What is stress and what is anxiety? Because sometimes we tend to identify them as the same problem that overwhelms us, that blocks us, that confuses us. The truth is that stress and anxiety share some characteristics and sometimes it is very difficult for us to separate one from the other. However, there are big differences between stress and anxiety. Do you want to meet them? We tell you.
The similarities between stress and anxiety
You feel tired, you feel upset, and you have tachycardia, muscular problems, a lot of tension, a lot of nervousness and a lot of worry. Most of the physical symptoms that you are noticing can correspond to both stress and anxiety, which is why it is difficult to separate the two disorders.
Stress and anxiety are two adaptive responses that arise to transform behavior in response to a need, to a situation that requires change. And in both cases, if the stress and/or anxiety situation is maintained over time, very harmful physical and mental consequences occur.
With this panorama it is easy to confuse stress and anxiety, but they are not the same. In fact, anxiety can be a symptom of stress and stress can cause anxiety. It seems a bit confusing, but it is not as much as we understand their differences.
The main differences between stress and anxiety
Stress is the adaptive response that occurs in a specific situation, while anxiety, which is also an adaptive response, can arise in anticipation of a specific situation, but also in a more general situation. This means that it is easier to identify the origin of stress than that of anxiety.
A new job for which you do not know if you have the necessary tools to carry it out can cause both stress and anxiety. Stress because your body reacts to try to solve the problem and anxiety because the mind creates catastrophic thoughts in case you don’t succeed. It could be said that stress is generated in the present while anxiety is generated in the future.
One of the most obvious differences between stress and anxiety is that stress ends when the stressful situation ends. If you have to take an exam, stress can help you activate to study more or it can block you if it is excessive, but it will disappear as soon as the exam is over regardless of the result.
For its part, anxiety does not find an end, since its origin is not usually a specific situation such as starting a new position, having a job interview, passing an exam or leaving your wedding preparations unscathed. All these situations generate stress, not anxiety. Stress would be linear, while anxiety would be a circle; a vicious circle in which it is difficult to find a beginning and an end.
But everything has a solution. Both stress and anxiety can be overcome, not controlled. And the only way to do that is to listen to them and ally with them. If they appear, it is for a reason, what is not useful is that they stay with us permanently because we are not always in a situation that requires additional activation.
