🗞️ The Wellness Briefing – Edition No. 10: “When Anxiety Drives Your Productivity” | September 2, 2025
2 minute read
Quick, high-impact wellness insights for ambitious professionals. Delivered Tuesdays.
Welcome Back to The Wellness Briefing
High performance can mask high stress. In fact, many people become overachievers not just because they’re ambitious—but because they’re anxious. If you’ve ever felt like rest makes you edgy or being “lazy” feels dangerous, this one’s for you.
Let’s begin.
🧠 1 Insight Worth Reading: “Some of the most seemingly ‘driven’ individuals are not fueled by goals, but by fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of failing. Fear of not being enough.”
— Trauma and the Nervous System, NICABM
📰 1 Article to Know: A 2023 Psychology Today article discusses that people with childhood adversity are more likely to develop "compulsive goal pursuit"—a pattern linked with anxiety, burnout, and emotional suppression. Read on Psychology Today.
💡 What That Means for You: Your work habits aren’t always a time management issue—they might be survival strategies you never unlearned. Untangling this starts with awareness.
✅ Try This: Next time you feel the urge to keep working after hours, pause and ask:
Am I actually behind, or just uncomfortable being still?
Would rest help me perform better tomorrow?
🎯 Pro Tip from the Guide: If your nervous system equates rest with danger, don’t force stillness. Try active recovery instead: gentle movement, housework, or a slow walk.
The Approval Matrix: A judgmental grid for high-functioning exhaustion. What’s nourishing, what’s draining— and what’s quietly sabotaging your week.
Because not everything productive is good—and not everything restful is a waste.
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See you next Tuesday.
– Michelle