Even if you place and receive conference calls regularly, you may experience some degree of conference call anxiety. When you have an upcoming virtual meeting, you may feel a tinge of worry. Your palms may sweat. Or you may find yourself unable to focus on anything else.

In any case, conference call anxiety is counterproductive. It limits your productivity and renders you less able to maintain a healthy, confident conversation with your peers.

So what steps can you take to resolve this conference call anxiety?

Acknowledge the Root Causes

Take a moment to acknowledge the root causes of your conference call anxiety. What makes you feel this way?

For some people, this is a manifestation of a broader form of social anxiety. That’s something you can manage with a combination of coping strategies, therapeutic support, and more.

If you only experience anxiety with video calls and conference calls, it may be attributable to technological issues or this specific conversational format. Are you anxious because your conference call tech is underperforming? Do you feel low confidence navigating this technology? Are there specific features or functions that you’re unfamiliar with?

Consider Attending Therapy

Anxiety therapists specialize in helping people better understand the root causes of their anxiety, providing tools and resources that can help them overcome their anxiety, and guiding them to a new life with less influence from anxiety. If you only feel a tinge of worry or apprehension before a conference call, therapy may not be the right solution for you (though therapy is valuable even for people with no underlying mental health conditions). If you feel like anxiety has a significant impact on your working life and/or personal life, attending weekly therapy sessions is probably your best move.

Together, you and your therapist can work to get control over your anxiety so it no longer influences your thoughts or behaviors.

Correct Conference Call Technology Issues

It's also wise to correct any tech-based conference call issues that might be stimulating or worsening your anxiety.

For example:

• Unnecessary conference calls. Does your employer or your team seem to post conference calls of unnecessary length or frequency? If you feel like you're in conference calls all day, every day, with no real direction or value, anxiety and apprehension are natural byproducts. Can you introduce the idea of consolidating some of these conference calls or eliminating them in favor of a group email?
• Core functionality problems. Some people feel conference call anxiety because of tech hiccups and preventable functionality issues. Do you think your anxiety stems from the fact that conference calls are frequently jittery or inconsistent in quality? If so, have a conversation with the IT department about correcting some of these issues. There are also some steps you can take on your own. For example, you can make sure to close out all other programs and pause other online activities to maximize available bandwidth for your conference call. You can also make sure your software and your devices are fully up-to-date.
• Familiarity problems. Do you have anxiety that stems from your lack of familiarity with this program or this device? If you don’t feel confident in your ability to navigate this interface or fully utilize basic functions (like muted audio), you may feel especially anxious. Consider watching video tutorials to better understand these features, or plan some “practice” conference calls with people you trust so you can try out these features with confidence.
• Planning/attendance problems. We've all been on conference calls with too many people and conference calls that were poorly planned or organized. If planning or attendance issues are common in your organization, speak up about them. All your conference calls should be deliberate, thoughtful, and appropriately organized.
• Conversation flow problems. Do conference calls in your organization typically devolve into aggressive individuals clamoring to interrupt each other? If so, better conference call leadership may be all it takes to resolve some of your anxiety.

Practice Simple Coping Strategies

Beyond correcting technological problems, you can start practicing these simple anxiety coping strategies in the hours leading up to your conference call:

·       Deeply breathe. Before a conference call, spend some time deep breathing. There are many different breathing exercises you can try, but all of them require you to focus your attention on the process of breathing. Breathe in, count to 5, then breathe out, and count to 5 again. Repeat as necessary until you start to feel your anxiety wane.

·       Utilize aromatherapy. For some people, aromatherapy is the perfect antidote to anxiety. A candle or oil diffuser with vanilla, lavender, or citrus could give you room to breathe.

·       Squeeze in some quick exercise. A quick round of exercise can burn stress and help you feel less anxious. Can you do some quick pushups at your desk? Or go for a run around the block?

·       Identify your thought patterns. Closely monitor your thought patterns to better understand how your mind addresses the conference call. What is it, specifically, that's triggering your anxiety? Are you afraid of saying something stupid? Do you hate the way your boss condescends to others? Pay especially close attention to negative self-talk, which can be corrected in real-time.

·       Write down your worries. Whatever you're worried about, write it down. Sometimes, this simple act of writing makes its power disappear.

·       Meditate. Finally, spend a few moments meditating with the practice or technique most relevant to you. If you don’t know where to start, try mindfulness meditation – at its core, it’s a simple technique designed to help you focus on the present, rather than the past or future.

Short-term coping strategies are great for managing anxiety in the moment. But there are also some strategies you can use in the long term to reduce the prevalence and intensity of anxiety throughout your life. Exercising, journaling, improving your diet, and socializing are good places to start.

Conference call anxiety is more common than you might think. While conference calls are a regular feature of most modern jobs, they shouldn't be such a worrisome force. With the help of technological fixes, and possibly some therapy and coping strategies, you can put yourself in a much better position to thrive in a conference call environment.