Source: The Conversation – UK
In Nosferatu (1922), one of cinema’s most haunting images arrives before the vampire himself: his shadow. Something is approaching, but we don’t know exactly what it is, or what will happen when it arrives. The fear lies in the anticipation.
This is called anticipatory stress, and it can affect us in our work lives. An event may be months away, yet psychologically it has already entered the room, casting a shadow on the present.
In my research, I explored the wellbeing at work of university education academics working within high-stakes inspection and accountability systems in the UK and Ireland.
In England, all initial teacher education providers are inspected by Ofsted. In other nations, accreditation inspections may be conducted by professional regulatory bodies, such as the Teaching Council of Ireland. Across these different systems, many academics described feeling anticipatory stress while waiting for an inspection.
Participants in England described living in “constant anticipation”, on “constant red alert” and “on a knife edge” while waiting for the call from Ofsted.
The inspection had not begun, but the expectation of it was already shaping how they worked, where they directed their attention and even how confidently they could make plans outside work. As one participant said, “every family plan is prefaced with, ‘but I could get the call’”.
Anticipation itself is not the problem. It’s a normal psychological function that allows us to prepare for what is coming. The difficulty arises when we know something important is approaching, but our personal control is limited, and we don’t have enough information to decide what useful preparation actually looks like.
Under those conditions, the mind keeps working on the problem. We forecast possible outcomes, we revisit conversations we have had and we can become more attentive to potential signals.
An unexpected request for a meeting or a delayed email response can suddenly acquire particular significance, not necessarily because it means anything, but because uncertainty can make us more vigilant for information that might help predict what comes next.
Psychologists use the term “perseverative cognition” to describe how worry and rumination can keep a potential stressor mentally active when it is not actually present. In simple terms, the stressful event may be absent, but the mind keeps bringing it back into the present.
As one of my interviewees explained: “My mind has already gone into overdrive with worry – even though the inspection might not take place until next year.” Another said: “It’s the ‘not knowing’ that I find so stressful.” Indeed, research into uncertain threat suggests that unpredictability can sustain vigilance, partly because there is no clear point at which we know we can safely stand down.
Stressful events at work
Many of the events we anticipate at work also carry an element of evaluation. An inspection, promotion process or performance review can place our competence directly under scrutiny, while restructuring may raise a broader question about our future value within an organisation.
Research on social-evaluative threat – the stress we feel when we think we are being judged by others – suggests that these situations can provoke particularly strong stress responses. This was apparent in my own research. “It’s my name up front,” one participant said. “I have led the team so I feel a deep sense of personal responsibility that this goes well for everyone.”
Anticipation is often not only tethered to uncertainty, but to professional identity and the consequences of feeling judged.
My research also showed how the period of anticipation can generate additional work. Many participants noted the gap between official advice and the reality of preparing for a high-stakes event, such as an inspection. Professional bodies might say: “Don’t do anything special for us coming,” but participants felt that, in practice, preparation was unavoidable.
Some described how preparation “almost doubles your workload because you are doing your job and making sure you can demonstrate you are doing the job as well – which is very stressful”. This may be familiar to those in other work contexts. Employees often have to deliver their work while documenting, checking and preparing to account for it. When this preparation takes place in the light of a high-stakes event, it can easily be accompanied by anticipatory stress.
This kind of uncertainty is becoming a familiar feature of organisational life. Restructures are announced before new roles are settled; mergers begin to reshape teams while reporting lines remain unclear.
More recently, new technologies, such as AI, have been introduced while employees are still trying to understand what they will mean for their day-to-day work.
The difficulty isn’t change itself, nor the assumption that the change will necessarily end badly. It is the long period in which people know enough to realise that something important is shifting, but don’t have enough information to make informed decisions or understand their future with any degree of confidence.
Organisations cannot remove all uncertainty from the workplace, and leaders cannot provide answers they do not yet have. They can, however, give uncertainty some boundaries by being clear about what is known, what aspects remain unresolved and when people can expect to know more. Without those boundaries, the period before an important event can fill with worry, rumination and attempts to make sense of incomplete information.
Sabrina Fitzsimons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/11/02/constantly-on-edge-at-work-it-could-be-anticipatory-stress/