Zoom Anxiety: Why It Happens and How to Cope

Do you feel stressed or nervous as the minutes count down to your scheduled Zoom meeting? Do you find it difficult to coherently articulate yourself and control your fidgeting while attending said meeting? Do you feel exhausted but also relieved when you finally close your laptop after it’s over? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be experiencing Zoom anxiety, and you are certainly not alone. The other day, I had a virtual happy hour for work and I made myself so nervous and panicky that I ended up not attending. It was so strange, especially because at my job pre-quarantine, I loved attending staff bonding events, birthday parties, and after shift dinners. So what changed?

There are a multitude of reasons why we feel more anxious or nervous about Zoom meetings than we do about in person social hangouts. One explanation is that Zoom makes us miss out on a large aspect of communication. More often than not, you are only presenting yourself from the shoulders up, meaning that your viewer is losing out on a lot of body language. Only 15% of communication is verbal, the remaining 85% is nonverbal communication, or body language. When we’re missing this, it can make us feel lost in the conversation or like we’re having a hard time following, both of which can induce stress and social anxiety. Another reason why we may experience Zoom anxiety is because we are constantly looking at ourselves. We are too aware of what our facial movements look like, how our faces look when we’re bored, how weird 7am natural lighting makes us look, and so on. Obviously during in person interactions, we aren’t able to see ourselves so we don’t experience this heightened level of self consciousness.

So what can we do to cope with and manage our Zoom anxiety? The first step you can take can start days before the scheduled Zoom call. Positive self-talk and affirmations can help you take the catastrophe-esque scenario that exists in your head and speak a positive version of it outloud. Another approach to coping with anxious feelings is through exposure therapy. Little by little you can show yourself and engage with others over video until you’re comfortable leaving your camera on and chatting with other meeting attendees for the duration of the call.

Start out by just turning your camera on to let everyone know that you are present, and you can turn it off shortly after. For every call after that, challenge yourself to leave it on a little bit longer. Finally, the tip that has helped me the most is to conserve your social battery. While meetings for work or class are mandatory, social hangouts are not. You do not need to accept every Zoom invitation you receive; it is not worth it to exhaust yourself by being anxious and “socially on” all the time.

You can definitely overcome Zoom anxiety, but it’s important to remember to be gentle with yourself. Do not force yourself to be your biggest, most bubbly self on every call. Communicate with your bosses and professors when you don’t feel comfortable turning on your camera all the time. The most important thing is that you’re taking care of yourself.

 

• mental health
• tech
• Zoom
• Zoom University