Anxiety Vs. Stress: What's the Difference?
Stress and anxiety manifest in very similar ways. It's hard to tell the difference, and many of us live our daily lives experiencing one or the other without knowing the difference.
Sleepless nights, sweaty palms, constant worrying - these are all signs of stress or anxiety.
So how does one tell them apart? What’s the difference?
What Is Stress?
Simply put, stress is a natural reaction the body has to any perceived threat.
It’s designed to signal that you might be in a life-threatening situation, triggering you to act in ways to avoid potential danger.
This is an evolutionary mechanism that helped humans survive for millions of years. However, the body hasn’t adapted fully to the changing threats in one’s life. Gone are the days of wild animals and dangerous terrain, very little today will be life-threatening but yet our body will exhibit stress.
For example, when one’s sleepless before the night of a big exam - this is an example of stress and can negatively impact performance the next day. There are different forms of stress, including social stress, and occupational stress. Social stress may result from a change in relationships or moving to a different city. Occupational stress may result from stressful jobs like working in an office, heavy lifting, or even parenting.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety, on the other hand, is a result of stress. It's when stress takes on a long-term effect that goes beyond the perceived 'stressful event' to last many days.
If an exam is over but constant worrying and sleeplessness persist, this residual stress means that anxiety has taken over.
Those endless hours spent wondering 'what if'? This is an example of anxiety.
This can have negative effects on day to day lives and isn't founded in 'reason'. It's unnecessary worrying due to irrational fear over something one has no control over.
Commonalities and Differences
Stress and anxiety produce many symptoms. One can experience various physical symptoms as a sign of physiological stress such as headaches, rapid heart rate, dizziness, insomnia, and lethargy. This is paired with mental symptoms such as nervousness, irritability, restlessness, and feeling of impending doom.
In the long-term, both stress and anxiety can also cause chronic conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression.
Additional symptoms set anxiety apart from stress. Primarily, anxiety will give a sense of helplessness and constant worrying. This worrying will be fixated on possible future events and last long after the stressful event. Anxiety will run its course over many days, weeks or even months.
Coping with stress
Lifestyle adjustments are the best way to manage stress. The focus should be on doing whatever is possible to reduce the 'stressor' event in one's life and better equipping the body for stress relief.
Physical health
Boosting physical health can uplift mental health for better stress management. This means focusing on improving one’s diet instead of stress eating the worry away. Eat only healthy and well-balanced meals. Avoid any junk food and food high in sodium or sugar.
Complement a healthy diet with regular exercise. Cardiovascular exercises are great, and setting a time each day to go for a run can do wonders in helping combat a stressful day.
Finally, get a good night’s rest. This can be hard but going for a run can help tire the body out and trigger sleep quicker at night.
Think of it as a tripod of well-being - food, exercise, and good sleep are all needed to ensure the body is healthy and able to cope with stress
Avoid drugs and alcohol
Drugs and alcohol have been known to heighten stress and anxiety in the long-term. They may seem like immediate relief to a stressful day, but can cause lasting damage. Combating stress with drugs or alcohol is also the easiest way to develop a dangerous dependency and make stress more toxic than it already is.
Relax
Take some time out of the day to relax. Put aside whatever tasks and carry out some breathing exercises. Think only positive thoughts and try to avoid dwelling on whatever the stressful event is. Some great ways to relax are taking yoga classes or mindfulness lessons if blocking the brain from 'working' is hard.
Stress shielding from triggers
Not surprisingly, if one can understand their stress triggers then they can do a better job at managing or avoiding it. These triggers can be obvious such as waiting until the last minute to complete a project or prepare for a presentation. But less obvious triggers can be ones such as drinking coffee.
Identifying triggers can be hard but by jotting down stressful moments in a journal, one can look back and identify root causes. Once these are identified, life changes can be made to shield oneself from these triggers.
Get more “green time”
Research has also shown being in the natural outdoors can help alleviate stress. With plenty of sunshine and greenery, this boosts ‘feel good’ chemicals such as dopamine in one’s body that can promote a sense of well-being. Best way to act on this is to take a walk outdoors to a nearby park when life gets stressful.
How to make stress your friend
Be realistic. Looking for the silver lining and gaining perspective can be a great way to handle stress. We often view stress as a ‘negative’ but by understanding that stressful situations lead to positive outcomes can help alleviate the stress itself. By actively ‘choosing’ to take on a stressful circumstance in order to yield better future results, this mindset can help one cope with stress more effectively. In fact, bad stress may turn into good stress when managed properly.
Seek professional help
If these don’t help, seek professional help from a therapist or counselor. Even talking about the stress one’s facing with family and friends can go a long way in helping process the stress and finding ways to manage or eliminate it. Taking Mindfulness lessons may also help one instill stress management practices on a daily basis.
Dealing with anxiety
There are also various ways to cope with anxiety and better manage it.
Relax
Utilizing techniques of relaxation can help fight anxiety effectively. Most often, anxiety is detrimental to daily life when it overwhelms an individual. In such moments, by practicing deep breathing techniques and other meditation strategies.
Establishing daily calm routines such as practicing yoga or playing music can also help take one’s mind away from anxious thoughts. Mindfulness in LA combines relaxation techniques, including meditation, yoga, and group healing, to help adults and kids live in the moment by reducing anxiety.
Physical Health
Similar to coping with stress. Working on one's physical health can help battle anxiety. Try to exercise every odd day and complement this with a well-balanced, healthy diet. Try to ingest supplements such as omega-3 fatty acids, lemon balm, green tea, ashwagandha, and valerian root. All of these are known to help relieve anxiety.
Engage in group activities so that the mind is distracted from anxious thoughts and focused on the activity at hand.
Use it to improve
Anxiety can also be viewed as a self-development tool. Use anxious moments as a way of understanding changes that need to be made in one’s life. Many times, anxiety stems from an underlying event and by identifying this, one can make changes to avoid the lingering anxiety.
Positive thoughts
Focusing on positive thoughts is also known to be helpful when experiencing anxiety. Anxiety tends to anchor on negative outcomes, but as these thoughts come up if an attempt is made to think positively, it can help alleviate the worrying feeling. There’s always a good side to any event. For example, if one is anxious about a trip, try to think about the positive experiences of seeing friends and family again when the flight reaches its destination.
Write down your thoughts
Keep an anxiety journal and note down all anxious thoughts that pop into one’s head. By writing them out, this helps with processing the anxious thoughts and getting past the paralyzing feeling when anxiety is severe.
Seek professional help
Anxiety can be overwhelming and hard to manage alone. If anxiety starts to impact one's quality of life significantly, then it's recommended that one sees a professional. Therapists and counselors can put you on therapy programs that are designed to help alleviate anxiety. For example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an effective therapy technique used to teach individuals how to react to anxiety causing events and prevent one from spiraling into negative thoughts.
Openly sharing with family and friends can also help in processing anxious emotions and thoughts.
Remember, we all experience anxious thoughts and stress throughout our lives. Most of the time, this is normal and at manageable levels. Mindful LA combines the relaxation techniques above and encourages maintaining a healthy lifestyle. By taking action in your own life through practices to quiet the mind, you can join a movement of people who are motivated to minimize anxiety and stay relaxed. Remember, if stress and anxiety conditions continue to disrupt day-to-day life substantially, please seek a professional immediately.
