hi everyone have you ever heard the term high functioning anxiety high functioning anxiety is
a term used to describe people who experience high levels of anxiety but are still able to maintain
an outward appearance of functioning normally people with high functioning anxiety may be able
to perform well in their personal and professional lives despite experiencing significant inner
turmoil they may have a hard time relaxing and may feel a constant sense of worry or stress
but they're still able to manage their anxiety and continue to meet their responsibilities
in today's video we're going to be talking about some of the characteristics of high
functioning anxiety and what you can do to better manage it but before I get into that
just a couple of disclaimers to go over I'm a registered psychologist in the province of
British Columbia Canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended
as a substitute for replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional
now with those things out of the way let's start talking about high functioning anxiety
now the thing is it's important to note that high functioning anxiety is not a formal psychological
diagnosis rather it's a term to describe people who experience lots of anxiety but are still
able to seemingly function normally and complete everything that they need to do on a day-to-day
basis the problem with high functioning anxiety is that while the person is still
able to do everything that they're supposed to do they do it with this constant black cloud
of anxiety and Dread all around them so high functioning anxiety differs from traditional
anxiety disorders and that it may not reach the threshold of what we call clinically significant
distress or functional impairment but it's still an anxiety condition that can limit
a person or just interfere with their General quality of life or sense of enjoyment in life
there's no real way for us to know how many people have high functioning anxiety because it's not a
condition that's diagnosed or that's documented in health statistics now that being said we do
know that anxiety is a very common mental health concern that affects many many people about one in
five people will experience a diagnosable anxiety disorder every year that's a diagnosable anxiety
condition like generalized anxiety disorder social anxiety health anxiety phobias those
sorts of things so there's a fairly good chance that many more people than that experience high
functioning anxiety so this might raise the question of if high functioning anxiety is not
a diagnosable condition how do I know if I have it how do I know if I have high functioning anxiety
now although everyone experiences anxiety differently there are some
signs and symptoms that may suggest that you do have high functioning anxiety
things like constantly worrying or feeling overwhelmed all the time you you find yourself
asking a lot of what-if questions worrying about negative things that may never actually happen
constantly feeling overwhelmed like you don't have enough time to do everything that you need to do
or you just have way too much on your plate all the time difficulty concentrating having problems
maintaining your focus or your attention on what you're doing you might find that your mind wanders
while you're trying to work on a task or that it's hard to get something done without jumping
between tasks without completing any of them so you jump from thing to thing to thing you might
find that you have difficulty reading as you lose focus on what you're reading and have to re-read
things over and over and over again because you're having such a challenging time staying focused
um people with high functioning anxiety often have difficulty making decisions they struggle
to make decisions because they're fearful of making the wrong decision or making a mistake
or missing out on having made a better decision uh they may seek reassurance from other people or
input from others into what decision they should make or what course of action they should take
they may not have confidence in themselves and their decision-making ability and so they find
that they have to constantly collect more and more and more information to try and ensure
that they have all the information they need to make the right decision now this results in
a person being highly indecisive and taking a lot longer to make decisions they become much
less efficient at making decisions if you have high functioning anxiety you might find that you
have difficulty relaxing or or just quieting your mind you're constantly thinking about something
feeling a sense of having to always be busy but more importantly having to always be productive
every moment of the day should be spent on doing something functional and feeling this sense of
pressure to always be at Peak efficiency and performance someone with high functioning
anxiety may have difficulty sleeping and this can take many different forms like difficulty falling
asleep it may take a person a couple of hours to fall asleep because their mind will not shut off
thinking about all the things that they need to do or all the things that they need to do tomorrow
you may find that you wake up multiple times throughout the night and have difficulty falling
back asleep because again you can't turn your mind off you may find that you wake up really early in
the morning well before your alarm clock goes off and you have difficulty falling back asleep
and in the morning when you wake up you may find yourself feeling unrefreshed and still tired even
if you did get a full night's sleep people with high functioning anxiety may experience vague
physical symptoms like like headaches stomach problems fatigue lack of energy they may go to
see their doctor about these complaints to see if there's anything medically wrong or
some sort of underlying physical condition that's contributing to them feeling lousy all the time
but often in these situations their doctor can't find anything that is medically underlying
the physical symptoms and the doctor may not think to ask about whether or not the person
is experiencing anxiety a potential cause of the physical symptoms it's really common for people
with high functioning anxiety to have high levels of perfectionism or an excessive need for control
for controlling situations people with high functioning anxiety are often very very high
Achievers who have extremely high standards for themselves aiming for perfection in everything
that they do this leads to very high standards or expectations that must be met and if these
excessively high standards are not met that serves as an additional source of anxiety or distress
you may have difficulty with change or adapting to new situations because those situations are
unfamiliar to you and you may not know exactly what you need to do or exactly what's going on
and as a result it's not uncommon for people with high functioning anxiety to want to have control
over the situation or to know exactly what's going on so that they can be prepared for it
and to know exactly what they need to do now related to this people with high functioning
anxiety may have difficulty delegating tasks to other people or asking other people for help
if I have high functioning anxiety and I need control in a situation so that I
know everything's going to be okay it makes it very difficult for me to now pass off tasks to
other people because what if they don't do the task properly and what if something goes wrong
therefore it's just simpler and easier if I do everything myself and not delegate to other people
and this may also prevent me from asking for help from other people as it feels better to
just rely on myself to ensure that everything is done the way I think it should be done
finally high functioning anxiety can often lead to difficulty saying no or setting boundaries with
other people it's not uncommon for people with high functioning anxiety to be people Pleasers
wanting to do things for other people as a way of making sure that people like them or to do
these things to try and avoid potential conflict and as a result of this I might take on other
people's responsibilities or take on more tasks to help other people and this contributes to that
feeling of being overwhelmed or that sense that I just have way too much on my plate all the time
now I mentioned that people with high functioning anxiety seem on the surface like they're still
able to do everything that they need to do and are still able to function at a high level in
their life and while this is the case that doesn't mean that high functioning anxiety doesn't cause
problems in a person's life there are a lot of ways in which high functioning anxiety can
limit and interfere in a person's life things like difficulty relaxing or enjoying activities getting
less pleasure or reward out of the things that you're doing in your life difficulty sleeping or
maintaining a healthy and restorative sleep schedule difficulty managing your time and
meeting deadlines because of decreased efficiency problems with relationships or social interactions
due to anxiety not trusting other people to do things or avoiding other people more generally
problems with change or adapting to new situations not being able to just go with
the flow or take things on as they come up difficulty expressing how you're feeling or
difficulty experiencing a sense of vulnerability with other people problems with physical intimacy
due to worry or decreased interest or libido and excessive need for approval or validation from
other people problems maintaining relationships or forming new friendships or romantic relationships
problems with assertiveness difficulty saying no setting boundaries with other people feeling
awkward or uncomfortable in social situations and avoiding social situations entirely or
avoiding activities entirely due to your anxiety it's quite a list so while a person with high
functioning anxiety is still on the surface able to complete their day-to-day activities
they may not do so as efficiently and there may be a lot of other problems that aren't
readily apparent to other people or maybe even the person with high functioning anxiety themselves
and there are a lot of things that can tend to make high functioning anxiety worse
such as stressful life events or situations my under conditions of stress this tends to
exacerbate anxiety making these symptoms of high functioning anxiety even worse lack of sleep which
I've talked about poor nutrition lack of physical activity increased caffeine or alcohol or drug use
these are all things that can make anxiety symptoms worse poor time management or
unrealistic expectations can lead to increased stress thereby making a person's anxiety worse and
the more a person feels overwhelmed by everything that they need to do this can lead to avoiding
tasks or responsibilities which may reduce anxiety in the short term but just contributes
to overall feelings of overwhelm and anxiousness just more things I need to do that I'm not doing
what do what can you do if you're experiencing high functioning anxiety
well fortunately there are a number of skills or tools that you can use to manage symptoms of
anxiety depending on the extent and nature of the anxiety symptoms so some good General tools for
managing high functioning anxiety are things like practicing good self-care like making sure you're
taking your taking good care of yourself by trying to get enough sleep and having that regular sleep
schedule that's so important eating a healthy diet engaging in activities that you enjoy doing
seeking social support making sure that you're connecting with other people for emotional support
and to help reduce those feelings of isolation and aloneness um ensuring that you're getting
enough exercise and physical activity we know that regular physical activity can help reduce anxiety
decrease the physical impact of stress and can improve overall physical and mental health
practicing relaxation techniques things like deep breathing progressive muscle relaxation
well mindfulness meditations these can all be helpful in reducing anxiety through reducing
the physical impact that anxiety and stress are having on you um it's important to set boundaries
with other people practicing assertiveness to ensure that you protect your time and your energy
it can be helpful to reduce or limit your caffeine and alcohol intake both caffeine and alcohol can
contribute to anxiety in different ways caffeine it's a stimulant so it's something that's going
to activate your nervous system and if you're anxious your nervous system is already amped up
so adding caffeine it's just going to make things worse um people with high levels of anxiety can
sometimes use alcohol to try and self-medicate the feelings of anxiety but this only provides
short-term relief and often the anxiety rebounds more strongly once the effects of alcohol wear off
now I have numerous videos on my YouTube channel about different tools for managing things like
worry anxiety and social situations health anxiety exposure therapy building tolerance
for uncertainty these are all tools that can be effective for dealing with high functioning
anxiety depending on the nature of your anxiety symptoms so if you want to learn more detail
about these tools I'd encourage you to take a look at those videos on my YouTube channel
and if you're interested in learning everything that you could possibly want to know about
worry and effective tools for managing excessive worry I'd encourage you to check out this video
so that's it for today's video as always thank you for making it all
the way to the end of this video and I'll see you in the next one