Top 10 Anxiety-Friendly Jobs
If you're an anxious person, working at a job that's anxiety-friendly can be a huge benefit to your life. So many people with anxiety disorders struggle with work because of the difficulty of social interaction and other job stressors. Work is anxiety-provoking for everybody to some degree, but, if you have anxiety, anxiety at work can be truly hellish. That's why it's important that us anxious types find jobs that take our anxiety into account. This week, we'll explore 10 of the most anxiety-friendly jobs out there.
I'm writing this post as much for me as anything because I currently don't have a job that's anxiety-friendly. I work as a cashier in a grocery store, and my anxiety is completely through the roof because of it sometimes. Fortunately, I have a great boss and good co-workers, and most of the customers are nice, too. Still, the anxiety of having to cope with the vagaries of the general public can be really intense. I used to have an anxiety-friendly job (it's in the list below) that I'm hoping to get back to fairly soon.
Criteria for Jobs That Are Anxiety-Friendly
A job must meet certain criteria to be considered anxiety-friendly. Although there are obviously no hard and fast rules about this, most anxious people find common work stressors unpleasant, so good jobs for anxious people must either not have those stressors, or must only have a minimal amount of them. Here are some important criteria:
Low levels of stress -- Most anxious people (including me) don't do well in intense, high-pressure environments, so low to moderately stressful jobs are a better fit if you have anxiety.- Low noise levels -- I find loud noise very stressful. It's a total trigger for my anxiety, and I'd guess most of you are with me on this one. So, good jobs for anxious people must take their noise sensitivity into account.
- Few interruptions/distractions -- I'm not a very good multi-tasker. I get overwhelmed easily when there's too much going on, so an anxiety-friendly job for me must allow me to stay mostly on one task without interruption.
- Limited interaction with other people -- Constant interaction is the thing that's most stressful about my current job. It's non-stop, and it really gets to me some days. This is especially true for people with social anxiety disorder, so an anxiety-friendly job must keep the interaction with bosses, customers, and co-workers to a minimum.
List of the Top 10 Anxiety-Friendly Jobs
- Writer -- Writing tends to be a great job for anxious people, although it can be hard to make money doing it at first. Blogging and technical writing may be good places to start if you're interested in writing for a living.
- Childcare worker -- Yes, working with kids involves lots of noise and interaction, but dealing with children is less intimidating than dealing with adults.
- Computer programmer -- I did computer programming full time for over 10 years. It's great because it meets all of the anxiety-friendly job criteria, plus you can make good money doing it.
- Working with animals -- Much like working with kids, working with animals is less intimidating than many jobs because adult interaction is minimized. Plus, animals can be very soothing and provide an opportunity to give nurturing care to another living creature.
- Cleaning offices -- I also worked as a house and office cleaner for many years. Office cleaning tends to be done at night and by yourself. It's a very anxiety-friendly job for someone who's looking for solitude and quiet.
- Tutoring -- Working as a tutor generally limits your interaction to one person, and, for the most part, tutoring is studious and quiet.
- Nurse's aide -- Healthcare can be a very stressful job, but working as a nurse's aide rarely involves life and death decisions. Mostly, it entails simple, physical labor, and, if you can get hired for the night shift, it can be very quiet as well.
- Counselor -- Counseling is a profession that involves a lot of interaction, but it's usually only with one person at a time. In some ways, anxiety sufferers make good counselors because they tend to be more empathetic to the pain of others. Counseling involves a lot of talking and tends to be fairly low-key.
- Prep cook -- Prep cooks work mostly in the background doing the grunt work of food preparation. Making salads, cooking vats of spaghetti sauce, and prepping large numbers of fruit baskets are typical tasks for a prep cook. You work mostly by yourself, and interaction with other people is limited.
- Landscaping -- I also worked as a landscaper in my youth, and it's a good job for someone with anxiety. It's hard, physical labor, but there are long stretches of uninterrupted, relatively mindless activity. There's something to be said for working a job that lets you turn your brain mostly off.
While working and holding down a job can be really hard if you have an anxiety disorder, it's doable if you can find a job that's the right fit. Hopefully, this list of anxiety-friendly jobs will inspire you to go after a job that's a better fit for you.
You can find Greg on his website, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Facebook.
APA Reference
Weber, G.
(2015, May 6). Top 10 Anxiety-Friendly Jobs, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, May 5 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/treatinganxiety/2015/05/top-10-anxiety-friendly-jobs
Author: Greg Weber
Thanks, and I wish guidance counselors covered this with students. Working with our strengths and protecting our "weaknesses" is important when job hunting. Avoid office jobs unless it's just data entry-the interruptions, type A bossy egos, and sudden deadlines give me "nerves" daily. Going into counselor job soon I hope.
I would say that child care is extremely stressful. There is a lot that goes into child care, like, lesson planning, prepping lesson plans, following regulations, making sure you are on top of everything - especially safety hazards. It's not easy. Definitely stressful.
Yep! I am a professional nanny, and it is a great fit for my personality. Of course there can be stress, but working in the comfort of a home and being able to go to parks, libraries, etc. and working long term with one family are awesome perks.
I seriously disagree with the counselor suggestion. You are seeing people, one after another, all day long who have their own anxieties, depression, trauma, phobias, etc. and god forbid there is a crisis such as someone becoming suicidal or having to report child abuse.
I can understand why people think working with animals will be a stress-free job. They have ideas of playing and fussing animals all day. From working in the industry for 7 years I can tell you it is far from it. It's not the animals its the people. Whether it is management bullying or sapping the fun out of the job, from clients being ridiculously picky/ arugmentative, to just the moral concepts of welfare and husbandry. You are consently questioning am i doing a good job? As much as I have a deep love for animals I've decided to quit. It is a 24/7, 365 job, with very little pay and very little appreication for what hard labour you do.
I have to say I totally agree and understand this very much I started at a private veterinarian office and was there about 7 years and it was living hell because after about 3 years I became the office manager and it was okay for a while but my heart would go into my stomach everytime I seen the practice manager who in turn was the wife of the doctor and she was very cruel she would make you cry then laugh at you but anyways I left there and went to work at animal shelter in the surgery room mainly the prep room and did reception for the wellness clinic 2 days a week and it was like high school people smiling in face and talking about you behind your back and I know you don't go to work make friends but level of back stabbing was to much also euthanizing 10-20 cats a nights a night was a nightmare because people dont get there animals spayed and neutered but my point is I think working with animals is great but for people with anxiety I would say maybe a pet store cleaning the cages and bathing the puppies would be a better fit because its constantly changing and loud and very stressful working a veterinarians
I truly do not believe we are all mentally ill. We live in an insane unnatural world.
As someone who has anxiety and has burnt out and mentally broke down from 2 of those suggestions, I want to know where you get your info and also to stop stereotyping childcare providers!
In 2016 I had my burn out/ break down and I had only been professional working as a Pastor/Councellor and an Early Learning Child care Provider (or as the world sees us professional babysitters) for 10 years. Before that it was all voluntary.
What you need to remember is for people with empathetic personalities like me not only will they want to work they will probably have friends and family on the side they are helping and empathizing with as well.
Now onto the part that is frustrating. There is a Nanny/Private Homecare provider that typically (unless it is a really big family) who has maybe most cases no more than 3 kids to watch and is in the home setting.
Then there are private dayhomes who are the professional babysitters as well they can choose how many kids they want to take and because they are not under a licence they don’t have to follow any professional rules (which makes us professionals have a bad rap the way we do)
Then there is the Dayhome Professional who if they are up to government standards has to have certain things in the home has to teach certain things but can only have 3-6 children max per adult depending on age and they are considered teachers.
Then you have the Licenced Childcare centres/daycare/preschool/kindergarten/Eli/after and before school care, our centres go under many names but I think you get the picture. We are all licenced Teachers/Providers by the owner of the centre. When we graduate from our programs in college we have to send out the certificate/diploma/degree whichever level you received so you can have a licenced number in order to teach, if you do not have that you are not allowed to be at the centres even if you are a casual, a kitchen staff or custodian. If you are going to be providing care or count as a staff to be in the room with the kids you need that paper and a number.... therefore we are teachers and not just a babysitter
To own a centre or be a head teacher and run one you need to go through 2 years of college at least and be able to handle programming, licensing, accreditation, pr, hr, the parent, all the staff, and run your own classroom of kids.
So please don’t tell me that childcare is not a stressful job, I went home in tears almost every night because at that time I wasn’t properly diagnosed or on the right medication.
Same with counselling it depends on the situation mine involved kids,teens, families, adults, seniors that were badly hurt by something that should have never happened, teens that were kicked out of their homes at Christmas and left on the streets, families that were lied to by the one person they should have been able to trust, teens that broke the law and you had to help them deal with the bad circumstances. Seniors who are losing their loved ones and you have to sit beside them for 72 hours as they grieve. Although I know my situation may be a little different being a pastor, it’s still not an easy job to do. It gets tiring, exhausting, stressful as you decide what the best course of action is because not everything is black and white.
Has anyone ever noticed how these "professionals" always suggest a job that actually requires you to get a degree at a college for that profession.... Well if I can't get out and get a job in the public sector what on earth makes anyone think I can go to a school (where there's alot of people) to get a degree to get that job.... And no you can't say online courses cause alot of colleges even online requires a certain amount of "classroom" time.
No matter how anyone looks at it the people with anxiety are always on the losing side. And these "pros" don't know a thing of what they are talking about and that's what really annoys me.
You'd figure with anxiety being a popular illness there'd be more respect along the way of employing these people into a comfortable environment. Face your fears eh.... Ok so let's make those with fear of spiders work with tarantulas all day everyday, or lets make those with fear of heights work cleaning the outside of windows of very tall buildings.... It's the same thing a phobia is a phobia and not everyone has the mental power to overcome theirs.
Bottomline is unless you have real answers to a problem don't suggest anything.