Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety both involve our body’s sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the unconscious nervous system that regulates bodily functions such as the heart rate, breathing, and digestion. When you perceive danger, the sympathetic nervous system reacts causing a fight or flight response where physical and hormonal reactions prepare you for running away or defending yourself from the threat. Because they involve the same physical system, stress and anxiety can share similar physical symptoms, including worry, trouble sleeping, fatigue, upset stomach, racing heartbeat, and irritability.

Stress is often sparked by things outside ourselves like work deadlines, big events, parenting challenges, and busy schedules. Short-term stress in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but chronic stress can be harmful to your health and your wellbeing. There are many practical steps you can take to better manage stress: learning relaxation and deep breathing techniques, practicing mindfulness, journaling, and exercising can all be helpful in reducing the impact of stress.

When does stress become something more? Unlike stress, which decreases when you’re crossing things off your To Do List, anxiety is a higher state of physiological arousal that does not easily go away. Even simple things can feel overwhelming when you’re anxious and it can be hard for you to function in your life. Anxiety can take on many different forms including strong physical feelings of anxiety like panic attacks, worries that make it hard for you to be around other people, excessive worry that doesn’t seem to go away, or intrusive memories of traumatic events. Anxiety disorders are the most common type of mental illness, affecting over 40 million Americans every year.

Whether you’re coping with stress or anxiety, therapy is a powerful tool that can help you get back to your life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a present-focused, goal-oriented therapy that helps you examine the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are negatively impacting your life. If you’re struggling with stress, CBT can help you find solutions to problems, learn strategies to reduce symptoms of physical stress, and learn to think about stressors in a healthy and resilient way. If you’re struggling with anxiety or the effects of chronic stress, research has shown CBT to be an effective and efficient therapy for reducing anxiety and improving your mood. Therapy for anxiety can involve identifying goals or things that trigger your worry, learning to reframe automatic negative thoughts, and desensitizing yourself to the outsized physical reactions that can accompany anxiety. Beginning therapy can feel daunting, but it can be an important step to regaining quality of life.