According to the Health and Safety Executive, 17.1 million working days were lost to work-related stress, anxiety, and depression in the UK last year. If your job is making you anxious, you are not alone — and there are evidence-based strategies that can help.
Signs of Workplace Anxiety
- Dreading Sunday evenings or Monday mornings
- Difficulty concentrating or making decisions at work
- Physical symptoms — racing heart, sweating, nausea — before meetings or deadlines
- Avoiding colleagues, calls, or presentations
- Perfectionism that prevents you from finishing tasks
- Irritability or emotional outbursts that feel disproportionate
- Insomnia driven by work thoughts
What Causes Workplace Anxiety?
Common triggers include unrealistic deadlines, micromanagement, job insecurity, imposter syndrome, toxic team dynamics, and blurred work-life boundaries (especially in remote work). For senior professionals and founders, the pressure of leadership adds another layer — which is why executive therapy is designed specifically for high-performance environments.
Practical Strategies
Set boundaries. Define when your working day ends and protect it. If you check emails at 11pm, your brain never leaves work mode.
Break the avoidance cycle. Anxiety grows when you avoid what triggers it. Start with the smallest dreaded task and build from there.
Challenge catastrophic thinking. Ask yourself: “What is the actual worst case? How likely is it? Could I cope if it happened?” This is a core CBT technique that you can practise on your own.
When to Seek Professional Help
If workplace anxiety is affecting your sleep, relationships, or physical health — or if you have been struggling for more than a few weeks — professional support can make a significant difference. Anxiety therapy and stress management programmes at Make Peace typically show improvement within 6-12 sessions.
Sessions are available online or via therapists serving London, Manchester, Birmingham, and 29 other UK cities. All sessions are completely confidential — your employer will never know.