Your Work Anxiety Isn’t Laziness: It’s Your Body Asking for Help

Have you noticed that everything feels harder, work weighs you down, it’s difficult to focus, and every day you wake up feeling like you can’t go on? Maybe you’ve even told yourself, “I’m lazy,” “I’m not good at this anymore,” or “I’ve lost my motivation.”
But it’s not laziness—it’s work anxiety, and it’s your body’s way of screaming that it needs a break.

When Work Becomes an Emotional Burden
Work anxiety appears when stress stops being a spark that drives you and turns into a flame that burns you. You may love what you do, but if you live in constant alert, if you feel that everything depends on you or that you’re never doing enough, your body begins to collapse.
The symptoms are clear: insomnia, heart palpitations, muscle pain, repetitive thoughts. On Sunday night, you already feel anxious about Monday, and any notification can ruin your mood.
In therapy, many people confess that they feel guilty for wanting to stop, because they’ve learned that tiredness equals weakness and that resting is “a waste of time.” But the body doesn’t think that way. The body knows when it needs to slow down, and if you don’t listen, it will do it for you—through anxiety, exhaustion, or a breakdown.
The mind wants to keep producing; the body, on the other hand, just wants to survive.

How to Start Healing Your Relationship with Work
Acknowledge what’s happening to you, because work anxiety isn’t resolved with more effort—it’s resolved with more awareness. Admitting that you’re overwhelmed doesn’t make you weak; it makes you honest.
Identify your limits—it’s not possible to answer emails at eleven at night or handle everything on your own. The world won’t collapse if you stop for a moment.
Bring order to your routines: get enough sleep, eat well, take short breaks during the day. Sometimes, five minutes of silence are worth more than an hour of productivity.
Talk to someone you trust, or seek psychological support. Therapy helps you name what you feel, find balance between demands and well-being, and learn to rest without guilt.