Job Causing Stress and Anxiety

When it comes to work, many men feel like the weight of the entire solar sys­tem rests on their shoul­ders. Or, like “jug­gling flam­ing chain­saws while rid­ing a uni­cy­cle on the high­way.” Okay, that last descrip­tion is pret­ty crazy, but you get the point. Work and all the respon­si­bil­i­ties that come with it can be very intense. The pres­sure that this inten­si­ty brings may mess up your emo­tion­al bal­ance and amp your stress and anx­i­ety lev­els. If you under­stand what I have just described a lit­tle too well, it may be time to con­sid­er ther­a­py. Your mind’s prob­a­bly, at this exact moment, say­ing some­thing like, “Ther­a­py is for peo­ple with seri­ous prob­lems.” Well, strug­gling at work and deal­ing with anx­i­ety ARE real prob­lems and mens ther­a­py can help.  

 

The Extent of Job Stress and Anxiety for Men

Men’s men­tal health at work is a big deal. 83% of work­ers in the Unit­ed States suf­fer from work-relat­ed stress, accord­ing to OSHA (Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion). That’d mean at least 8 out of 10 peo­ple, right? Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it’s most­ly the women in that group who seek help. While some men may attend ther­a­py, many do not, lin­ing up with soci­etal stereo­types regard­ing mas­culin­i­ty. Whether you attend ther­a­py or not to deal with your stress is your choic­es; how­ev­er, mens ther­a­py can be help­ful. 

Sci­ence sug­gests that some stress is help­ful for our bod­ies. With­out it, we would have a hard time grow­ing and adapt­ing to our envi­ron­ment. It would also be dif­fi­cult to build or enhance our mus­cles with­out phys­i­cal stress. Work­place-relat­ed stress doesn’t get flagged as often because of triv­i­al­iz­ing the term ‘stress.’ Stress, in its ordi­nary sense, is alright. But what reg­u­lar men (non-psy­chol­o­gists) usu­al­ly describe as stress is anx­i­ety. Men­tal stress, such as work­place stress mat­ters just as much as stress in oth­er areas of your life. So when does the stress from your job become a prob­lem?

 

Well, it depends on the per­son and their cop­ing strate­gies. Many peo­ple use a vari­ety of cop­ing strate­gies, includ­ing active strate­gies — like fac­ing the chal­lenge head on — or pas­sive strate­gies such as work­ing more/ignoring, distracting/like increased screen time, or avoid­ing the issue. Stress can turn into anx­i­ety when the stress begins to cre­ate impair­ment, not only in work set­tings, but also in social, recre­ation­al, or per­son­al areas. Not only can it sap your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, but it can also open the door s as big a deal as any­thing. 

 

Anx­i­ety can also affect your phys­i­cal health, too. Insom­nia, headaches, and a recur­rent pound­ing heart are some of the phys­i­cal symp­toms of anx­i­ety at work. Gabor Mate has an excel­lent book, When the Body Says No,  that dis­cuss­es how per­son­al­i­ty traits as well as behav­iors can cre­ate stress that evolve into dif­fer­ent phys­i­cal health con­di­tions. 

 

What does workplace anxiety feel like

For clar­i­ty pur­pos­es, these are the symp­toms of work­place anx­i­ety:

• Think­ing of work makes you uncom­fort­able
• Sun­day scaries — dread­ing or hav­ing appre­hen­sion about work on Mon­day
• Appre­hen­sion in talk­ing with dif­fi­cult cowork­ers
• Deflat­ed moti­va­tion
• Expe­ri­enc­ing imposter syn­drome
• Drop in focus lev­els
• Repeat­ed pro­cras­ti­na­tion
• Hap­py at night, moody in the morn­ing

Do these sound famil­iar? Odds are you’ve brushed these aside as “reg­u­lar stress.” The truth is these are not reg­u­lar stress symp­toms if they hap­pen reg­u­lar­ly.

Once you’ve hon­est­ly assessed just how reg­u­lar these symp­toms are, you might con­clude that a professional’s help isn’t a ter­ri­ble idea. 

Bet­ter yet, many com­pa­nies have ther­a­py ben­e­fits avail­able, through Employ­ee Assis­tance Pro­grams or com­pa­ny ben­e­fits. Ther­a­py ben­e­fits may mean meet­ing with a pro­fes­sion­al for a set num­ber of ses­sions, or talk­ing with a help line and get­ting refer­rals to local resources. To gain the Employ­ee Assis­tance ben­e­fit, employ­ees can talk with their human resources rep­re­sen­ta­tive and access the ben­e­fits avail­able. 

 

How mens therapy can help with workplace challenges

Does ther­a­py make any dif­fer­ence to how you han­dle work­place chal­lenges and anx­i­ety? Yes.

Dur­ing ther­a­py, you’ll guid­ed on how to improve stress man­age­ment, com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter, reduce anx­i­ety, and bet­ter bal­ance the require­ments of life and work. Let’s break that down.

 

Stress management

Learn tech­niques to han­dle stress like a pro. Yes, it’s pos­si­ble — no, it’s not just the tips you find on Google.

Your ther­a­pist can teach you mind­ful­ness tech­niques, breath­ing exer­cis­es, and oth­er stress-bust­ing strate­gies in depth. You’ll learn to iden­ti­fy stress trig­gers and pat­terns, and devel­op resis­tance to cer­tain stress­ful sit­u­a­tions.

 

Improved Communication

Boost your abil­i­ty to express your­self clear­ly and assertive­ly — espe­cial­ly for one-on-ones at work. This will also help you have bet­ter rela­tion­ships with cowork­ers and more effec­tive lead­er­ship skills.

Work-Life Balance

Dis­cov­er how to set bound­aries and pri­or­i­tize your time. No more miss­ing your kid’s base­ball game because you’re stuck at the office try­ing to fig­ure out why the print­er is smok­ing.

 

Anxiety Reduction

Devel­op tools to man­age anx­i­ety, whether it’s about pub­lic speak­ing, job secu­ri­ty, or that week­ly sta­tus meet­ing with your boss.

Career Guidance

Get an objec­tive per­spec­tive on your career path. A ther­a­pist can help you align your work with your val­ues and long-term goals. If your career is the actu­al source of your stress, your ther­a­pist may be the only per­son equipped to notice and point it out.

 

Finding a quality therapist

Good men’s ther­a­pists don’t put pres­sure on you to talk or per­form. Rather, they will cre­ate a space where you can process through work–or life–challenges and iden­ti­fy solu­tions. Mens ther­a­pists under­stand that improv­ing your per­for­mance and emo­tion­al bal­ance, as a man, is what you’re gun­ning for, and so all activ­i­ties are geared towards that. With a good men’s ther­a­pist, you can expect:

• A judg­ment-free zone
• Prac­ti­cal exer­cis­es (a gym for your mind)
• Goal-set­ting
• Take home tasks

If it wasn’t already obvi­ous, your suc­cess in ther­a­py depends on your ther­a­pist, so find­ing the right one is sig­nif­i­cant.

Quick tips for finding the right therapist for you

• Look for men’s ther­a­pists specif­i­cal­ly. You want to be sure they under­stand issues relat­ing to mas­culin­i­ty and that their rec­om­men­da­tions match your expec­ta­tions as a man.
• Check that they’re licensed
• See if they offer online ther­a­py (just in case wad­ing through traf­fic to attend ther­a­py is not some­thing you want)
• Trust your gut. It led you here. It can lead you even fur­ther.

 

Men’s mental health therapist near me

As a man, emo­tion­al fit­ness mat­ters even more than phys­i­cal fit­ness. With­out strength­en­ing these emo­tion­al mus­cles, it’s easy to con­stant­ly be over­whelmed by men­tal health issues like anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and trau­ma.

To put up a prop­er fight, you’ve got to feed your emo­tions with ideas and strate­gies that build resilience. Some­times, that infor­ma­tion finds its way to you (after a long time), but oth­er times, you’ve got to go after it.

Ther­a­py is filled with these ideas. From judg­ment-free analy­sis to research-backed meth­ods, ther­a­pists know how to unlock your total emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal strengths.

Whether you’re in Texas, Vir­ginia, or Utah, if you’d like to try men’s ther­a­py, con­tact me for a free con­sul­ta­tion. A much more con­fi­dent you is on the rise.

Ther­a­py may be the last door you need to open for the upgrad­ed you to emerge. What do you say?

Sched­ule your free 15-minute con­sul­ta­tion