More Answers... (06/02/26 Newsletter): Feeling Anxious When Things Are Going Well

Hi Everyone, 

Here are More Answers... to help you head into the work week. Remember, you can see previous newsletters at askchrista.com/MoreAnswers.

Today’s topic: Feeling Anxious When Things Are Going Well (and you don't usually feel anxious)

I had an interesting meeting with one of my clients this morning. We reviewed a new structure for how the executives can enhance and support their decision-making behaviors while also improving the governance of how they get work done. What I love about this client is that the Chief People & Culture Officer is the one who drives all of the performance-related aspects of the organization, including how they get work done, and she has an uncanny knack for diagnosing the root-causes of what slows them down.

We had to get through a lot of dense and technical business operating protocol, and as a consultant you need to let the client drive. After I got on the third slide, she asked that we back up and we had an incredibly enriching, fortifying, and re-affirming discussion about how the structure, language used, phrasing, and various other elements are just what they need right now. 

Sounds great, right? Yeah... except about 30 minutes into the meeting, I felt like I hadn't done my job well enough, like there were other things I should have provided, and that I missed the mark. 

Which was so NOT what the reality of the situation was. In fact, it was the opposite. She and her VP (who is also lined up as her successor) were able to take the build and enhance it to confirm it's what they needed AND help me shape it to what will be the right fit for their Leadership Team. This is precisely what one could only wish and hope for as a consultant! So why the downer from me on me? 

Hard to Pinpoint, Easy to Feel

I decided to do for me what I advise all others to do when we feel our mental health is lagging: I first checked in physically, and three things came up: 1) I was hungry, 2) I haven't been getting good sleep, and 3) I have a lot of "life tabs" open right now, if you think about that like what happens to our laptops when we have a lot of tabs open. 

I'm also coming off of a very busy two days and about three weeks of near-constant work. I know better: I need rest. 

But then I thought: OK, that's all fine and well, but what is this feeling I'm actually feeling? 

I had to admit it: anxiety. 

Yes, we'll feel that way if we're hungry and/or tired-- or at least, it's easier to feel anxious. But for me it isn't a usual state of mind. I don't typically feel anxious even in the most anxiety-driven times, and for real that's the time we're ALL living in right now. But still, I've tended to a balance of my time, energy, and "flow" for decades. I won't claim that I never feel anxiety, but THIS kind of anxiety is not what I typically feel. 

So I did what I do and I went to the research. I'm sure I'm not the only one having some anxiety these days, especially during a fairly good meeting ("Geez! What am I feeling anxious when things are going WELL?"), so that's the topic of this week's newsletter: Feeling Anxious When Things Are Going Well (and you don't usually feel anxious). What surprised me the most wasn't so much that I felt anxious. I mean, it's not something I feel often, even under the most intensive strains. Some might say I'm fortunate, but it's not that I never feel anxious... it's that when I do, it's hard to pinpoint why I feel anxious.

But Why Anxiety?

I've written before about the importance of paying attention to ourselves physically before assuming something is psychologically wrong. We tend to go straight to our mental health forgetting that the basics have the biggest impact on our mental health: hunger, exhaustion, illness, dehydration, poor posture leading to pain (or any chronic pain)... all of these can increase our chances of feeling anxious.

But there are certainly the more mental-health related ones, and I'm not impervious to those: chronic stress, grief, major life changes, decision fatigue, and simple over-extension can all affect our mental state, leaving us more susceptible to feeling anxious. 

Most of us know this intellectually, but it is remarkable how often we forget it in practice, and if I can forget it, we all can forget it. :)

But Why Anxiety When Things Are Going Well?

What was particularly interesting to me today was that my anxiety appeared during what was objectively a good experience.

The meeting was going well. My clients were engaged. We were collaborating, refining ideas, and moving toward a stronger solution together. There was no criticism, conflict, or indication that I had missed my or their expectations. In fact, the evidence suggested exactly the opposite.

Yet there I was, sitting with a feeling that something wasn't quite right.

As I reflected after the meeting and looked for / reviewed research, I learned how much we all assume-- me included!-- that any feeling of anxiety means something bad is happening-- that we're responding to what's going on in the moment and feeling like something bad will happen next. For sure, the very definition of anxiety is feeling like something bad WILL happen: a difficult conversation, a crisis, facing uncertainty about our future (good Lord, who isn't feeling THAT right now?). 

But what receives far less attention is the experience of feeling anxious when things are actually going reasonably well, and as it turns out, the research has quite a bit to say about this.

One of the more interesting findings from stress and resilience research is that human beings are not particularly good at recognizing cumulative load while we are carrying it. ("Ah ha!" I thought an hour ago while reading this, "I think I'm onto something!"). And like all topics in my newsletters: we all know this intellectually, but we forget about it in real life:

• We tend to notice the effects only after the demands placed upon us begin exceeding the resources available to meet them. 
• The issue is not always that something new has gone wrong.
• Sometimes the issue is that we've hit our limit: too many things have required our attention, energy, focus, emotional labor, and decision-making capacity that our internal reserves begin running lower than usual (Hobfoll, 1989). (And for those of you who know me well, you know Hobfoll is one of my favorite researchers, creating the Conservation of Resources Theory of Stress)

It's the Overload, Dummy, Not the Moment

When I thought about the previous few weeks, I realized I had been operating at a pace that was sustainable only because I kept moving. I've had A LOT of client commitments, travel, family responsibilities, business decisions, writing deadlines, and the countless administrative details that come with running a business while supporting a family. None of those things was individually overwhelming. Together, however, they created what I jokingly referred to as having too many "life tabs" open.

I suspect many of you know exactly what I mean.

We often think of stress as a dramatic event, but some of the most significant strain comes from accumulation. It comes from carrying twenty small concerns, not just one big one. It comes from managing competing priorities for weeks or months at a time. It comes from repeatedly drawing upon our reserves without fully replenishing them. 

Researchers who study occupational stress frequently describe recovery as being just as important as effort (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). Performance, tenacity, creativity, judgment, and emotional regulation require hard work from us good humans every day, and we need recovery if the intensity never lets up. We need to restore ourselves, to replenish.

Effort and Output vs Reset and Recovery

Many capable, responsible, high-performing people become exceptionally skilled at effort while becoming progressively less skilled at recovery.

I see this often in executives, business owners, leaders, and professionals whose identities have become intertwined with being dependable, owning decisions, and driving the word. These are people who solve problems, carry responsibility, support others, and push through challenges. They are accustomed to functioning well under pressure without feeling anxious, which can make it particularly confusing when anxiety suddenly appears, especially if things are going well.

The assumption is often that anxiety must be signaling danger, but the research suggests something more nuanced. I wish we talked more about that part: that humans are gloriously messy, a composite of millions of inputs every moment that most of us manage with utmost grace and finesse... but these days, no one can stay "pedal to the metal" all the time. Not even me.

And we are raised hearing that anxiety is associated with uncertainty, perceived demands, anticipated challenges and than immediate threats (Barlow, 2002). But it also means we need to feel steady and balanced, rested and ready, to manage any tip in how we normally perceive the world. A lot of our physical well being is directly tied to our mental well-being, and when we neglect that physical part-- "the basics"-- our nervous system loudly clears its throat and demands some attention.

My Own Observations...

As I considered my own circumstances, I could see several areas that deserved attention. Sleep has been inconsistent. Recovery time has been limited. Several important personal and professional matters are competing for mental (and emotional) bandwidth. None of these realities is catastrophic, but collectively they represented a meaningful demand on my energy and attention.

The more I read, the more I am reminded how sleep appears repeatedly throughout the anxiety literature. We all know this, but here's the deal: insufficient sleep increases emotional reactivity while reducing our ability to regulate emotional responses effectively (Goldstein & Walker, 2014). This doesn't mean a poor night's sleep automatically creates anxiety or makes us more susceptible to it, but it does mean that many of us are attempting to interpret our emotions while operating with diminished internal resources (and needing to conserve those internal resources is the basis of Hobfoll's work).

And how we're all living some truth to intense uncertainty right now? Well here's what I also learned: uncertainty requires the brain to continuously assess possibilities, outcomes, risks, and scenarios, which can significantly increase psychological strain and depletion (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013).

Some Reassurance...

What I found reassuring is that anxiety itself is not necessarily evidence that something is wrong with us. Sometimes it is evidence that something within us deserves attention, and a lot of times it's because our physical resources have limits. Couple this with the accumulation of responsibilities that stack up over time, and most times the best cure is to stop, reset, and recover in the best way possible. Many times, that's taking a break. Eating on time and eating good food (even a stalk of celery or one apple can make a difference!). 

The answer may not always be that simple, but sometimes it is. And that means feeling anxious about something may not be a signal about danger; it might be a signal for us to take better care of ourselves. The basics. 

Booster for the Week!

One of the more thoughtful resources I came across while researching this topic was a discussion by psychologist and researcher Dr. Kelly McGonigal regarding the way we interpret stress and anxiety. Her work challenges the assumption that every experience of stress is harmful and instead explores how our relationship with stress influences our response to it. 

She offers a useful perspective on understanding what our minds and bodies may be trying to tell us when stress or anxiety unexpectedly appears.

Check out her TED Talk Global, "How to Make Stress Your Friend."

With kindness,

Christa

(Helpful? Interesting? Please feel free to forward and invite others to subscribe at askchrista.com/newsletter.)

References

Barlow, D. H. (2002). Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Goldstein, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2014). The role of sleep in emotional brain function. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10, 679–708. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032813-153716

Grupe, D. W., & Nitschke, J. B. (2013). Uncertainty and anticipation in anxiety: An integrated neurobiological and psychological perspective. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(7), 488–501. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3524

Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513

Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2015). Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(S1), S72–S103. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924

(remember: most public libraries in the USA offer access to academic papers; however, if yours does not, then Google these papers to see where they are listed, how you can learn more about them, and how you can find similar papers to learn more about this topic)