High-functioning Anxiety

What is high-functioning anxiety?

For most, this usually means you are still able to have a high level of functioning, such as taking care of all of your responsibilities and going to work, but underneath it all, you may be anxious and overwhelmed, struggling with worry and negative thoughts frequently. Often times people may look at you as a person that is calm and collected, but you know better, and you secretly hope that you can keep hiding it.

High-functioning anxiety disorder is not an actual clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), but it can still cause some real distress for people.

What are the symptoms of high-functioning anxiety?

It often has many of the same symptoms found in other anxiety disorders such as excessive worry and overthinking, problems with sleep, muscle tension, and becoming easily irritable (since we are already a bit on edge), and as you can imagine, this culminates into feeling fatigued, tired or overwhelmed.

Who does it impact?
Oftentimes, this can affect people that are used to being successful, high achievers, who perhaps have not experienced many failures in accomplishing most of their goals in the past; and of course while this is something that many would take pride in, it can sometimes become challenged when maintaining a high level of perfection is not always possible.

What can I do about it?
Often times the hardest part is to admit that we are feeling overwhelmed or stressed and that we need some help. Secondly, many of the same strategies used in managing other anxiety disorders are also applicable here, including how much rest we are getting, regular exercise and what we are putting into our bodies on a regular basis, incorporating some relaxation exercises, as well as being more aware of our personal time and energy boundaries.

Sometimes taking an inventory of those self-care items and making some adjustments can help to get you back on track. If you think you may need to dive a little deeper into what may be going on beneath the surface, feel free to contact me to see if counseling could help you better manage that anxiety.