Dr. Bonnie Hayden Cheng studies how anxiety can be useful for us at work. That’s right: anxiety has something to offer! It can be useful. If you’re anxious about layoffs as we head into the end of the year (and who isn’t in this economy?) take heart: You can use your anxiety to do great work.

McKinsey research finds that one out of four workers indicate they experience high levels of toxic workplace behavior. That’s shocking. In all 15 countries and across all dimensions assessed, toxic workplace behavior was the biggest predictor of burnout symptoms and intent to leave by a large margin —predicting more than 60 percent of the total global variance. Take a minute to think about that.

College admissions haunts me, and my children aren’t even in high school yet. It is a bubbling cauldron of anxiety for students and their parents, born out of the toxic combination of the pressure to achieve, social comparison, financial means, and sheer willpower.

It’s hard to be different, and being neurodivergent can make it hard to succeed in many workplaces. Some who are neurodivergent struggle to get hired, and some struggle to stay or advance in an organization. It takes work to find the right place and to build the right infrastructure to support yourself as you progress in your career.

We use the term to describe our greatest achievers, but in reality, perfectionism is a thought pattern or behavior that demands “of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation. It is associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health problems.”

Morra is highlighted in Harvard Business Review and talks about what should you do if your employee comes to you with a mental health challenge?

This week’s podcast interview is the story of a homeless teen who channeled her anxiety into perfectionism with incredible academic and athletic achievement – but at enormous cost to her body and her mental health. I love this interview, and you will too. It’s the first of a two part series on perfectionism.

Grief is just one thorny emotion we try to erase from the office environment. But when we deny people their feelings at work, we deny the empathy and trust that build strong teams and good relationships. We force a grieving person to fit into a mold that they simply may not be ready for.

Do you ever feel that success requires – demands! – anxiety? Anxiety is contagious within systems; when the anxious leader gets rewarded, teams copy their leader’s anxious behaviors. Guess what happens then? Everyone becomes anxious!

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy today released a new framework highlighting the critical role that workplaces play in promoting the mental health and well-being of workers and communities. This week’s podcast is our discussion about five evidence-based essentials that help organizations develop mentally healthy policies and practices.

While some stressed out leaders react to anxiety by agonizing over a decision and putting it off, others do just the opposite and make hasty decisions. It can be an enormous relief to move the needle on a project, get something off your plate, or feel like your stress is now someone else’s problem. But of course, the very definition of an impulsive act is one that’s carried out immediately, with no forethought and little or no regard for the consequences.

Lochhead is known as “one of the best minds in marketing” – and now I know why. Lochhead told me he felt like he just never fit. But he understands something essential: his neurodivergent brain is his greatest asset. Lochhead unlocked how to soar in big jobs and make his difference work for him. Talking to him unlocked a crucial puzzle for me as an entrepreneur.

It's Mental Illness Awareness Week, and the theme is "What I Wish I'd Known." I wanted to share what I wish I'd known about managing an anxiety disorder as a new parent.

Being a manager requires having conversations that feel intimate and discomfiting. The key is to remember you’re not alone. It’s not your job to be the office therapist and you don’t need to show up with solutions when a team member is struggling. Sometimes, you just need to show up.

It’s often impossible for us to meet the expectations we set for ourselves. It’s also impossible to meet the expectations we think others have set for us. We spend a lot of time racing against our own expectations and what we perceive to be other people's expectations. Anxiety happens when expectations are out of balance, ungrounded.

Adam Baruh is a CEO rewriting the rules of what a CEO talks about. He’s working with the mess of midlife- the legacy of a divorce on the kids, the extreme stress of providing for people, poor decisions along the way, and long repressed childhood trauma that caused him shame for decades.

How can I ask for the flexibility I need while maintaining my professional reputation? How can I protect my mental health and my boundaries? What do I actually want my work life to look like? Can I be myself and still succeed? These complex questions are at the heart of most of my listener mail. And they are at the heart of today’s season opener show, where I ask two experts your questions.

Our brains do not like uncertainty. Fear of the unknown triggers a flood of chemicals into our brain and body. The chemicals were designed to help us respond to physical threats. And so, we worry, says Runyan. Worry makes us feel like we are doing something about the uncertainty. It’s a way of meeting the discomfort that our body feels about uncertainty.

Boundaries are a big deal. Your physical boundaries control your safety by establishing your level of comfort with touching and interaction, and your emotional boundaries protect you from being crushed by difficult personalities or enmeshed by in dysfunctional systems. Your boundaries around work are equally important, and they encompass every other kind. As Darlene Lancer, MFT, put it, “Boundaries are your bottom line.”

Almost every leader I have ever interviewed has spoken about the importance of rest and rebalance. And yet rest feels more elusive than ever. Rest is more difficult to achieve than ever. Rest is hard.