What’s the difference between Stress and Anxiety?
Stress is generally a temporary experience – a reaction to an event or a situation. What is stressful to one person is not necessarily stressful to another.
Anxiety is usually longer term, it can often be felt long after the stressful situation has ended, we are left fearful, nervous, worried. Although very often there is no single stressful situation that explains or initiates the feelings of anxiety. (This can make anxiety very hard to understand for people who have never experienced it)
Stress can often be dealt with in a practical manner by tackling the situation. Anxiety will often take therapy or medication.
Whilst neither Stress nor Anxiety are pleasant both CAN be overcome.
How does anxiety manifest itself?
Anxiety affects us all differently. The ‘classic’ systems are worrying about everything, seeing the negative in everything and panic attacks. Other common symptoms are – anger, insomnia, excessive emotion, feeling out of control, lack of confidence, overeating, drinking too much, avoiding others, struggling with decision making. There are lots of physical symptoms too and often any pre-existing physical complaint is felt more strongly when we are anxious.
What can we do to help ourselves?
Seek help, whether it be from a GP or a therapist, there is lots of different types of help out there when we need it.
Find a therapist you can relate to, find a therapy that makes sense to you. We are all individuals, one fix doesn’t work for everyone.
Take exercise, even just going for a walk makes a difference – exercise is the world’s most underused antidepressant.