What Is Anxiety Really? What Is Anxiety really? Stress, Anxiety, and Worry

What is anxiety? This may seem like such an  obvious question because you've experienced it, but the more precisely you describe a problem  or an emotion, the greater ability you have to do something about it. So in this video  you'll learn the difference between stress, anxiety, and worry, because  knowing the difference can give you a ton of tools to change your  relationship with all three.

[Music] Now, this video is day three from my 30-day online  anxiety course. If you want to get access to the entire course, with a workbook, exercises,  and more lessons, check out the link in the description. Okay.

I'm gonna have you do a little  exercise. So start by rating your anxiety right now on a scale from 0 to 10, with zero being  no anxiety and 10 being extreme anxiety. Now, go ahead and put that in the comments.

Now, I'm  gonna invite you to experience a little anxiety. I'm going to show you a short video clip, and I  want you to pay attention to what it feels like for you. Please forgive me for this.

[Music] [Music] [Music] Now rate your anxiety again on a scale from 0 to 10,  and write about this. What thoughts did you have? What physical sensations did you have?

What  emotions did you have? Like, where did you feel it? Now, anxiety is in essence your reaction  to the perception of being in danger, especially physical danger.

So if you were on the roof  of a skyscraper, your brain would perceive the potential danger and trigger the limbic system to  send out a super loud warning to you in the form of thoughts and physical sensations of anxiety.  Now, emotions aren't just bad things that happen to you; emotions serve a function. Now, I go in  depth into the function of emotions in my course How to Process Your Emotions, but the emotion of  anxiety is meant to help keep us safe from danger, to motivate us to move away from the edge of  cliffs or to stay away from venomous snakes or spiders.

And to make emotions powerful motivating  forces, they aren't just thoughts in our mind; they're in our bodies too. Stress, anxiety, and  worry aren't the same thing. There are three different aspects of our fear response, and when  we know the difference we can tailor different skills and tools to work through them.

Now, just  like with people, when we know their names we can learn how to relate to them. So let's start with  stress. Stress is the physiological reaction to threats.

Stress is what's going on inside of our  bodies. It's rooted in the more primitive part of the brain, and it's instinctual and unconscious.  It happens without thinking and faster than we can think.

So as you watch that guy do dumb things on  the edge of the cliff, did your heart rate go up? Did your hands get sweaty? Did you turn  away?

Did you cover your eyes? Or did you feel a surge of adrenaline, like excitement and  wonder? Right?

When we perceive danger our body responds with a chemical reaction. This is also  called the fight/flight/freeze response. Now, the fight/flight/freeze response shoots first  and asks questions later.

It's very powerful and rapid. But it's not always accurate. Have  you ever been startled by something in the night only to find out it was actually safe  or funny?

Right? I mean, I have like little kids who walk up right next to my bed in the  middle of the night and go [heavy breathing] for like a minute. And you wake up and you're  like, and they're like, "Mom," and then you realize it's your kid.

Right? So stress serves  a really vital function in helping us respond to immediate and physical threats by shutting down  some physiological processes, like digestion, and activating others, like sending adrenaline  to increase blood flow to the big muscles so that you can perform, like you could run away  from a tiger. Right?

And there's a big myth out there that stress is bad for you, but that's  not true. In the short term anxiety and stress won't hurt you. Your body has a natural way  to resolve the effects of the stress response.

But if stress becomes chronic it can have very  detrimental effects on the body. It can contribute to heart disease and high blood pressure and  frequent illnesses. Right?

Chronic stress can harm you. But that can be avoided. We can treat  chronic stress.

Anxiety, in the short term, that feeling won't harm you, and trying to avoid it  makes it worse. Okay. So that's stress.

It's the physiological activation of our nervous system.  It's what happens in our bodies. Now, worry is the thinking part of anxiety.

Worry includes thoughts  like, "What if he falls? " "Why is he doing that? " Or "What if I fail my test?

" Or "Is she mad at  me? " Worry often revolves around future events or the unknown, and it's rooted in our prefrontal  cortex, the thinking part of the brain. Sometimes worry can be really functional.

Sometimes it  helps us solve problems. But if worry becomes compulsive or if we're doing it all the time, it  can fuel anxiety and depressive disorders. Later in this course you're going to actually learn how  to stop worrying and to set really good boundaries around that thinking part of your brain.

Now, in  my conceptualization, anxiety is the intersection of stress and worry. So it's rooted in the limbic  brain. It's a feeling, it's an emotion closely connected to fear.

But where fear is usually about  a short-term, immediate threat, a physical threat right in your face, right, anxiety is more about  nebulous future events, and it's associated with dread, foreboding, or vigilance, being alert.  Right? Anxiety helps people be watchful, but when it dominates our lives it makes it difficult  to relax, makes it difficult to feel joy or to move in the direction we value because we get all  wrapped up in avoidance.

So if we want to tackle our anxiety, find ways to feel better, we need to  address these two aspects of our anxiety response. So to deal with our worries we're going to learn  cognitive skills that change our thinking. And when it comes to our stress response we'll explore  interventions that focus on calming our body.

Anxiety is functional. It's a helpful emotion that  helps protect us from danger. It includes stress and worry, but there's one more aspect that we  really need to address when it comes to anxiety.

So a few minutes ago you weren't anywhere near the  edge of that building. You were just sitting in a chair. You were 100% safe, but your body actually  created physiological changes, and anxiety popped up for you.

So what's the deal with that? Your  amazing brain has the unique ability to imagine danger when we're actually safe. So this serves a  function.

Right? It motivates us to take action, to plan and prevent danger in the future, but it  can also make us sick, like, when we're feeling anxious when we're actually safe in the present  moment. Worrying about an upcoming test, that jolt of anxiety could help you get motivated to study,  or, if you don't know what to do with that worry, if you don't know how to relate to that anxiety,  it could make you feel sick to your stomach, and you could choose to procrastinate or avoid  thinking about school.

Now, with generalized anxiety disorder, the worry thoughts are  constantly, chronically creating the perception of danger. This creates the sensation of anxiety,  the danger emotion, when we're just going about our day. Right?

Another example: like, with PTSD,  flashbacks make you feel like you're actually in danger when you're quite safe. This can be  referred to as perceived danger. Now, on the other hand, when we feel fear about something that's  an actual threat in the present moment, this is called actual danger.

And we'll spend more time  on this later in this course. I go into a lot of details about this in my How to Process Emotions  course, but it's just important to realize that we frequently have a strong physical reaction to the  perception of danger when we are actually safe. The anxiety response is quick, it's powerful, and  it's frequently inaccurate.

It's like your body's smoke alarm. Right? Very rarely a smoke alarm  sounds when there's a fire.

Actually, I don't think this has ever happened in my lifetime yet,  and I'm 38. Right? So the smoke alarm has never gone off when there's an actual fire because I  haven't been in any building fires in my lifetime, but I have had a smoke alarm go off dozens  of times in my life.

Uh for example, like when I've taken a shower that was too  hot and I didn't turn the fan on or when I've cooked bacon too long and I've burned it. Right?  It's kind of annoying that that alarm goes off, but we want our smoke alarm to be sensitive,  right, just in case there is an actual fire.

We just also want to be able to turn it  off when we're actually safe. So anxiety helps us notice dangerous situations and  focuses our attention so that we stay safe. It's just really important.

We always just need to  ask, "Is this actually dangerous? " Right? This is the first step in really clarifying anxiety.

Is  this a real danger or a perceived danger? You'll learn a lot more about this as we work through  the course. Okay.

So going back to stress, anxiety, and worry, the first step of emotion  management is awareness. So begin to notice when you feel anxiety. See if you can  explore and describe the two different aspects of it.

Where does anxiety show up as  stress in your body? What does it feel like? Where do you notice it?

Do you notice  it in your stomach? Your hands? Do you get headaches?

What is it, you know, you feel?  Muscle tension in your shoulders or in your face? And then explore, how does anxiety show up as  thoughts?

What do those thoughts sound like? Um it may be really helpful to describe your experience  with anxiety out loud or to write it down. You can use your workbook to draw a map of your body and  how anxiety shows up.

And as you get better at describing what the anxiety experience is actually  like you'll gain more control over it. Now, the second big step in changing your relationship with  anxiety is letting go of judgment. So we all know that when you're in a relationship with someone  and you judge them, it harms your relationship.

Same thing with emotions. In a future video in  this course you'll learn more about making peace with anxiety, but for now just start to honor the  function of anxiety. So imagine it like a little person that's talking to you.

It's like, "Oh my  gosh, look out. Oh, look out, look out. Let's worry about this.

" Right? It's trying to keep you  alive. So instead of labeling it as bad or awful, describe it.

Use a descriptive term like, "Oh,  this is uncomfortable. This is loud. This is difficult.

" Right? So those are the two steps.  Number one: more awareness around anxiety.

And number two: use descriptions instead of judgment.  Okay. Let's get better at feeling.

You got this.