Identifying Anxiety: Comparing to Everyday Stress
It’s normal to feel stressed.
Whether it’s from a busy work week, argument with a friend, or unexpected expense; you can feel stressed out, and kind of just ‘on edge’ for a little while.
This stress usually disappears once the situation improves.
Not all stress disappears though. Normal stress doesn’t last forever, but sometimes it feels like it. It can even lead you to obsess about potential mishaps, and ‘what if’ scenarios. You can feel on edge all the time, or have constant racing thoughts that keep you up at night. Simplistic things can feel huge and daunting.
You can get to a point where you can’t tell the difference between stress and anxiety. They can absolutely co-exist. Sometimes both are present.
Knowing the differences between stress and anxiety can help you decipher what your mind and body is trying to communicate to you. You may need outside help.
Stress Is Something That Nearly All Of Us Are Familiar With
Being stressed is something that almost all of us have experienced.
There are many reasons that we become stressed. It could be because we have too much to do, not enough time to do it in, or because we have to do something that makes us feel emotionally or physically drained.
Sometimes there are many stress inducing factors that are operating at the same time, for example, you could have deadlines at work and be taking care of sick relatives, or you could be going through a divorce.
Often, we can easily identify the things that stress us out, for example, you could be feeling stressed because you have to give an important talk at work, and then spend the rest of the week feeling distracted because you are thinking about the things you are going to say.
Of course, the stressful feeling usually goes away after the thing that is causing the stress is no longer there, so in this example, after the work talk, you would probably feel relieved.
Anxiety has Different Rules
Anxiety often acts differently than stress. Though stress requires an identifiable source, anxiety can also occur in its absence.
You can give a presentation, for example, and still feel anxious after the fact.
Relief from the stress of giving the presentation does not mean an absence of anxiety. Instead, anxiety can divert to other, often unrelated concerns.
Maybe you’ll worry that your boss will think your presentation was poor.
Or maybe you’ll worry about other presentation-related mishaps and embarrassments.
You could even worry that this one presentation could negatively impact your career.
Of course, the worry can extend beyond the realm of your most recent presentation and into other situations and their potential mishaps.
You can recognize on a logical level that most, if not all, of your worries will not come to pass, and can even feel powerless to really relax, but still feel anxious and worried on an emotional and physical level.
This situation can really test your will to remain logical and rational.
How Stress and Anxiety Can Feel Similar to you
Stress and anxiety affect the body in similar ways and can make it difficult to pinpoint which one you are feeling. They also have similar causes and some of the same effects. Some of these effects include:
- Tense or achy muscles
- Persistent headaches
- Trouble falling or staying asleep
- An irregular or rapid heart rate
- Digestive issues
- Feeling tired and/or overwhelmed
- Inadequate focus and restlessness
- Changes in how much you want or are able to eat
People often experience these symptoms when there is an obvious and important cause for concern. As long as the stress or anxiety is short lived, people usually go back to normal when the cause of concern is removed. Having anxiety for long periods of time can cause your body to think there is danger or stress all the time. This can make relaxing and feeling relaxed difficult. Some people can even become anxious about their anxiety. This can cause people to focus on their body and the ways they think something is wrong, even if nothing actually is. It’s important to remember physical symptoms of anxiety are not bad and will usually go away on their own.
What is the reason of this similar feeling?
To tell the difference between anxiety and stress, ask yourself:
“What am I anxious about?”
With stress, there is often a clear answer.
“My schedule this week is too busy.”
“I don’t have enough money.”
“My child isn’t doing well at school.”
“I have an important exam tomorrow.”
With anxiety, there is often no clear answer.
It can just feel like there is a vague unease or nervousness.
Also, there can be several connected worries.
For example, making a small mistake at work can lead to thinking about larger mistakes and losing your job. This can then turn into thinking about how you would then lose your income and make your family members be bound by even more stress about the unknown and how you would then deal with everything.
Anxiety is Often “What If” Thinking
Anxiety can be evident through repetitive ‘what if’ questions in your mind.
- What if I give the wrong answer?
- What if I make them mad?
- What if I get a stomach ache?
- What if my relationship ends?
- What if I choose the wrong option?
- What if I can’t face what’s next?
Every person has ‘what if’ questions from time to time.
The difference is how often they happen and how hard it is to ignore them.
With normal, everyday worry, you can still focus on other things and only think about that worry from time to time.
With anxiety, you may have the same worry again and again throughout the day, and you can’t help but think about it.
You may think about all possible negative consequences of your actions.
You may look for evidence to help you believe everything will be all right and feel better for a while, only to have your worry transform into something new.
Worrying Too Much Can Affect Your Everyday Life
Anxiety is simply a normal reaction to a situation that makes you feel threatened or stressed. In fact, there are positive effects of anxiety. For instance, anxiety helps some people improve their performance. For example, anxiety before an exam may help someone study. Having anxiety before a speech may help someone prepare for the speech.
Anxiety becomes a problem when it begins to affect your life negatively. For example, you may begin to refuse to travel because you have anxiety about an accident happening. You may have anxiety about what others will think about you and begin to refrain from social events. Others may have anxiety about public speaking and as a result, may avoid going to work. Still, others may have anxiety about chores and as a result, become procrastinators.
Anxiety begins to affect your life negatively when it starts to control the decisions you make. Anxiety, especially when it is left to develop on its own, has the potential to enlarge your life negatively. It begins to affect the size of your world.
Stress Can Improve with Rest but Anxiety May Not Improve
Typically, taking a break is an effective method for stress management. However, anxiety is often resistant to take-time-off prescriptions.
Many find that relaxing on the weekends or taking a break to go for a walk or exercise helps to relieve stress. Stress can also be reduced by getting a good night’s sleep or by meeting the goals you’ve set for yourself, whether they be personal or professional.
Anxiety, however, is often unaffected by these stress-relieving remedies.
People often find that, although they may be taking time off to relax, they are nevertheless overwhelmed by racing, unmanageable thoughts.
The inability to relax can also be manifested by a lack of physical exhaustion, i.e. you may feel tired, but cannot sleep.
If you are experiencing ongoing anxiety, you may find it beneficial to consult with a therapist to help you find methods for relief.
How Long Have You Felt Like This?
The duration of your symptoms is also important.
People tend to feel relaxed and recharged at the end of the day or week. However, some people feel emotionally drained at the end of the week and may need the weekend to recuperate. You should feel happy and relieved to start the new work week. You should not feel anxious or depressed.
It is also important to consider the following questions:
Have I felt this way before?
Am I feeling better? Worse?
Have my actions and/or behaviors changed due to how I feel?
Do I feel the need to plan my activities around my anxiety?
It is possible that you have anxiety for an extended period of time and have slowly begun adjusting to that state. Eventually, you may begin to believe that anxiety is part of your life and norm and begin describing yourself as a “worry-wart.”
However, it is not normal to constantly feel anxious or depressed.
When Should You Consider Therapy?
It’s common to think you need to wait until your anxiety gets really bad to reach out for help. In truth, there is no reason to wait until your anxiety gets too bad to deal with to go to therapy.
There are several reasons to consider going to therapy, including, but not limited to:
- Unmanageable worry
- Recurring thoughts about potential negative consequences
- Trouble sleeping because of worrying
- Feeling anxious and edgy most of the time
- Refusing to go to places that you feel anxious about
- Constantly asking people for reassurance
- Being unable to control your racing thoughts
- Having relationship problems because of your anxiety
- Having anxiety about normal, everyday things
- Constantly feeling emotionally drained
- Having no energy because of constant worrying
- Using up all of your anxiety coping mechanisms
- Having physical symptoms because of worry
- Having constant worry about normal, everyday things
If any of these things are happening to you, and you feel like anxiety is taking over your life, you should consider going to therapy.
What Can Therapy Do to Help with Anxiety?
Anxiety is complicated. It can be frustrating to hear, “Don’t worry,” when, if it were that simple, you probably would not need therapy.
Through therapy, you can decipher the layers of your anxiety.
You will start to break down your thought processes and begin to be mindful of your behavior. You may notice various interpretations to similar situations.
You may learn to recognize and label various feelings you have. You will learn to manage anxiety in several ways.
This may include talking yourself out of unhelpful thoughts, or behavioral changes to decrease your avoidance of things that make you anxious. You will learn to accept anxiety and other unpleasant feelings and sensations and how to function normally despite them.
Through various techniques, you will learn when it is helpful to worry, how to better manage your anxiety, and how to give yourself more control over feelings and situations that you perceive to be beyond your control.
You Can Begin Therapy Before You Reach Crisis Point
There are a lot of reasons people give themselves for not seeing a therapist. Some are justified, like ‘I don’t have the time,’ or ‘I can’t afford it.’ Others are less justifiable, but still pretty common.
‘I don’t really need therapy. My issues aren’t that bad compared to other people’s.’
‘This is something I should be able to deal with on my own.’
‘Maybe I’m just being dramatic.’
‘I’ll deal with this later,’
There are plenty of reasons to seek professional help that have nothing to do with experiencing a mental breakdown, or even just feeling really upset or frustrated. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and don’t know why, that is probably a good reason to talk to someone. The same goes if you feel like you’re stressing too much or worrying too much. Therapy can even be helpful if you feel like there’s something wrong, but you’re not sure what.
You can have a reason to go to therapy even if you don’t think you have a good enough reason to go to therapy.
When is the Right Time to Ask for Help?
There Is No Ideal Time to Seek Help
Delaying seeking help is a skill people have perfected.
People often tell themselves they will seek help after the current difficult period passes.
After the holiday season.
Once their workload lessens.
When the kids go back to school.
Often, situations will never improve to the point where people will no longer feel uncomfortable, anxious, and on edge about reaching out for help.
There is no requirement that you identify your struggles before reaching out. In fact, it’s not your obligation to determine the reason you’re feeling the way you are. You’re not required to come up with a list of symptoms and conditions you think you might have.
If you feel something has changed and you feel uncomfortable, anxious or on edge, you’re allowed to find the help you need to understand these feelings.
Final Thoughts
Everyone experiences momentary episodes of stress.
Normally, the cause of your stress is obvious and disappearing stress makes you feel like yourself again.
There are other types of feelings and experiences, which may include persistent, subtle forms of anxiety. They may negatively impact your capacity to wind down and relax, and may gradually hamper your ability to socialize and work. They may also impact your decision-making skills.
There are degrees of the two.
In the process of therapy, the goal is not to define these degrees, but rather understand the mechanisms which have led to persistent anxiety. It is also about learning how to manage anxiety in a healthier way.
You do not have to analyze your conditions, and define your boundaries in relation to stress and anxiety to seek therapy.
Therapists at Serenity Psychotherapy aim to help clients manage anxiety in healthier and less compromising ways. They achieve this by using scientifically approved and evidence-based techniques and approaches.
