via TIME Magazine
You’re feeling on edge, your sleep is off, and your thoughts are racing. Is it just a stressful week, or something deeper?
Stress and anxiety share many symptoms, but they’re not the same thing—and coping with anxiety requires a slightly different approach than dealing with stress. Here’s what to know.
The differences
“Many people use the words ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ interchangeably,” says Judith S. Beck, president of Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. “While their symptoms overlap, there are some distinctions between them.”
Stress arises when a person faces demands greater than what they believe they can cope with. It often triggers negative emotions like irritation, anger, or sadness, along with physical symptoms like a fast heart rate, an upset stomach, and tense muscles.
Stress often has a clear external cause and is situation-dependent. Once the event passes, “the intensity of a stress response usually decreases,” Beck says.
Anxiety, on the other hand, can show up even when there’s no clear trigger, and it tends to linger. It’s also typically disproportionate to any stressful situation in a person’s life.
Stress can escalate into anxiety. “Stress and anxiety may be on a continuum,” Beck says. “If stress continues, and efforts to overcome it do not work, individuals may develop an anxiety disorder.”
What happens in your body when you’re stressed vs. anxious
When you’re stressed, your body kicks into fight-or-flight mode. You pump out cortisol and adrenaline, your heart rate increases, you may get short of breath, and your body becomes more activated. It’s your body saying, “Let’s handle this.”
This response is helpful when there is a short-term challenge, but can be deleterious if chronically activated. Stress responses resolve when the threat or demand subsides.
Anxiety disorders, however, involve a more sustained state of heightened arousal and vigilance. “With anxiety, that same system might stay activated, even when there’s no real danger. Your brain is stuck in a loop of anticipating problems, so your body keeps reacting as if there’s something to fix, even when there isn’t,” says Nina Westbrook, a marriage and family therapist and founder of the digital wellness community Bene. “It’s exhausting, because your nervous system isn’t getting a break.”
