What is “High Functioning Anxiety?”

While not technically a ‘diagnosable’ disorder, many people live with symptoms without them significantly impacting their functioning (which is a hallmark for a diagnosis). People struggling with this may experience things like exhaustion, burnout, and have difficulty relaxing. They may struggle with thoughts or inadequacy, self-doubt, and a need to compared yourself to others. Physically, you may have symptoms of muscle tension, fatigue, headaches, and GI problems.

There are several things to look out for:
- Being very sensitive and very caring. You find it easy to connect with others, but can sometimes care ‘too much.’ This can cause stress and pressure as you are almost too in tune with the feelings of others.

What to do? Remember to take care of yourself and prioritize yourself. Do the ‘easy things’ like sleeping, eating right, exercising, and engaging in self-care (aka all those annoying things that your therapist keeps reminding you to do!).

- You may have difficulty concentrating and focusing. You may be easily distracted, especially for tasks that require more sustained attention.

- While you may prefer to be perfect, you are alright with being ‘good enough.’ This way, you can stay productive and motivated because you can be flexible. Watch out for procrastination, though- this can pop up when things can’t be ‘perfect’ so you find it challenging to get things started.

- You feel just generally uncomfortable or unsettled. This feeling may motivate you to accomplish things.

- You are active in the late evenings and early mornings. While this is a ‘good time’ to get to your to-do list, remember that you need downtime to rest as well. Doing extra work can help your daytimes run more smoothly, but you will eventually begin to feel run down and tired.

- Speaking of being tired, it may not be easy to come by sleep. Since your brain is go-go- go even late at night, it may be difficult to wind down and quiet the thoughts. 

What to do? Create sleep routines (otherwise known as sleep hygiene) and be firm about your boundaries around your night times and sleep.

- You may be prone to planning (or maybe even overplanning). You love calendars, schedules, prepping for the next day, and responding right away to emails/texts. You love to be ahead of schedule.
- You may rely on substances to relax and unwind. Self-medicating may become a part of your nighttime routine so that you can find rest and sleep. Not necessarily good or bad- just something to keep an eye on.

- Procrastination…there’s always something to do, something to plan, something to organize. Probably all helpful and probably even necessary, but you may avoid more difficult tasks (or just ones that you don’t want to do) by still being productive. Keep in mind, though, that procrastination can actually amp up anxiety because things are being missed or avoided.

- You may find it challenging to make decisions. You’re vested in the outcome, and you care deeply about the people and situation, but that sometimes makes it very noisy for you to make a decision.

Therapy would be a great place to work on these struggles. Additionally, you can focus on:
- Avoiding comparing yourself to others
- Work to maintain a healthy work (or school) and life balance
- Create a strong support network
- Identify your core values- what is truly important to you?
- Practice mindfulness
- Establish and maintain healthy boundaries with others and yourself
- Know that you are not alone- a lot of people struggle with this!
- (And this is a hard one…) Learn to accept constructive feedback