Stress

Stress is a natural safety response or response to a challenge. Changes in brain chemistry make our heart pump faster, muscles tense and sweat as we get ready to act. Stress can:

• Make us feel nervous, angry, and frustrated.
• Have a positive effect. For example, it can encourage you to study for a test.
• Feel overwhelming and physically exhausting.

Not all stress is bad and can help us to work hard, hold ourselves accountable and grow. Stress in high amounts or stress over long periods of time, however can be unhealthy. Even toxic.

Worry

Worry is a cognitive experience. It’s the thoughts we think about something we have concern for now or in the future. Common worry thoughts appear as thoughts of:

• “What if…”.
• That something could go wrong.
• Making a mistake.

Everyone experiences worry and it’s a natural protective response to parenting, wanting to do our best and even social navigation. But worry can easily become unhealthy, triggering the stress response or anxiety.

Anxiety

Anxiety is different. It’s a reaction to stress or worry. Stress tends to be physical and worry tends to be cognitive. Anxiety, on the other hand, is physical, cognitive and emotional. Another difference is that stress and worry tend to come and go, while anxiety seems to stick around and impact your ability to enjoy or even function in life.

Here are some common aspects of anxiety:

• Hypervigilance- overly focused on negative outcomes, stress or fears.
• Difficulty concentrating, racing thoughts or unwanted thoughts.
• Fatigue, insomnia, heart palpitations or trembling.

The bad feelings associated with anxiety can come from something specific, like work or school. Anxiety can also be more of a general sense of dis-ease, impacting many areas of life.