How The 3-3-3 Rule Lowers Career Anxiety And Calms The Mind

When job stress and anxiety overtake us, practicing the 3-3-3 rule can anchor us in calm and clarity … [+] so that we can stay engaged and productive.

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Anxiety is a natural emotion for all of us, but in the extreme, it can be debilitating and distract us from our career trajectory. The 2024 results of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual mental health poll show that U.S. adults are feeling increasingly anxious. In 2024, almost half (43%) of the American population say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. Anxiety symptoms include a sense of foreboding or gloom and doom, even when nothing anxiety provoking is looming. Feeling fidgety and irritable are common. Sleepless nights, waning appetites, rapid breathing, fast heartbeat and the inability to focus at work often accompany anxiety.

What Americans Are Anxious About

If you’re an employee, there are so many things to be anxious about from a personal level to wider workplace issues to global concerns. You might be anxious about return-to-office mandates, layoffs and the impact of AI as it infiltrates the workplace. Or you might be anxious over a tight work deadline, the boss looking over your shoulder or the tension of waiting for the results of a job interview.

On a personal level, your intimate relationship could be on the rocks, a loved one might have a medical issue or you could face financial strain. On a global scale, The APA study finds that Americans say they’re anxious about current events (70%), the economy (77%), the upcoming United States presidential election (73%) and gun violence (69%).

The APA study also revealed additional issues that people are anxious about:

Keeping themselves or their families safe, 68%.
Keeping their identity safe, 63%.
Their health, 63%.
Paying bills or expenses, 63%.
The opioid epidemic, 50%.
The impact of emerging technology on day-to-day life, 46%.
Climate change, 57%

How To Apply The 3-3-3 Rule To Mitigate Anxiety

When you’re anxious, your ability to focus on tasks is compromised, you might ruminate about the future or regret a mistake you made in the past. Psychologists now use what are known as mindfulness techniques to help people bring their attention back into the present moment. Mindful awareness reduces mind wandering and mistakes at work.

During a stressful situation, the mind takes us out of the here and now. Your anxious thoughts wander and get stuck on worries about the future or on regrets of the past—making you feel out of your body or not grounded in some way. There are many ways to practice mindfulness meditation that you can find here.

But one of the easiest and simplest tools to bring you back into the present, lower your anxiety and calm your mind is a mindfulness tool called the 3-3-3- rule. When you notice moment-to-moment body sensations, mental processes and feelings that arise, this practice grounds you and aids in focus and concentration. As you practice the three steps, take one minute for each one and do it slowly. You can repeat the exercise as often as you need to reach that present-moment calm state.

Listen for one minute. Pay attention to three sounds you hear around you. With eyes closed, you might hear ambient noise such as a rumble of thunder, whoosh of traffic or giggling voices off in the distance or the immediate sound of a humming air conditioner or your own gurgling stomach.
Observe for one minute. Name three objects you can see around you. Take the time to notice their shapes, colors and any other details as vividly as you can in your mind’s eye.
Touch for one minute. Notice three objects you can touch and take in how the each one feels. You can brush your hand over the chair at your workstation, objects on top of your desk or the screen you’ve been looking at. Notice if the texture of each object is smooth or rough, warm or cold or heavy or light.

The Science Behind The 3-3-3 Rule

When you’re anxious, the brain becomes myopic, focusing on the threat or the anxious thoughts for survival. As the threatening thoughts circle in your head like a school of sharks, the anxiety hijacks your nervous system and throws your prefrontal cortex (or rational part of the brain) offline, eclipsing the bigger picture that you would ordinarily see when anchored in the present moment.

The 3-3-3 rule harnesses the social circuitry of your brain and resets and recharges your mind during the workday. It breaks the cycle of anxious thoughts, rumination or obsessive worry. It snatches you out of your sympathetic nervous system’s story (the fight-or-flight or stress response), activates your parasympathetic nervous system (the rest-and-digest or calming response) and anchors you in the present moment where there is no anxiety. And it enables you to be more efficient and productive and calmly navigate workplace woes.

It keeps your attention on the stream of the process, instead of focusing on completion of the task. You’re able to bring curious, nonjudgmental attention to yourself, your work and your relationships. Plus, it helps you master packed schedules, difficult work relationships and new technologies (such as AI) instead of becoming slaves to them. It eases you through work stress, business failures, job loss or worry and anxiety about career goals.

If you practice this three-step, three-minute rule once or twice a day on a regular basis, it has lasting effects over the long term. It widens your resilient zone, and over time, it prevents anxiety from hijacking you when you’re faced with career challenges.

But the best part of all is how moment-to-moment mindfulness makes you feel in your skin. You start to internalize the realization that the past is over and gone, the future never arrives and the present is right here and now where life is really happening. Calming and centering yourself there, enables you to thrive and experience life as it happens, enjoying yourself, your work and your friends and loved ones to the fullest.

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