High Functioning Anxiety: THESE are the signs that you're struggling with anxiety

Anxiety, it's a very common feeling. A lot of people often say that they're feeling anxious but not many understand what anxiety really is. Anxiety is not necessarily a momentary feeling because often it turns into a mental health condition that can do loads of damage to your mental health. But there are a lot of misconceptions about anxiety. Not many people know what anxiety truly is. Mental health conditions are sensitive but complex and understanding them is not easy. When asked about anxiety most people would say it's about anxiety attacks or being withdrawn from the world but the fact is that anxiety disorders are not what they look like or seem like. Many people with anxiety find it very difficult to even identify their problem or even deal with it. This is where high-functioning anxiety comes into play. People with high functioning anxiety are usually goal-oriented and perfectionists. They try to do a lot more than what is necessary. They try to keep themselves busy and do better in life instead of shutting the world out which makes it very difficult to understand this type of anxiety.

Here are some signs that you have high-functioning anxiety.

1. Any person with anxiety feels the need to have a lot of control in their lives. This makes them feel like they're more in charge of their lives and helps them keep tabs on anything that can cause anxiety and prevent it. This is why such people take charge or rather control of things and resort to controlling habits.

2. You don't understand the meaning of letting go. It's very difficult for people with high-functioning anxiety to let their hair down and enjoy for a while. They can't let loose and relax at all because the anxiety does not allow them to do anything where they may lose control. This is why they end up keeping themselves busy or rather buried in work.

3. It's practically impossible for you to sleep properly. Because your mind does not know how to relax and is constantly battling with high-functioning anxiety, it becomes impossible to get proper rest. Sleep problems are a big sign. Most people toss and turn in their bed instead of sleeping or have disturbed sleep.

4. You're very focused on perfectionism. Be it in your work life or your personal life, you're constantly trying to ensure that everything is absolutely perfect and have unrealistic expectations. You're also very scared of letting people down or not being able to live up to their expectations. Imperfection or mistakes are your biggest fear.

5. While self-criticism is an important part of our lives, it's also important that it remains constructive but people with high-functioning anxiety take it a notch higher by indulging in destructive self-criticism and negative self-talk and constantly beat themselves up for little mistakes that they make and end up having to deal with loads of self-doubt.

6. Your way of dealing with problems is by repressing thoughts and pushing it away. You try to stay away from any thought or feeling that can cause anxiety. Such things make you so uncomfortable that you keep yourself too busy just to avoid any feelings or thoughts or emotions that can lead to anxiety.

7. People with anxiety often end up having to deal with unexplained aches and pains. Our mental state often impacts our body as well and when you're trying to suppress anxiety, it just comes out in the form of physical pain that is unexplained. In most cases, people end up with neck pain or shoulder pain or back pain and sometimes it's just a knot in the stomach.

8. One big sign of high-functioning anxiety is a repetitive nervous habit. People with anxiety often bite their nails or tap their foot or shake their legs or maybe rub their nose or bite their lip. This habit is a repetitive one that they turn to as an outlet for their anxiety.  Sometimes this repetitive habit is so subtle that you may not even notice it.