THE COMMUTE BEFORE A DIFFICULT DAY
When Anxiety Starts Before You Even Arrive
Sometimes the working day begins long before we reach work.
For someone experiencing workplace anxiety, the commute can become the place where thoughts race ahead to meetings, workload, difficult relationships, sensory demands or the fear of making a mistake. The body may react too — with nausea, a racing heart, tension, panic or the feeling that getting through the door is suddenly an enormous task.
This Workplace Wellbeing resource explores why anxiety can build during the journey to work and why the commute itself is not always the real problem.
The downloadable guide looks at anticipatory anxiety, sensory and executive demands, neurodivergent experiences of commuting, sitting in the car before going inside, public-transport overload and practical ways to make the transition into work less emotionally expensive.
It also asks an important question: what is waiting at the end of the journey? When anxiety repeatedly relates to workload, bullying, a difficult manager, inaccessible working conditions or particular meetings, simply becoming better at coping with the commute may not be enough.
The resource includes practical strategies, workplace adjustment ideas and a simple check-in exercise to help people recognise patterns and understand whether the anxiety comes from the journey, the workplace, or both.
Space to Breathe Therapy
Support • Understand • Belong
