Thoughts About Email Anxiety.
And how I am trying overcome it.
Once upon a time, years ago, when I was still part of the raucous corporate system, I developed the sick habit of checking my email right when I woke up. It didn’t matter what time it was—if I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d still be checking it.
I am not sure why or how this came to be, there was nothing that urgent in my 9-5 era (even less in my independent contractor renaissance) but the pulsion was so strong, it became an unconscious standard practice that sticks with me to this day with no boss to micromanage my tasks and no team to deal with.
The indebtment to the corporate ecosystem is gone, but the anxiety to miss a potentially breakthrough message stayed.
Realistically most of the emails I get daily are not that critical—especially those I receive overnight.
Matter of fact, nearly all of the material clogging up my Gmail is spam: Brand newsletters I never came around to unsubscribe from and other useless crap that would better fit the junk section.
Still, despite knowing damn well that digital correspondence is not what I should feed my brain at 6:30 AM, I am compelled to maniacally refresh my email app whenever my phone is around. And, given that my iPhone doubles as my alarm clock and I work “remotely”, that’s quite literally 24h/day.
This addictive disorder has subdued my craving for social media interaction—I dutifully turned off my IG notifications as soon as that was an option—even if I blocked emails from pinging or popping up on my screen.
Simply knowing there may be emails to be read makes me anxious. The higher the number, the worse I feel. Email notifications rule me. That’s a scary thought.
I am not alone in feeling this way as when I typed “email anxiety” in my browser an astounding 657,000,000 results showed up.
So what is email anxiety?
According to psychcentral.com—a website dedicated to mental health—email anxiety encompasses a variety of symptoms spanning fear, panic, catastrophizing and negative thoughts, racing heartbeat, shallow and rapid breathing, hot flashes, sweating, dizziness and nausea and it affects quite a few workers.
Thankfully, I have yet to throw up or experience tachycardia but I have gone through the more covert signs—emails make me feel burned out. And given the fact that my job is 70% emailing and 30% of actual doing…that’s really bad.
Emails, unlike text messages, should technically feel less pressing. Even if a colleague emails you at 3 AM, an immediate answer is not expected. Still, in my opinion, there is a massive difference between getting a text in the middle of the night and waking up to find somebody sent an email at midnight. The former feels cute, the latter is a trigger.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have that many people texting me daily, or maybe it’s because I successfully kept work conversations off my iMessage and Whatsapp, but any other type of communication feels heavy.
I was never the type of person to want two phones, one for personal and one for professional reasons, as it felt unnecessary but it’s become clear that to live a more tranquil life, I need to restrict my digital footprint even more. I just want to disengage completely from any type of work-related anything after hours. I don’t want to talk about work, I don’t want to hear others speak of work and I don’t want to feel enslaved by my devices.
As somebody who considers my work as a natural extension of who I am, the decision is quite radical but it’s a mandatory step to keep my sanity.
Disconnecting is medicine at this point. I even thought about picking one day a week to check and answer emails, but how realistic is that as deadlines get tighter and so do budgets? One missed email can feel like a huge faux pas.
This, plus the fact that I made it a rule to answer everybody who emails me even if it’s not relevant or I cannot help them, is starting to catch up—there are days when I just want to throw my laptop out of the window.
Maybe it’s not the emails per se that stress me out. Maybe the venom sprinkles from the quality of the emails. Most of the time, it’s people requesting to jump on a call. On a call for what?!
Can’t they just tell me what they want right here, right now? Isn’t that the purpose of emailing anyways?
Sweet, straightforward and concise. That’s what we, the workers, need in life: less useless communication, more action.
Actually, now that I took the time to think about it, emails are not the problem. I love to receive emails from people who want to show me their work, talk REAL business, ask for advice or begin an epistolary friendship.
Hell! I even love to send emails when I know I can take my time to think about the answer and build out my own delivery timeline.
The real issue is, perhaps, the content of the email and the pressure the sender passive-aggressively weaves into the message. Possibly, the anxiety stems from the knowledge that 9 out of 10 times, the text will not bear exciting news–rather, a reason to be contentious, financially disrespected, or denied a request that took time and courage to submit.
This is my reality as a creative worker—even with 10 years of experience on my back, I still have to put up the right boundaries to protect myself from burnout and professional strain (which, by the way, sounds like an additional task for my never-ending to-do list). So much for work-life balance.
In other—better—news! In celebration of the Women’s World Cup, I am teaming up with Football Café to bring FOOTBALL & CHILL to New York City! If you are in town, I’d love to see it this Saturday, August 5th, at 141 Chrystie Street from 4 PM until late.
We will have a FREE nail bar run by Tagliente Nails, where you can get a nail design (or two) done in support of your team / the game. A beaaaautiful photo exhibition with the work of an amazing roster of international artists, music and of course the game! Come on down!
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Don’t have anything to suggest this week! But here’s a nice jingle to keep you going!
this is exactly the text I needed.
❤️