High-functioning anxiety, while not a diagnosable mental health disorder, describes how a growing population of people live alongside anxiety but do not generally experience the symptoms that warrant a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder.
To learn more about the nine most notable symptoms of high-functioning anxiety and whether they resonate in your life, keep reading to see where you fall.
1. High sensitivity and deep caring
High-functioning anxious people connect easily with others, care about pleasing them, and resonate with deep empathy. They operate from full hearts, which can lead them to “care a lot about too much.” While most people would care less in order to be less encumbered, high-functioning anxious people aren’t capable of that.
The challenge, of course, is to balance all the priorities (because “everything is a priority”), and to remember to take good care of yourself as well. People who take on so much have to be healthy and up to the task. Sleep, exercise, nutrition, and self-kindness are essential allies for a high-functioning anxious life.
2. They own the mantra that perfect is ideal, while good enough is tolerable
While the desire for perfection can be a driving factor, high-functioning anxious people know when to take “good enough” as a compromise in order to check things off an endless list. Their ability to pivot on their motivations allows them to stay productive without getting lost in the details.
This distinguishes high-functioning anxiety from other forms of anxiety because the high-functioning person is in charge of how they manage their anxiety. It is a tool to be leveraged for a result. When the control over their anxiety shifts or it runs amok, that’s a sign that therapy may be useful to help redirect this energy back to something productive.
The sign to watch for is procrastination, which often results when someone is unable to shake their perfectionism. Procrastination runs counterintuitive to the energetic flow that the high-functioning person is used to.
3. Uncomfortable in their own skin a lot of the time
What most people would recognize as an occasional (and usually unwelcome) discomfort, high-functioning anxious people think of as the norm. They can be “unsettled” and uncomfortable in their own skin much of the time. And being so isn’t indicative of a pathology. It simply “is,” and is actually foundational to their drive and ability to accomplish so much.
Because high-functioning anxiety is often used as a driver for getting things done, the buzz is part of the experience — not having it can be a greater cause for concern.
4. Evenings and early mornings can be active instead of restful
While the rest of the world sleeps, high-functioning anxious people are often amping up. They can stay active well into the evening – even burning the midnight oil — completing tasks, perfecting those already done, and creating new ones. Or they rise well before the sun to get tasks completed.
Working in this way provides a private, chaos-free way to execute with the level of care that is so important to this unique population. It can also be a productive outlet for the extra energy with which they live.
5. Sleep requires effort and a routine
Because the anxious person’s mind doesn’t slow down, the body doesn’t, either. The weight of worry, racing thoughts, and planning make falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting quality sleep difficult.
Combating the detrimental physical and mental effects of insomnia and sleep deprivation necessitates discipline around sleep. Strategies for ensuring healthful sleep might include:
- Calming rituals like a bath, shower, meditation, and/or reading to quiet the mind.
- Setting a firm bedtime to intercept the temptation to indulge the mind’s busyness.
- Using sleep props (e.g. a mouth guard, ear plugs, eye shades, controlled air temperatures) to block out sensory stimuli and maintain healthy sleep.
6. Planning for the next day is a habit
Whether planning the next day or the next year, the high-functioning anxious person is prone to planning. Looking at calendars, scheduling tasks, laying out clothes, prepping for the next day, and responding to emails are all ways of channeling anxiety into productivity…well ahead of schedule whenever possible.
7. Using chemicals to relax
Anxiety disorders of all kinds have a variety of root causes – fear, trauma, genetics, physical chemistry, etc. The high-functioning anxious person, however, doesn’t have time to sit with these antagonists. There is work to be done, appearances to be upheld, success to be won, and active distraction often helps keep these deeper concerns at bay.
But relaxing and facilitating sleep can be challenging when the culprits of anxiety aren’t addressed, and “numbing out” can be a key way of relaxing. Alcohol, marijuana use, and other means of self-medicating are often part of the high-functioning anxious person’s nighttime routine, often simply out of a desire to “shut down” the brain and focus on other things, including sleep.
8. Procrastinating
Procrastinating is a tool that can be leveraged by high-functioning anxious people. It’s also another way to think about high-functioning avoidance. Different from avoidance, procrastination offers anxiety a productive outlet, just not quite the most productive outlet. You might need to clean off your desk, and feel better for having done so, but that extra time and focus can be costly when facing down an important (and inflexible) deadline.
Procrastination will almost always drive up anxiety – the trick is to decide how much extra anxiety you can afford to feel without it becoming detrimental to your goals.
9. Slow making decisions
Decisions, especially difficult ones, can be hard for most of us, but for any kind of anxious person, they can be challenging. Caring deeply about a variety of potential outcomes can provide you helpful insights, or can leave you stuck thinking through all the various possibilities and unable to make the decisions you need to.
The key is to use anxiety to help identify the elements in a decision you care about most, and choose the best balance among the options available to you. If you find this tough, or your decision-making tips beyond slow into stuck, anxiety might be getting in your way.
So how did you do? If you find that you have high-functioning anxiety you’re not alone. Does it warrant therapy? That’s a question only you can answer, but if it is affecting your overall wellness, it’s worth considering.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.