Anxiety-Less at Work, with Jacqueline Lopez

Jacqueline Lopez shares her perspectives on the impact of anxiety in the workplace and strategies for overcoming it. She discusses the importance of peer and mentor relationships in mitigating anxiety at work. She emphasizes the need for transparency with managers, utilizing workplace resources, and practicing mindfulness. Jacqueline highlights the differences between stress and anxiety, noting that stress is short-term and situational, while anxiety is persistent and can disrupt daily life. She recommends seeking professional help if anxiety persists for more than a few weeks or interferes with daily functions. Jacqueline also suggests using resources like the National Institute of Mental Health, apps like Calm and Headspace, and hotlines such as the SAMHSA help line and Crisis Text Line. To learn more, visit AVID.org/alumni.

Transcript

Jacqueline Lopez 0:00 Peer relationships can really normalize our shared struggles, which makes us as individuals feel less isolated. And even mentors can offer a perspective, their advice and their encouragement, which helps early career professionals navigate the workplace as well as the challenges with greater confidence.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 0:20 Welcome to Avidly Adulting, the podcast where we tackle the wild ride of transitioning into your first career and all of the life lessons in between and beyond when life and career merge into adulting.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 0:38 Welcome to Avidly Adulting. I'm your host, Dr. Aliber Lozano, head of teaching and learning at AVID Center and lead of Alumni Services. Today, we're coming into our mental health series, part two, where we learn how to mitigate anxiety. In other words, anxiety less at work.

This is a follow up podcast to our stress less at work. Mental health continues to be a public stigma, yet we are seeing the rise of bringing it more into the forefront, being okay to seek help.

To help us continue exploring this topic, we have Jackie Lopez. If you saw part one of our mental health series on stress, you'll remember her. Jackie continues to be a graduate researcher and work at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she is in the College of Science and is in the Department of Clinical Psychology, where she is also seeking her PhD in that work.

Jackie, welcome back. I've been thinking a lot about our previous podcast about stress less at work, and now how stress and anxiety are similar and different. But for those of us who are joining us for the first time and getting to know you, tell us a little bit as an AVID alumni, what do you remember most about the tools you learned about AVID that you still use today?

Jacqueline Lopez 2:03 Yeah, so some of the tools that I remember using in AVID is just being able to seek out that support with my peers, whether it be with my teacher or the teaching assistants that were there that were able to help us run tutorial groups on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We did a lot of binder checks and note-taking, as well as preparing for either the SATs or just being able to hold study groups for our classes. So even to this day, I still implement those note-taking techniques, those study groups, being able to ask for help, applying for scholarships, which is something that's also very needed in grad school.

AVID was really foundational in a sense. I still did that in undergrad and now in grad school, and I know I'll see myself doing it when I'm in an internship, or when I'm doing my postdoc.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 2:56 Nice. What I heard is, AVID taught you to build a community, and that's what you're doing while you're at work, which happens to be the place where you're at grad school.

The other thing that came up is, many of us finish college and forget that as we want to continue going into your master's or doctorate, that there are scholarships available. And Jackie, you sought that, and that's part of why you're also getting your PhD. It's being funded by your hard work, but seeking and having a growth mindset that scholarships are still available for you to proceed and accomplish that journey of moving from high school into career or high school into college, career, and life. So thank you for that.

Tell us more about why you chose clinical psychology. What is the passion? What is driving you to seek that degree and work in this profession?

Jacqueline Lopez 3:51 Yeah, so kind of a little backtrack. We'll backtrack to high school. I remember while in AVID we had to solidify a career interest, and I carried that out throughout my undergrad.

Because of AVID I was able to go to the college I wanted to. I was able to receive a $25,000 scholarship, which really helped me move away for college and just be able to experience what it's to live alone for the first time.

After taking a couple classes, I realized the career that I initially wanted wasn't for me, which was optometry, and I ended up switching to majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences and as well as minoring in Applied Psychology, which is counseling, clinical, and school psychology. I fell in love with psychology. I have a Latina mentor who was teaching one of my classes, and she was teaching about positive psychology.

I remember just seeing her teaching for the first time, and I was so mesmerized by the fact that someone who looked me was teaching a class. I remember talking to her after class and seeking out that support, that mentorship. I had no idea what a PhD was until she was able to talk to me then and there, and to this day, I'm still in contact with her, so shout out to her.

She was able to share with me that she was doing a school psychology PhD program and that she was doing research alongside clinical work. I just fell in love with doing research within Latinos/Latinx mental health, and just being able to focus on that stigma that still exists within our culture.

That was around my summer going into my junior year. And so for the next two years, I sought out resources to do research. I was a part of the McNair Scholars Program at UCSB, where we're able to do independent research with a mentor.

My senior year, I applied to PhD programs in clinical psychology because I really the treatment focus, interventions, and clinical work that clinical psychology focuses on, as well as the research that's behind it. Now I'm here in my first year here at UNR as a grad student researcher, but then also as a clinician and someone who was able to not only participate in implementing these resources, but also advocating for mental health.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 6:13 Great. I'm glad that your passion has led you here to telling your story and giving back. And I'm going to say something that you have right now: shout out to your mentor. But all of you subscribers, this is an opportunity for you to give back. And whether that's your community has an AVID school or any school, who you are, and people seeing who you are being them matters. It's inspiration.

So that's my challenge. As we talk about Jackie and giving back and her expertise around mental health, share your expertise. And as you walk into the room with all of the adjectives that you were born with and all of the adjectives that you earned, someone will be able to identify with that, and you'll be their inspiration, and you'll be giving back. So go back, tell your story. You might be in this podcast, but go back into your communities, into your schools, and inspire. Jackie, you continue to inspire us.

Some of that inspiration, and the topic for our conversation came with a song that I was listening to on the radio, and that was "I Am Not Okay" from Jelly Roll, and it really reminds us of the ability that sometimes we are masked by who we are or what people think we are, and we are struggling inside, whether it's with stress, as we've talked in the other podcast, or it's anxiety, we're going to talk about in this podcast.

So let's start by reviewing again, what are the tenets of stress, and how do you define it? Because it's going to help us get into anxiety. So Jackie, stress, what are the tenets of it?

Jacqueline Lopez 8:00 Yeah, so stress is the body's reaction to external pressures or demands, often resulting in a heightened state of alertness. It is typically short term and tied to specific situations, such as having a deadline or having a presentation or specific workload that you have.

Stress can also be beneficial in moderation, which can help individuals stay motivated and focused. However, chronic stress can lead to burnout and can also negatively impact both mental and our physical health.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 8:35 I'll remind our subscribers that Jackie mentioned heightened state of alertness. Sometimes it's code for you are being very irritable, so manage your stress. Thank you for just reminding us what stress is and then going into how do we then define anxiety, and particularly in the context of work?

Jacqueline Lopez 8:58 Yeah. So in the context of work, anxiety is a persistent feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease that can occur even in the absence of an immediate stressor. Sometimes in the workplace, anxiety can manifest as having that excessive fear of failure, self-doubt, difficulty making decisions, and a constant sense of dread about our job performance and interactions with our colleagues.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 9:25 So, could we compare or say that stress is something smaller? I'm not minimizing the effects or the unhealthiness of being stressful. Stress is anxiety, but anxiety is just larger because I'm stressed for this period of time, and I'm thinking about it for about this period of time, and I feel tired, or my muscle for this anxiety lingers, and then it also affects our thoughts greater. Am I correct? Or what are the nuances that I'm missing between stress and anxiety, Jackie?

Jacqueline Lopez 10:06 Yeah, so I'll touch a little bit more about the key differences between normal stress and clinical anxiety. Stress is a response to a specific challenge or something short term, which can typically subside once the stressor is removed. Anxiety can linger there, even if there's no immediate threat at the moment, which is often characterized by excessive worry, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, and physical symptoms heart racing or having that muscle tension.

So it's more long term, and clinical anxiety can involve symptoms that could be persistent, which is disproportionate to the situation and can also interfere with our daily functioning. So if anxiety is disrupting your sleep, productivity, or overall well-being, professional support may be necessary in those instances.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 10:57 So seek help. As we mentioned, you're at your job; there are health benefits, so look at your people and culture. Go to your HR department and ask what your benefits are when you're managing stress or anxiety.

Professionals in the medical field will be able to identify and provide the right supports for you to continue to be healthy, or start a healthy journey so that you are able to manage work stress and anxiety and be your best self at work and also be your best self at home.

What steps can some people take when they feel overwhelmed and anxious during the workday, Jackie?

Jacqueline Lopez 11:40 Sometimes when we are in that state of feeling overwhelmed and anxious at work, practicing mindfulness or being transparent with your manager about how you're feeling at the moment is helpful. Not only is it impacting your work, but it's impacting you. And as human beings, we're allowed to feel this type of way as well.

Just being able to be transparent, but also being able to practice putting yourself first, whether it be through mindfulness exercises or just being able to combat that feeling of anxiety with other practices, is really important.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 12:15 Jackie, I'm hearing mindfulness, and it's a buzzword, and we're hearing it more often. Tell me a little bit about what you know about mindfulness, because I think it's going to be important to know. It's one of the solutions that we talk about mitigating stress, and it's also being proposed as, how do we mitigate anxiety? What is mindfulness?

Jacqueline Lopez 12:38 Yeah, so mindfulness, I think I mentioned in the last podcast as well, is a way for us to stay calm and peaceful and practicing certain techniques to bring us back to that state of peacefulness.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 12:53 And that state of peacefulness we're all searching for. I think we'd all to find it there. So it's leading us to that direction.

We also talked about the controversy about mindfulness and/or meditations, which are sometimes used synonymously, but they're not defined as such, as Jackie has explained.

As you're continuing in your mental health journey, mindfulness is a solution for you to be mentally fit, and that's one of the things that Jackie wanted to express. For you to be mentally fit, you need to do these exercises to mitigate stress, and in this case, anxiety, daily, so that you build muscle.

When you are hit in a stressful situation, or you are long term affected by anxiety, you are ready. It is just as needed as sleeping well, eating well, breathing, and making sure you have good dietary habits, that you have these skills and you practice them to build muscle, to address stress and anxiety.

If you have questions about mindfulness and meditation and you are a religious person being in conflict, the best advice we have is speak to your religious leader and be specific, and then seek their recommendations as how to move forward so that you also have that work-life balance and continue to have options in your journey of being mentally fit.

So Jackie, we talked about seeking for help. When should I seek professional help for anxiety?

Jacqueline Lopez 14:39 Yeah, so professional help is recommended if anxiety persists for more than a few weeks, and it also disrupts our daily life when it interferes with our job performance, our relationships or sleep. Sometimes it leads to avoidance behaviors, such as calling in sleep frequently, but then also causes a significant distress despite attempts to manage it independently.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 15:03 Nice. Because we know that avoidance means I'm not going to be able to practice those good behaviors and recommendations you told us regarding managing stress, which is your timelines and your calendar, setting realistic goals. If I start avoiding looking at my calendar, avoiding moving forward towards that goal, it's going to affect my work situation. So help me understand how I can make people in culture or HR my partner, so that they get their best employee and I also get the best self.

Jacqueline Lopez 15:42 Yeah, so some workplace accommodations or resources that might help individuals manage their anxiety can include advocating for flexible work hours or even asking for remote options, if that environmental stress is affecting us a lot.

Maybe even asking for quiet spaces or wellness rooms at the workplace for mental health breaks, but then also accessing employee assistance programs for counseling and support.

Sometimes also adjusting our workload expectations can be a lot, so collaborating with your manager or your mentor when it comes to that is really important. That transparency is a key aspect, but then also using other types of resources to sort of minimize our distractions.

Just being able to be transparent with your manager and practice those mindfulness skills is really important so that our workplace accommodations are also able to help us as individuals and as humans manage our anxiety.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 16:40 Thank you, Jackie. It's your story to tell, especially when it comes to work. You are protected when you're speaking to HR, your people and culture department, about your medical needs. So seek medical attention and advice as well. But while I say it's your story to tell, let's talk about the benefits of having a peer or a mentor relationship that can help me manage anxiety at work.

Jacqueline Lopez 17:12 Yeah, so having that trusted colleague or mentor to provide that emotional support, guidance, or reassurance is really important so that we're able to manage our anxiety at work.

For the most part, peer relationships can really normalize our shared struggles, which makes us as individuals feel less isolated. And even mentors can offer a perspective, their advice, and their encouragement, which helps early career professionals navigate the workplace as well as its challenges with greater confidence.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 17:46 I think confidence is one of the key things that you're going to talk about. When you have a peer or you have a mentor, you can calibrate the understanding of those triggers at work that are leading to your anxiety, because maybe I didn't understand them correctly.

Having that thought partnership or that mentor can remind you of the skills or techniques or habits or tools that you have in your belt that Jackie is sharing with us of how to mitigate anxiety at work, helping us, reminding us so they become a healthy habit for us to do.

I also want to remember that while you have a peer or a mentor at work, there are responsibilities that people have to report, especially when stress and anxiety lead to conversations where you may be a danger to yourself. So make sure you're practicing your HR and people and culture rules and regulations of what needs to be reported. Even though you're a critical friend and a critical partner, you're not breaking trust by making sure that you're addressing when help is needed when it's very critical.

Jackie is going to share some apps and some hotlines as well that you yourself can use for self, but that you can also help other individuals. So always make sure you're following workplace regulations and practices when you're confiding in others. Not all information needs to stay with you, especially when it deals with the health of an individual: your friend, your peer, your mentor, at work.

Let's talk about community. There are ways to build community at work, and it can help us foster a sense of calm, belonging, and even that peace you talked about earlier. How do we do this and what are the benefits of building community to manage anxiety at work?

Jacqueline Lopez 19:41 Yeah, so the role of community in order to foster that sense of calm and belonging, whether it be through workplace affinity groups or just professional organizations or social connections outside of work, is able to allow us to foster that emotional resilience. Being able to feel connected with our peers also is able to reduce that anxiety by providing us with reassurance, encouragement, and a safe space to express our concerns.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 20:10 Thank you. I think that's really good advice about what community does, and it also provides an accountability system for us. We are able to be accountable for ourselves, but when you have that community, they're able to recognize sometimes what you don't recognize in yourself, which is, you are not okay, and it's okay not to be okay. But start by seeking help, and if you don't do that for yourself, having this community may allow for someone to recognize it and then start into those healthy mental health behaviors.

So once I'm there and I recognize I have anxiety and I'm practicing these skills, let's talk about maintenance, because we talked about you need to have those muscles build and maintain those healthy behaviors, whether they're breathing techniques, whether they're actual physical exercise, adding to your dietary needs to make sure that you have the right peaks and valleys at the necessary time you don't want to be asleep at work. Tell me, Jackie, what are some proactive strategies for maintaining good mental health in the workplace.

Jacqueline Lopez 21:24 Yeah, so a couple strategies to maintain good mental health in our workplace. One of them is prioritizing that work-life balance, so being able to set boundaries while also taking breaks while at work.

Developing a daily stress reduction routine, such as exercising, journaling, or meditation, is really important. Cultivating a growth mindset, so even embracing these challenges as learning experiences, and being able to take that into any other experiences that we encounter.

But then also seeking out that social support, staying connected to friends, to colleagues, and to your mentors, in order to proactively practice those good mental health techniques in the workplace.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 22:05 As we're along this line of thinking, you shared some strategies again, for maintaining good mental health in the workplace, especially when we're trying to mitigate anxiety, being anxiety less or having less anxiety.

Where can our subscribers acquire some resources you've mentioned? In addition to them taking notes or listening to this podcast again, where can I go on a website or an app or possibly a hotline to recognize how to mitigate anxiety and get those tools, or to seek help for anxiety?

Jacqueline Lopez 22:41 Some other websites that I suggest, if you guys are interested, would be the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). So that would be the nimh.nih.gov. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), so that's ada.org.

Some apps that have helped me are Calm and also Headspace.

Then some hotlines that are out there for us to access whenever we are feeling not our best selves. There's also the SAMHSA helpline: 1-800-662-HELP. The National Suicide Prevention Line, which is 988. And then the Crisis Text Line: texting HELLO to 741741.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 23:22 Any one of these is a good start, and it's important for you to recognize it. If someone can help you recognize it in yourself, take that first step or continue those steps, because we've talked about the importance of maintenance.

It's important for your mental fitness that you build muscle to have enough strength to manage symptoms when you need it the most, just as sleep, nutrition, and physical exercise are needed daily. Think about mental health practices as daily too.

I know I have, and I shared a little bit in my other podcast about when I had a lot of stress and I had to seek help, and it was temporary.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 25:03 In this podcast, for sure, I have had bouts of anxiety, and I continue to manage anxiety. Even though I think I'm well enough now, I'm preaching and taking my own advice for once, as some people might say. I continue to have a therapist and do it once a week to just talk about what I'm dealing with, and it may be something small or something big, but I use that as a tool, because it's building my muscle.

When I am in a stressful or anxious situation, I have those habits that have built good muscle memory and tools to make sure that I am fully my best self in stressful and anxious situations where I am feeling high anxiety at work and also with my family and friends outside of work. I want to be my best version, not irritable, so that I can mitigate some of those behaviors that lead and come out of stress and anxiety that are indulgent, that you don't want to do, that you always want to do in moderation. So seek help.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 27:07 I continue to do so, and it's done wonders. As Jackie has mentioned, in certain cultures, and even when we started the day, it is a stigma to talk about mental health, although we've done better. It's popularized in music and in our pop culture, but it's also a stigma in certain communities to say and reach out for constant help from psychologists and psychiatrists, as Jackie is going to be and as she is being an expert in it.

So do seek that help, because, as Jelly Roll mentions to us, it is okay to say, "I am not okay," and that is the first step. Then, take those tools that you've learned, or take tools that you've heard in this podcast, or podcast number one, to make sure you're leaning into those tools for support.

I talked about Jelly Roll being on one side and Glenn Close being on the other side in a quote in the first podcast about stress. Let's keep Jelly Roll here talking about "I'm not okay," and making it okay to say that out loud.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 28:22 But now put Prince Harry on the other 10 shoulders that I have from the stressful anxiety that I deal in life and life out.

Prince Harry says in a quote, "It's okay to have anxiety. We all have mental health in the same way we all have physical health. Not one solution will fit all, but it all starts with the conversation."

So I want to thank Jackie for not only starting the conversation in part one of our mental series podcast, but in part two. We already know there's a need for part three and part four. If we are practicing what we say, we need to make these habits and continue to practice and leverage these tools and talk about it so that we can hear, listen, and do better for ourselves.

So thank you, Jackie and our subscribers, for the conversation and the journey towards mental fitness. Remember it is completely normal to experience stress and anxiety.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 29:32 We've normalized it, Jackie, we've been talking about it, especially in the early stages of your career, or any time in your college career and life. As Jackie reminded us back when she was in AVID as a high school student, it is stressful.

What's important is knowing that you're not alone and that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Taking care of your mental health is just as essential as your professional growth. Both deserve your attention professionally and mentally.

That's our time today in this episode of Avidly Adulting: Anxiety Less at Work. Remember, be good today; that's enough, and together, let's strive to be great tomorrow.

Avidly Adulting is powered by our AVID alumni and is brought to you by AVID. To learn more about AVID, visit our website at avid.org. If you are an AVID alumni, join our network at avid.org/alumni. Thanks for listening to Avidly Adulting.

Dr. Aliber Lozano 30:28 Join us the first and third Mondays of every month as we feature guests and topics to help you navigate your first career with laughter, insights, and life lessons, because adulting isn't just a job, it's an adventure.