Anxiety and stress can prevent you from participating satisfactorily in your meaningful activities and work roles. Your Occupational Therapist will develop a treatment plan with you that may include:
- Stress management strategies: The occupational therapist helps you learn to recognize your symptoms associated with stress and how to incorporate strategies to minimize these. These strategies may include guided meditation, breathing techniques, or a mindfulness approach.
- Promote the integration of a satisfactory sleep routine: Your occupational therapist will help you address issues such as sleep position, bedding, room temperature, environmental noise (or need for white noise), lighting, sleep routines (including bedtimes and wake times, bedtime rituals, use of screens, etc.)
- Establish a balanced work schedule by integrating meaningful activities and physical exercise. Pacing strategies can also be used to manage your energy and feel more confident.
- Grading activities: Events, environments, or activities which cause anxiety can be managed by building up to them through a program of smaller structured steps towards the goal
- Prepare for the return to work: this is the final step and often the biggest challenge for people with anxiety disorders who have stopped working. We can help by identifying obstacles (e.g. fears of relapse, work overload, conflicting relationships) and by addressing them through therapy which may include: exposure to simulations of work tasks, getting back in touch with colleagues, engaging in a similar worksite or work tasks to build the work routine.