What is Anxiety Part 2: The Difference Between Anxiety and Stress

What is Anxiety Part 2: The Difference Between Anxiety and Stress

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In a previous segment, we talked about the stress response and the negative effects that chronic stress has on the body.

Today, we’ll discuss what distinguishes anxiety disorders and dangerous stress from everyday stress.

Many of us tend to accept stress as an unavoidable part of life. Being busy and stressed out is getting to be a sort of badge of honor.

But with so many us more stressed than ever, we need to understand the differences between normal stress, and stress’s evil cousin – anxiety.

Stress is normal, and sometimes even beneficial – it has the power to motivate us to improve our circumstances. Anxiety, however, is something that no one should have to live with.

Stress and anxiety often look similar. They share many of the same physical symptoms – increased blood pressure, loss of appetite, insomnia, and headaches, to name a few.

Normal stress is a reaction to something specific – studying for a big test, working extra hours at the office, or caring for a new baby, for example. Stress is challenging, but it is mostly manageable.

Anxiety disorders often begin with chronic stress, or a major stressful event but not always. Anxiety is what happens when the stress response goes haywire.

If you’ll recall from our previous segment, the stress response is that “fight or flight” feeling your body feels when physical danger is present. When we’re dealing with anxiety, a stress response can be triggered by situations that do not pose a physical danger to us.

It can manifest in generalized anxiety, or other types of disorders, such as OCD, phobias, panic, and PTSD. Anxiety can be debilitating, and it usually isn’t something that just goes away. Even milder instances of anxiety can impact your ability to live and enjoy your life.

While stress is an inevitable part of life and often goes away as you deal with challenges, anxiety can spiral out of control and get worse if left unchecked. And often enough, we ourselves do not understand what is causing our anxiety.

Anxiety tells us that something in the body is wrong. That something could be unresolved stress, poor diet, lack of sleep, or a serious nutrient deficiency, which leaves our stress response on a hair trigger.

So if you are experiencing anxiety, don’t ignore it. Do something abut it.