Ellen Hendrikson

Okay, so first, what is layoff anxiety?

Layoff anxiety can manifest physically, so that could be trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, feeling tense and on edge, being irritable, being anxious can make us really grouchy.

It can manifest emotionally, that could be as anxiety, dread, or also like volatility, like swinging between feeling hopeful and hopeless.

And then, of course, there's those behavioral symptoms.

So that could be worry, excessive research, reassurance seeking, like looking at your finances to the point where it's costing you more than it's buying you.

Asking your colleagues repeatedly what they think is going to happen.

And sometimes the anxiety is about more than you just will I get laid off and can tap into our deeper fears and insecurities because we all bring our own individual factors into play.

Our just how we're wired, our personality, our upbringing, like so much can influence how we feel.

But now I am seeing, I think, appropriate worries about job loss.

But the good news is we can still do things for either scenario.

Absolutely.

I think at this moment, it is really real and really valid.

Every human reacts to the situations they're put in.

So when we are put in a situation and a cultural moment where companies really are replacing employees with AI, where there really is global economic uncertainty, where there really were mass firings under Doge that shook up a lot of Americans, like under those circumstances, it is normal to react with some layoff anxiety.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, I've actually heard this many, many times.

And there's a grain of truth because anxiety works to protect us.

You know, anxiety is there to keep us safe.

It helps us like scan the horizon for danger so we don't get blindsided.