If you are reading this and you have and questions about emotions, mental health and living a fulfilled life. Please feel free to direct your questions to Adewale at adewale.ademuyiws @ stresstherapist.net ( Remember that this email is all one word. I have separated it to confuse bots so I don't get an email full of junk) To ensure that he can answer you questions properly please make sure to give some context to your question.

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Hi Adewale, It is Samjeet here from the UK. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask you this question.

How can I cope with email anxiety when I have to send emails to people about business?

I am starting to get really stressed about emailing people and I'm wondering if I am over thinking this or if I should just go ahead and do it. I am so nervous about sending it off and worrying if I did something wrong or missed something. I know it is part of my job, but it really sucks. I am trying to find ways to ease this anxiety.

Adewale's answer:

Hey Samjeet, I am glad you have reached out and I am really sorry you are feeling this way. I completely understand how stressful and nerve racking it can be to send off an email. Emailing is such a crucial part of everyday life, and we rely on it so heavily that it can be very hard to deal with. And when you get stressed about it, it can be really hard to relax and be creative when you need to be.

Here are a few ideas you can try for managing email anxiety

If you have anxiety about opening your emails, try the following...

1) Ask a friend, or trusted work colleague to open the email for you. Use a colleague who has had experience with anxiety as they will be less likely to judge you or gossip about your difficulty.

2) If the anxiety is just too overwhelming, practice email exposure by just reading one line at a time. Allow for a whole day to read the email if necessary. Doing this over time will make it easier to open difficult emails. Remember, the more you expose yourself to these situations, the more prepared you will be when you have to deal with them.

3) treat yourself compassionately over this anxiety. Be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Give yourself permission to feel anxious and allow yourself to be human. It is okay to not feel confident or comfortable about certain things. We all have things that cause us to feel anxious. 

Do this if your anxiety is about sending the email off

The first thing to do when to are to afraid to send your emails out is to recognize that It is not just you. It is a common problem for people who work in corporate environments. And it can be really hard to break away from especially if you have experience dealing with really critical people.

The second thing to do is to accept that you can’t just get rid of the anxiety and let it go. That would be really unhealthy and you would be defeating your own efforts to deal with it.

Thirdly, practice allowing little bits of mistakes in the email on purpose. to do this, leave out just a "t" or an "s" and see how many people actually respond by telling you about the mistakes.

Fourthly, Ask some of the people you emailed if they noticed any spelling errors. most likely you will find that most people won't even recognize the mistake. And this will help you feel that little comfortable sending emails

Finally, when you do have to send a serious email, put yourself in a relaxed state and just focus on the person you are emailing and what you are writing. Take time to reflect on their personality. Focus on how the person responded to you in the past. Think about what you have in common with them. and think about what you want to achieve with the person in the future. If you are able to do this, you will find that your stress level will go down. If you are able to keep your mind focused, you will probably find that you are able to relax. It is important that you don't try to rush yourself into sending the email. If you do that, you will lose your focus and become tense again.

If you can't stop worrying after you have sent your email, you can try this...

Take a moment to breathe and relax. Think of the worst possible outcome that can happen and imagine it happening right now. Then visualize it as though you have already experienced it. The next thing is to visualize that your worst case scenario is a reality. Finally, think of a scenario where you have done everything you can to minimize the impact of the worst case scenario and still it happens anyway. That is what you should be thinking about in your head when you are sending off the email.

The next thing you can do is to tell yourself that you are the best emailer in the world. And spend more time imagining the best outcome from sending that email . When you do this, it is a positive affirmation. It is actually a technique that is used to build self-esteem and confidence. It has been used in sports psychology and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for dealing with anxiety. It can really help if you do it consistently.

Finally, I would recommend that you start to have some fun with this. If you have some time to kill, try sending off a few emails using your imagination. That will take the pressure off. You might also want to try sending off a few emails to someone you don’t know. Try to use a playful tone in the emails and see what happens. See if you can send an email that is funny and see if the person responds. You can also see if you can send off some random emails to people you don't know. And the last thing you can do is to see if you can send off an email to someone you don’t like. This will take the pressure off and you won’t worry about offending the person.

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