How to conquer anxiety at work

The workplace can be stressful. It can be great for your personal and professional growth but it can also leave you in situations where you’re not 100% comfortable. Feelings of nervousness and anxiousness can be a result of uncomfortable situations, and that’s perfectly normal as it’s part of your progression in your career. So here’s our top tips on how you can conquer anxiety at work:

Take each day as it comes

If you’re starting to get stressed, nervous or anxious about one thing, it’s quite easy to let that happen to you for a number of things and let it amount to something much bigger than it is. Your job can get your worked up over a handful of situations, so to avoid it, a good way is to tackle it as they come. You can only do one thing at a time, so as long as you prioritise your work, it’ll keep you on track – one task at a time.

Change your perception, take things as a challenge

Perception is a big factor of anxiety. If you see things as an obstacle or a road block, you’re likely to feel helpless and want to give up before you start. Whereas if you start to change your perception to take certain situations as a challenge, your mind will start to think of ways to overcome it, rather than throw the towel in before you start.

A good way is to start incentivising yourself. If you’ve got a presentation to do in front of your colleagues and public speaking is not your forte, then treating yourself to a better lunch or going to the movies with your friends once it’s done can help you decompress.

Don’t skip out on a good night’s sleep

A lack of sleep can do a lot of harm to your body, especially mentally. It can leave your restless and will deprive you of resetting your body to tackle the next day ahead. So make sure you get a good night’s sleep.
Try a getting a solid 8 hours sleep. It may seem like a lot for some, but once your body gets in the habit of it, you’ll find yourself feeling reenergised for the next day (and not needing that hit of coffee to keep you going through the afternoon).

Drink tea instead of coffee

Coffee may be part and parcel of your morning ritual, but if you find yourself becoming more anxious from work, then coffee isn’t helping. Although it can get you going in the morning, it can also lead to insomnia, nervousness, and restlessness, which is the last thing you need when you have anxiety at the workplace.

By limiting the spikes in your blood sugar levels and switching this out with a nice cup of tea, you can still get your daily dose of caffeine and still have your warm drink in the morning.

Particularly if you struggle going to bed or just need to unwind a little, chamomile tea has a great calming effect on your body (and brain). So put down that large triple shot cappuccino and start trying out different flavours of tea!

Get into the habit of taking a break

Whether it’s taking a lap around your office, making a tea or just stepping away from your desk for a couple of minutes, taking a break from work is important. You concentration levels don’t last longer than 50mins to an hour so making a habit of filling up your water, having a quick chat with someone about something other than work, whatever it may be, will help you take a step back and put your focus elsewhere, which will help you avoid getting caught up with work and worsening your work anxiety.
Find out 5 ideal ways to take a break at work.

Work on your breathing

It’s important to find ways to bring you back into a calm state of being. For some people yoga helps, for others it’s meditation that does the trick, but even if you just taking a couple of minutes to gather your thoughts and focus on your breathing, this will automatically slow your heart rate and help you decompress.

Getting into a habit of doing this is key. Dedicating a couple of minutes every day will help your mind get refocussed on the task at hand and reduce your feelings of restlessness and stress.

Snack the right way

Healthy snacks will help. So that means you need to put down that bag or crisps, the chocolate bar and sweets, because that will only appease you for a minute or so (before you put a spike in your blood sugar levels). A good place to look is

So here’s specific snacks that will help you stay productive for work.