Definition: Anxiety
Anxiety is the nervous system’s natural response to perceived threat, characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased heart rate or muscle tightness. It is not just ‘worrying too much’ or a sign of personal weakness, nor is it always about immediate or realistic danger — anxiety often arises from old relational wounds or subconscious patterns that don’t serve you anymore. For high-achieving women, anxiety can quietly fuel perfectionism and constant self-monitoring, making you feel like you’re always on edge even when everything looks fine on the outside.
Definition: High-Functioning Anxiety
High-functioning anxiety describes a pattern where intense, chronic worry and nervous energy exist alongside outward success and competence — you might appear calm and collected while feeling constantly on edge inside. This is not just being ‘type A’ or driven; it’s a form of anxiety that can keep you stuck in cycles of overthinking, self-doubt, and exhaustion without obvious signs like panic attacks. For high-achieving women, it matters because it often hides behind achievement and hustle, making it harder to recognize and ask for the support you deserve.
Anxiety is your nervous system’s survival alarm firing in the absence of actual danger — often rooted in old relational wounds rather than present-day reality.
Quick Summary
- You might feel like your anxiety is a constant, quiet hum of worry rooted in old relational wounds, making everyday stress feel overwhelming even when there’s no immediate danger.
- Understanding that anxiety is your nervous system’s survival response — often firing without a real threat — is the first step to seeing how it shapes your thoughts and feelings.
- By grounding your nervous system, challenging distorted thinking, and using mental distraction tools like counting colors or backwards, you can reclaim calm and prevent emotional flooding in tough moments.
“The cost of living here is insane. It’s just never going to be possible for us to buy a house in this city!”
SUMMARY
- Managing anxiety involves practical tools to calm the nervous system, challenge anxious thoughts, and prevent emotional flooding.
- High-functioning anxiety often manifests as chronic worry rooted in past traumas or perceived threats, even without immediate danger.
- Grounding techniques help regulate the nervous system and reduce immediate feelings of anxiety.
- Challenging negative or distorted thoughts can diminish anxiety-provoking beliefs and promote a calmer mindset.
- Using mental distraction techniques like counting colors or backward counting can halt emotional flooding and restore emotional balance.
Summary
Definition: High-Functioning Anxiety
“I’m freaking out about this upcoming meeting with my boss — something tells me I’m going to get fired.”
“I’m not getting any younger and it seems like all the great ones are taken. What if it’s too late for me to meet a partner?”
“It seems like everytime I turn on the news, someone else has died of cancer. I’m super scared it’s just a matter of time for me.”
Does any of this sound familiar? Or do you have your own custom-tailored version of the what-if worries?
Table of Contents
- If so, you’re not alone.
- What Exactly Is Anxiety?
- Again, we ALL feel anxious from time to time.
- Tool #1 For Anxiety: Ground Yourself & Calm Your Nervous System.
- Tool #2 For Anxiety: Untwist Your Thinking & Challenge Your Anxiety-Provoking Thoughts.
- Tools #3 & #4 For Anxiety: Halt Emotional Flooding Through Mental Distraction.
- Counting Colors.
- Counting Backwards. With a Twist.
- Wrapping Up.
If so, you’re not alone.
Anxiety
Anxiety, at its core, is the nervous system’s anticipatory response to perceived threat — a survival mechanism that served our ancestors well but, in the modern world, often fires in the absence of actual danger. For people with relational trauma backgrounds, anxiety frequently becomes chronic, organized around old relational wounds rather than present-day reality, and can manifest as worry, hypervigilance, perfectionism, or difficulty resting.
Anxiety is a normal and natural human emotion that everyone experiences at times. And, like with most things in life, anxiety exists on a spectrum — from butterflies in your stomach before speaking up in a meeting to a full blown panic attack when faced with getting on an airplane — the degree and impact and triggers of anxiety look different for all of us.
Bottom line: You don’t get out of this human experience without dealing with anxiety.
And while anxiety may be unavoidable to a certain extent, you can definitely cultivate some tools to help you more effectively manage and deal with it so it doesn’t impact your daily life so strongly or so negatively.
So in today’s blog post, I want to share with you four of my favorite and most effective tools to ease and manage the everyday anxiety you may be experiencing in your own life.
What Exactly Is Anxiety?
Anxiety, according to the American Psychological Association, is “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.”
That’s a fine definition, but it also sounds a bit like fear. So how to distinguish them?
One of the ways I describe and distinguish anxiety from fear for my clients is through this example:
Fear is what happens when you’re crossing the crosswalk just outside of my offices and a car comes barreling around the corner and is 10 feet away from hitting you. That surge of energy through your body is plain old primal fear. Anxiety is what happens when you’re crossing that same crosswalk and you see a car 20 blocks away and you start worrying if you’ll be able to cross the crosswalk in time and if that car will hit you if you don’t. Anxiety is fear of perceived threats in the future. Fear is a response to actual threat in the present. Both have physiological impacts. But one is definitely more head-driven. That’s anxiety.
Again, we ALL feel anxious from time to time.
Anxiety basically tries to scan our lives and futures for harm and warns us when we need to take action to protect ourselves.
And while everyday anxiety is normal and natural, when anxiety begins to feel uncontrollable, unmanageable, or starts to interfere with your daily activities, it may be time to seek out support from a licensed mental health or medical professional for support assessing and managing what may be more than normal, everyday anxiety.
Indeed, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are on the most most common mental illnesses in the country, affecting as many as 40 million people, or 18% of the population. So bottom line: anxiety disorders impact a lot of us.
CAVEAT: If you suspect you may be dealing with an anxiety disorder versus occasional, everyday anxiety, please reach out and get professional support. The tools I’m about to share with you are great, but no substitute for personalized, one-on-one care from a skilled professional.
So without further ado, let’s talk about some of my favorite tools that I use as a psychotherapist to help my clients manage this very universal human experience called anxiety.
Tool #1 For Anxiety: Ground Yourself & Calm Your Nervous System.
When you’re feeling anxious, your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is aroused and activates your fight, flight, or freeze impulses, catalyzing a whole cascade of physiological symptoms throughout your body.
One of the ways you can begin to calm your nervous system and ease your anxiety is through some physical grounding and breath-driven self-soothing.
A tool I’ve found to be incredibly effective is a simple presence and breathing exercise:
Sit comfortably in a chair or on the couch. Let your eyes close and rest your hands on your legs or on the furniture in whatever way feels comfortable to you. Slowly, and with your lips slightly open, begin taking a deep breath in, pushing your lower abdomen out with air, bringing oxygen to the bottom of your lungs. As you breathe in, notice your feet on the floor, your butt on the cushion, your back against the furniture.
On your exhale, release your breath slowly — a few counts longer than your inhale — and continue bringing your awareness to any sensations or sounds you notice — maybe your fingers on the fabric of your jeans, the sound of traffic outside, the breeze coming in through the window… Breathe in and breath out slowly, noticing all the slight sensations around you for 10-15 slow, mindful breaths, allowing your body to relax and your mind to center. And finally, when you’re ready, come back to the room.
The benefit to this particular tool is that it helps bring oxygen to our brain and calms our autonomic nervous system, allowing us to relax and access more parts of ourselves and to think and act from a more grounded, integrated place.
Tool #2 For Anxiety: Untwist Your Thinking & Challenge Your Anxiety-Provoking Thoughts.
If you pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself when you catch yourself feeling anxious, I’m going to guess you’re probably saying something scary to yourself. Again, anxiety scans our lives and futures and tries to warn us of possible threats, so it’s pretty masterful in triggering scary thoughts.
One of my other favorite tools when my clients are struggling with scary, catastrophic future-oriented thoughts is to have them untwist their thinking with a version of questioning informed by The Work by Byron Katie. Byron Katie is a spiritual teacher, author, and creator of The Work, which, according to her website is “a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the anger, fear, depression, addiction, and violence in the world.”
The Work is available for free on her website and while you can review all the steps of her process there, what I have my clients do is a simplified version of her process consisting of identifying and naming the anxiety-provoking thought, asking questions to test it’s reality, and turning the thought inside out by finding four reasons why that thought may not be fully true.
For example, a woman is anxious about being back on the dating scene and believes “I’m too old to find love at this point.” This thought is causing her a lot of anxiety, stress, and grief, so we decide to challenge her thought:
Therapist: “So you believe “I’m too old to find love at this point”?”
Client: “Yes, absolutely!”
Therapist: “Is that true?”
Client: “Well yeah, it feels true!”
Therapist: “But can you absolutely, 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt concretely know that ‘You’re too old to find love’?”
Client: “Well no, I guess I can’t know with 100% accuracy…”
Therapist: “Good noticing. Okay, let’s unpack and untwist this thought. What’s the opposite of that thought ‘I’m too old to find love?’”
Client: “The opposite would be ‘I’m not too old to find love.’”
Therapist: “Great, can you give me three examples, even tiny ones, why that opposite thought may in fact be true?”
Client: “Well, I have a girlfriend who met her husband at age 43 after her divorce and they’re now one of the happiest couples I know. So if she can do it maybe I can, and that’s one reason why my thought may not be true. It may not be true because people still fall in love in nursing homes all over the world and they’re waaaaay older than me. And I may not be too old for love because I’ve been getting a lot of people reaching out to me on Match and my age is clearly listed there, so maybe it’s not so big of an issue as I thought.”
Therapist: “How do you feel when you think about those reasons why you may not be too old to find love?”
Client: “I feel less panicky. I feel a little more hopeful.”
When you challenge the truth of the thoughts that are creating your anxiety and literally untwist them by finding reasons why the opposite might be true, you can create a bit more flexibility in your thinking. And since thoughts can generate feelings, when you create more spaciousness and flexibility in your thinking, you can often ease your anxiety.
Tools #3 & #4 For Anxiety: Halt Emotional Flooding Through Mental Distraction.
Have you ever been so wrapped up in your anxiety that you started to become emotionally flooded? Slightly short of breath, totally in your story, detached from the room you’re sitting in and the person you’re with because of the intensity of your feelings?
You may have been emotionally flooding.
Again, when you’re anxious and perceiving threats, your autonomic nervous system is aroused and your body becomes flooded with a cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol. This can make it hard to think clearly and to maintain focus and react rationally. This is emotional flooding.
Two ways you can interrupt this flooding and help yourself get centered and present is through the following tools, both of which were inspired by my understanding of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Counting Colors.
If you catch yourself flooding or perhaps just caught in the loop of an anxiety-provoking thought, tell yourself to look around you in whatever room or environment you may be in, and try to scan the surroundings to find and count aloud five colors of a certain shade.
(Hint: I like to have my clients look for colors like purple or gold which are often far harder to find than colors like black and brown which tend to be pretty ubiquitous.)
The reason why this tool is effective is that it pulls your mind away from the intensity of the internal experience you’re having and forces your attention to be external, literally scanning your surroundings and focusing on a task, which can help reduce the emotional flooding you may have been experiencing.
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Counting Backwards. With a Twist.
Another great tool to use on yourself (or to use with someone else who is anxious and emotionally flooding) is to count backwards. But not just any counting backwards — anyone can basically recite 100, 99, 98, 97, etc. without much concentration or effort.
What we want you to do instead is to pick a big number like 637 and then pick an odd, random number like 19.5 and start counting backwards to zero from 637 by 19.5.
(Did you just frown in concentration reading those words? That’s exactly the point!)
Focused efforts to actually try and do that math engages your brain in a way that can distract from the anxiety and flooding you may have been experiencing. Try it next time you’re emotionally flooding in any way, whether with anxiety, or maybe anger at a co-worker. It’s a subtle, invisible tool that can be wonderful for emotional regulation.
Wrapping Up.
Again, I cannot stress this enough: anxiety is a natural and normal emotion that all of us face. We basically don’t get out of this human experience without dealing with anxiety.
But if you suspect your anxiety is more than occasional, everyday anxiety and it’s starting to impact the quality of your life (your relationships, your sleep and health, your job performance and your ability to move in the direction of your dreams), please get professional help. The tools I’ve provided in today’s post can be a wonderful support in rounding out your emotional toolkit, but they’re no substitute for personalized care from a licensed mental health professional. Reach out and get the support you need. You’re so worth it.
So now I’d like to hear from you:
What is one of your favorite tools to manage everyday anxiety? Do you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share with readers of this blog?
Leave a message in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do high-achieving women so often struggle with anxiety?
Ambition and anxiety are often two sides of the same coin for women who grew up in environments where achieving was safer, more valued, or more predictable than simply being. The nervous system that drives performance also tends to stay hypervigilant—scanning for threats even when none exist.
What are the most effective immediate tools for managing anxiety?
Physiological tools that directly target the nervous system—like slow diaphragmatic breathing, cold water on the face or wrists, or gentle bilateral movement—are among the most effective immediate interventions because they work below the level of thought.
Can childhood and relational trauma cause anxiety in adulthood?
Yes. Early relational experiences that were unpredictable, threatening, or emotionally unavailable shape the developing nervous system in lasting ways. The anxiety many driven women experience in adulthood often has roots in childhood that are worth understanding—not just managing.
How is anxiety different from a panic attack?
Anxiety is typically a sustained state of elevated worry, tension, and hypervigilance. A panic attack is an acute, intense episode of fear and physiological activation that peaks rapidly and then subsides—often terrifying, but not medically dangerous. Both can be treated effectively.
When should I see a therapist for anxiety rather than trying to manage it on my own?
Consider seeking support when anxiety is significantly interfering with sleep, relationships, or work; when you’ve tried self-help strategies without lasting relief; or when you suspect the anxiety is connected to earlier experiences you haven’t fully processed.
This is part of our comprehensive guide on this topic. For the full picture, read: High-Functioning Anxiety: A Complete Guide.
DISCLAIMER: The content of this post is for psychoeducational and informational purposes only and does not constitute therapy, clinical advice, or a therapist-client relationship. For full details, please read our Medical Disclaimer. If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line).
You deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. Let’s work on that together.
References
- American Psychological Association (2020). Anxiety. APA Dictionary of Psychology.
- Anxiety and Depression Association of America (2023). Facts & Statistics. Anxiety and Depression Association of America website.
- LeDoux, J. E. (2015). Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. Viking.
- Schore, A. N. (2009). Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: An Interface of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and Neuroscience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
- Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. Norton & Company.
- Jerath, R., Edry, J. W., Barnes, V. A., & Jerath, V. (2006). Physiology of Long Pranayamic Breathing: Neural Respiratory Elements May Provide a Mechanism That Explains How Slow Deep Breathing Shifts the Autonomic Nervous System. Medical Hypotheses.
- Katie, B. (2002). Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life. Harmony Books.
- Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond. Guilford Press.
- Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping. Henry Holt and Company.
