's off and then I would ask permission or pull them outside in know one on one type private area and then ask permission to say, hey, can I share with you you what i'm notice singer thinking and then use eyes statements of like i'm concerned i'm wondering if I may be helpful for you to take some, some time off because I think if you go in and you just say, hey, your evening after day, go home.

Now that sounds great. That sounds great. But when did you feel also punishing and shameful and some ways of like, what about when I come back or what am I .

coming back to? Yeah.

yeah. And so i'm a big fan of open questions. What's going on? How are you doing? How can I be helpful and being curious and open and realizing that there could be something going on IT could be a bad, literally a bad day and someone's, you know, going to shake IT off or they really will appreciate being seen and the support and you can offer for them actions.

You can say, listen, if it's four, you can take a rest of day. If it's tougher, you can work in this quite its face. What else might be most tougher?

yeah. Something that some people with an anxiety disorder do is compulsively seek reassurance. And if you manage someone who does that, how can you respond compassionately? And an also in a way that helps them check the compulsion. So it's not becoming a burden on you.

So first I would let them know that i'm noticing and that and I get IT you want to to check or maybe your nervous because it's a new job. How would we find out a good kid's for us to do that checking? And so me with schedule and meeting at a time in a way that that works and functions, and then you could take rate them off right now.

That's what we would do in therapy with someone who we are trying manage obsessive compulsive behavioral like that. But you could do IT behaviorally with someone that you oversee, but I, I would do IT very transparently, if just, I would Normalize hate IT makes sense on some level that you wanted cheat in. And this level checking in is not empowering for you and IT gets in the way what i'm doing. So it's figure out a different path to get you off of that.

Yeah and maybe could you imagine doing that?

Uh you know i'm actually sort of taking notes because I do have people who need a lot of um you know some people do need a lot more handholding yeah and IT does get in the way it's time consuming and I know something else is going on there and something I can fix. So this is very helpful language to think about.

So what if you're the boss and someone comes to you and says i'm having trouble with so and so on our team and you know that so so struggles with anxiety and that the behavior like, let's take cody for example, codes irritable with a colleague. That college comes to her boss and says, I can't do with her your itabhi. It's impacting our work together. How do you handle that?

That's when IT sucks to be a manager because you can't talk about someone else as things I A that's not appropriate to. Um and so all you can value is how hard and how that might be. And then you could ask about possible solutions, what might need to happen going forward, what might be a reasonable save.

But the other thing you can do, i've been in this position where you you cannot, obviously, as Michaels said, you cannot talk about .

someone else .

medical conditions, but you can say to the person raising the complaint, can you imagine why code would have reacted that way? And basically urge empathy, get yourself in code shoes because, you know, IT cody ma'd had a perfectly good reason to get a little bit sharp. So you know, when someone complaints about someone else, i'm always hyper aware that i'm hearing one side of the story well.

And I think having written a book about difficult behaviors, right, I can tell you I wouldn't even venture a percentage, but a huge majority of that behavior is driven by anxiety, stress.

yes.

me sure. When a colleagues anxiety is starting to wear on the team or to affect performance in some way, affect the organization, how much should the boss accommodate in the face of broader impact from an individuals struggle? The anxiety yeah.

there's not an easy answer to this question because you really need to think about the individual in the context and the circumstances that are they going through something that's particularly unique and what the value is of that individuals do. They have along standing relationship as as someone who just dropped in and they started and they really have chAllenging behaviors that are interfering with some of their performance.

You know, at the end of the day, and i've i've heard you say that on your pocket, right, like we're there to work. We have to work. We have to perform at some level. And to its it's really figuring out where the anxious is going from is a short term.

Can we do stuff to accommodate them that's going to help them get through? Or is this a longer term problem? And then we need a longer term solution, which could mean a different role in the organization, IT could mean a leave of absence? Or is this something that we just need to call IT, right, that this isn't a good fit for them and we figure out a different self or a different role .

that might be a Better fit? Yes, that's actually what cody told us, that SHE SHE was a supervisor on the night shift, and I was just too stressful for her. And so SHE shifted off well.

And I usually encourage people not to make a choice about their career or job when they're in a crisis mode. So they're in an acute anxiety state or an acute depressive state. This is why I often encourage a leave of absence that you just take some time to get yourself Better, and you may ultimately decide to leave the job, but at least then you're leaving the job with a wise mind as opposed to an emotional mind.

You know, i've had multiple pets who really needed that time to step back. So some of them came back with those accommodation. Some of them came back being able to talk to their manager.

So part of what they learned is how do they manage and talk about and out themselves when they're having anxious and then get some accommodations. But in that moment, you don't want to just quit because that's an avoid in strategy. And IT might work and works in the moment because now i'm no longer working, but it's not a good long term strategy. yeah.

So I want to ask you about a feeling that I bet a word of us get, it's sunday, and you feel, you just feel your anxiety, right, sing and rising. And so mary had a question about how to keep what he calls the sundays scary at bay.

I don't have minds, idea, totally figured out. And mind's idea about work can really take over my time outside of work, and and I have therapy, and I have physical activity, and I have meditation. But sometimes I feel like I need a little bit more to maybe get out of all right. Are there any other tips or things you can do to get yourself on stock if you're really in that spy role?

So perhaps to mary for having full box, there is also this strategy that we use typically with people have generalized anxiety disorder, which means they worry often and their anxiety is diffused. They're just think of about something all the time. And so we use the strategy with them called scheduled worry time where you actually like block off time to worry, which I know sounds counter into.

But the reality is if if I have stuff coming through my mind and i'm worrying all the time, having a hard time getting unstuck, ed from IT, then I might want a schedule time where I say, right, not now, mind, and actually talk back to me. Not now will think about that leader. So i'm really worried about that meeting.

Not now. I'll come back to IT and think about IT seven, thirty and night and then or even write yourself a sticky no to think about and so you're compartmentalise ing and doing IT really intentionally. I'm going to let myself worry about that, but i'm going to do IT later so that the worry isn't premiated your entire day. That's one tool strategy that often works for people who have really just a few anxiety and of a hard time turning IT off.

Yeah, I can see like doing that at noon on sunday, right? Like just gonna out of the way now and enjoy the rest of my sunday.

This has been great. And I took a note too. So thank you from the bottom, my heart.

Send you the bill.

A three. You've just have an out.

Really, really. Yeah, you can direct that to AManda.

our producer.

But thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

That's our show. I made me gallow.

I made me bernstein. Hv are regularly publishes articles about mental health that'll help you take care of yourself and be a compassionate colleague. boss.

Articles like managing anxiety when there is no room for error and when your employee discloses a mental health conditioned. These pieces, along with many more, are available on H, B, R. That work.

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