Have you ever had a crushing deadline at work, one that weighed heavily on you for months? Frantically, you worked on the project all day, and sometimes into the evening. And you thought, if I can just get through this project, then I will feel better? And then, when you finally submitted the project, you felt…worse?

When I wrote my last book, A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education, I worked ferociously trying to meet a crushing deadline. But the more I worked, it seemed that I was even farther from the deadline than before.

As time went on, every time I revised a chapter, my writing seemed to get worse and worse. How was that possible?

Each day, as the deadline loomed closer, I lost sleep and worked more hours.

I was experiencing severe chronic anxiety. Now, I have an anxiety disorder, but this project drove it out of control.

Under stressful situations, it can feel like the more you work on a project, the less you accomplish. The more you study for an exam, for example, the less you feel you know. That’s what anxiety does. It lies to you and tells you that things are getting worse, not better.

In an attempt to soothe your anxiety, you work harder, overdoing it and harming yourself in the process. The problem is that the work is never finished because you can never soothe anxiety. Your work is never good enough.

Fortunately, if you have an exam, one day you have to take it. If you have a project deadline,........

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