You’re a fraud, and everyone knows it. You somehow lucked into your role, and your colleagues are clearly more qualified than you are. You’re working overtime to keep your head above water, but you know it’s only a matter of time before your shortcomings are exposed.

Sound about right? If it does, you may be experiencing something known as “imposter phenomenon”—a concept that has been around since at least the 1970s, but has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. As it turns out, if you feel this way, you're probably better than average.

Nonetheless, this is one of many things that make work feel ultra stressful. Many, many things. Today we're tackling a small portion of them.

Q: At my job, I sit at a long table with 10 other people, in a big room with 100 other people. I've been adjusting to all the ambient noise, but there's one thing I cannot get over: being so exposed all of the time. There's always people walking by. I feel like they're looking at me, and that my computer screen is always being monitored by the people behind me. I eat my lunch at my desk and feel like people are watching what I eat and how. The pressure is starting to be overpowering. It can sometimes feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. What can I do?

A: Surveys of many thousands of office employees around the world have found that open-plan workspaces are intensely disliked. Partly because of the noise issues (which you say you’ve adjusted to, which is great) but also because of the loss of privacy. Indeed, a recent paper found that the supposed benefits of an open-plan space, in terms of increased collaboration and idea-exchange, simply doesn’t justify the psychological costs of the loss of privacy.

Sadly, management aren’t likely to listen to these findings any time soon. However, I think there are some practical steps you can take to make your life easier.

• First, eating lunch at your desk is a bad idea. It’s convenient, sure. But you do surely have the freedom to leave your desk for a lunch break. In fact, to ease the overpowering anxiety that you’re feeling, I would urge you to take every legitimate chance you can to get out of the building, or at least the room. A proper break means getting up and logging off. Studies have shown that workers who use their breaks to browse the internet on their computer or phone end up feeling more emotionally drained later in the day. If your job involves computer work, then more screen time simply won’t provide you enough of a change to allow your batteries to recharge.
• Like you, I need my personal space, and when I’m crammed cheek-by-jowl with commuters on a train, I find it suffocating. But listening to music over headphones really helps me cope (psychologists have confirmed this effect in the lab: When volunteers were listening to music on headphones, the experimenter had to get much closer to them before they said it felt uncomfortable). Try bringing headphones to work and listen to calming music, or whatever kind of music makes you feel good. It will take your attention off the people around you and create a psychological cocoon, providing you with an illusion of privacy.
• Personalizing your immediate workspace—with your favorite mug, photos of friends or family or your pet pig, whatever—can also help. If you're hot-desking it this is obviously trickier, but there should still be some possessions you can move around with you, to mark out your own space. Research with open-plan office workers has found that the usual link between lack of privacy and emotional exhaustion is reduced among those who make greater efforts to personalize their spaces, probably because doing this helps create a calming mini-sanctuary and increases feelings of control.

A few final thoughts: The more you can absorb yourself in your work, the less spare attention you’ll have left over to worry about the people around you, and the less stressful you’ll find the goldfish bowl. Try putting plans in place for how to distract yourself when the self-consciousness becomes overpowering (like, “if it gets too much, then I’ll go to the bathroom”). Also, ask your co-workers what they think about the fish-bowl effect of working together. You’ll probably find that many of them share similar anxieties to you. By getting the issue out in the open, it will lose a lot of its sting.

This week's therapy was brought to you by Dr. Christian Jarrett (@Psych_Writer), a psychologist and author of The Rough Guide to Psychology and Great Myths of the Brain.

• If you feel like a fraud, you're probably better than average. Here's how to deal with imposter syndrome.
• "Do I have to go to work happy hours even though I can't stand them?"
• "I'm a journalist who, after about a decade in the business, recently took an honest look at the mental toll of the job."
• Four ways to calm down when you're freaking out at work
• We asked people how they tackle their Sunday night anxiety

📩 📩 📩 Send your questions to coping@vice.com and we might run the answer in next week's newsletter.