UNDERSTANDING THE DifferenceS between stress & anxiety

How stress or anxiety affects your body and emotions

I can safely say the majority of clients who come to see me do so because they require support for stress or anxiety. And so, I thought it would be useful to explain the differences between the two.

Stress is the body's reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure.

Stress is typically linked to a specific situation that causes physical or mental pressure. This could be life changing event or situation (such as house move, redundancy, illness, getting married) or could be an everyday event (work deadline, exam etc.) and when that situation resolves, so does your stress. However, it’s important to note that stress can be chronic and long lasting due to ongoing pressure, such as family issues, or a demanding job. Experiencing long-term stress or severe stress can lead to feeling physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, often called "burnout"

Anxiety however is a feeling of fear, worry, or unease.

While it can occur as a response to stress, it can also happen without any obvious trigger. Anxiety symptoms can last for a long time or come and go. Everyone's experience of anxiety is different, so it's hard to know exactly what causes anxiety problems. Difficult experiences in childhood, adolescence or adulthood are a common trigger for anxiety problems. Going through stress and trauma when you're very young is likely to have a particularly big impact.

To know if you are anxious or stressed it can be useful to take a step back and reflect on what’s going on in your life. What kinds of things are you worrying about?

Symptoms of stress and anxiety
Both stress and anxiety can both produce a range of physical and psychological symptoms:

• muscle tension
• dizziness
• headaches
• nausea
• constipation
• diarrhoea
• trouble sleeping
• anger or irritability.
• increased sweating and hot flushes
• feelings of overwhelm.
• changes in appetite
• faster breathing
• a fast, thumping or irregular heartbeat
• skin reactions, like stress rashes and hives
• sweating or hot flushes
• sleep problems
• grinding your teeth, especially at night
• changes in your sex drive

Anxiety can however also cause:

• tingling or numbness
• brain fog
• having panic attacks
• feeling tense, nervous or unable to relax
• having a sense of doom, dread, or fearing the worst
• feeling like the world is speeding up or slowing down
• feeling like other people can see you're anxious and are looking at you
• feeling like you can't stop worrying, or that bad things will happen if you stop worrying
• worrying about anxiety itself, for example worrying about when panic attacks might happen
• wanting lots of reassurance from other people or worrying that people are angry or upset with you
• worrying that you're losing touch with reality
• low mood and depression
• rumination
• procrastination
• depersonalisation – a type of dissociation where you feel disconnected from your mind or body, or like you are a character that you are watching in a film
• derealisation – another type of dissociation where you feel disconnected from the world around you, or like the world isn't real
• worrying a lot about things that might happen in the future
• you might find you have difficulty with day-to-day parts of your life, including: looking after yourself, holding down a job, forming or maintaining relationships, trying new things. enjoying your leisure time

We all experience some feelings of stress, and probably anxiety, at some point. Stress can sometimes spur us on to get things done… When we are stressed or anxious, our body releases a hormone called adrenaline (often called the "fight or flight or freeze " hormone), which usually gives us a boost or motivates us to act quickly. With anxiety however we may go into freeze mode.

Both anxiety, and unmanaged stress can interfere with daily life and take a toll on mental and physical health, including our behaviour:

• how much we eat or exercise
• our habits around drinking, smoking or taking other substances
• how much we see people or do things we used to do or enjoy (avoidance)

If you have any symptoms that you are worried about, please do see a GP.

Stress and anxiety-related disorders
Stress and anxiety that occurs frequently or seems out of proportion to the stressor could be signs of an underlying condition, such as:

• Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) which is a common anxiety disorder characterised by uncontrollable worrying.
• Panic disorder causing panic attacks, which are moments of extreme fear accompanied by a pounding heart, shortness of breath, and a fear of impending doom.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which causes flashbacks or anxiety as the result of a traumatic experience.
• Social anxiety disorder causes intense feelings of anxiety in situations that involve interacting with others.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) causes repetitive thoughts and the compulsion to complete certain ritual actions.

Techniques to manage stress and anxiety
All of the therapies I provide, such as reiki and hypnotherapy, are designed to help clients make stress and anxiety more manageable. Why not take a look at the free resources I provide, including relaxation, breath work and tapping, to help you deal with stress and anxiety.

As part of my therapeutic approach I also teach clients techniques that they can use themselves, such as breathwork, self-hypnosis and eft tapping, thus helping each client to be more in control of their emotions.