Experts: Anxiety disorder can hamper workers' performance

abs-cbnNEWS.com | 10/05/2008 10:23 PM

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They might have been overlooked repeatedly or ignored totally but taking care of a worker’s psychological and mental dispositions are as important as enhancing his skills and talents to sustain and increase productivity.

Experts agree that anxiety disorder such as performance anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may hit any employee and hamper his performance at work.

Dr. Randy Dellosa, a clinical psychologist and psychiatrist, said anxiety is very common in work settings because of the pressure for the employees to meet both corporate goals and the expectations of their bosses.

This need to perform according to the company’s standards instead of his own set of values brings about, among others, performance anxiety, Dellosa said.

Performance anxiety is commonly used either in sex therapy or when referring to stage fright.

“In both cases, there's a spectatoring or looking at oneself and the fear that one would be judged as inadequate or a failure for one's performances. Accompanying that is a fear of rejection or not able to please the other person or not be able to reach the standards of the other,” Dellosa said on ANC’s “Shop Talk.”

Dellosa agreed that this state of mind is also a result of low self-esteem, failure at work in the past and personal pre-disposition.

In the office setting, he said there are external and internal factors that may cause performance anxiety.

External factors include an autocratic boss, deadlines and the threat of being fired. Internal factors, on the other hand, include low self-esteem and perfectionism.

“People with performance anxiety, these are people who are very stressed at work. They’ll do everything and anything just to do their jobs well and yet they may actually be doing their jobs well and there’s a fear that they’re still inadequate and there’s a lack with what they’ve done,” he said.

He said in some cases performance anxiety can trigger conflicts and disharmonious relationships among employees, “and internally they may also feel depressed, stressed out or burnout.”

Quality of work suffers

Generally, when employees begin to suffer from anxiety disorder, then the quality of their work just breaks down, he added.

According to Dellosa, among the common bodily symptoms of anxiety are palpitations, restlessness, lightheadedness, dizziness and tremors.

“It’s adrenalin rush out of the pressure of having to perform well,” he said.

Not everything about anxiety is negative though. Dellosa said “normal anxiety” prevents an employee from being complacent at work.

“Without anxiety, we will just relax and we will not care… it's a good stress so that makes us perform well,” he said.

OCD

Like performance anxiety, OCD, an anxiety disorder, can also threaten the ability of a worker to efficiently do his job.

Obsession is intrusive and unwanted thoughts that interrupt one’s thinking while working or doing something while compulsion is a behavior that performs a certain task repeatedly.

Dr. Ruby Manalastas, former head of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at St. Luke's Medical Center, said OCD can either be as trait or a disorder.

“High achievers are somewhat OC. If it gets to a point where it interferes already with their relationships or their ability to function, then that's when you classify it as disorder,” Manalastas said.

“When you’re stressed at work, the competition, the OC is triggered and instead of really functioning it causes interference in their work and they’re (employees) not able to deliver what they’re supposed to deliver,” she added.

An employee can come in late for work, for instance, after checking door and window locks 10 or 20 times, she said.

“For performance wise, maybe you’re supposed to hand in your report. You cannot because [they have to rewrite] or do things that it takes them a long time to do something. So, their evaluation gets affected or some of them, if it's extreme, they stop going to work and head home,” she said.

Usually, Manalastas said, people who are inflicted with OCD are aware of these intrusive thoughts and their behavior. She added they also acknowledge that their behavior is no longer healthy.

Treatable

Dellosa and Manalastas said those with anxiety disorders need not suffer because these are treatable.

For OCDs, Manalastas said a behavioral intervention can help the patient.

“… to do this very, very simple behavioral intervention would be the ability to distinguish the compulsion. For example, a particular employee wants to wash his hands, what we can do is delay maybe for five minutes , 10, 20 minutes, until you extinguish that kind of behavior,” she said.

Dellosa, on the other hand, said gong to the root of the problems help the patients better than prescribing medicine.

He said those afflicted with anxiety order can also talk to somebody who is sympathetic so that they would not feel isolated or alienated. Seeking professional help and support groups is also one of the ways to free oneself from the disorder.

Yoga and other stress management activities and other breathing exercises to help them relax will also boost one’s disposition.

“You know when a person has performance anxiety, the first thing that goes is actually breathing. The breathing gets all mixed up,” Dellosa said.

as of 10/05/2008 10:24 PM