Ep. 154 | Stress vs. Anxiety: Knowing the Difference

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Hello and welcome to another podcast of Everyday Therapy. I am Doctor Karen Ryan, licensed psychologist, and I am here with, one and only Brett Cushing, licensed marriage and family therapist. And today we are talking about stress and anxiety. Do we know the difference? How do we feel? What do we do when we're stressed? What do we feel? What do we do when we're anxious and just kind of exploring all things so we can tap in and have a little more understanding of those two concepts and recognizing the difference between them. And I think it is important to know that difference. And we use the terms almost interchangeably. And it's understandable because it can feel very much the same, but it's root. And how we deal with it can be very different. Yeah.

 

So there is, for instance, you know, when we look at this, there's the mind body connection. And maybe we can look at where stress shows up physically in our body because it does. And we'll learn to with anxiety it shows up in the body. And both are coming from our nervous system. Yeah. So wow. It's like getting two calls at the same time. I'm so stressed. I'm so anxious. I don't know what I am. Yeah, we don't have caller ID for this to know. So that's why we're here. That's why we're here. Right. And so like let's talk about kind of each one. Right a little bit of like that goal of how do I recognize the difference.

 

Right. And so stress right. Like I think about myself I you know, I'm going to be honest, I've been stressed the past two weeks. Right. There's some weeks when there are more demands. And so a key piece of stress is like there tend to be external demands or pressures. So for me, like it is when I have a big to do list, right, or when there's a conflict of I can't get them all done. And I'm trying to figure out which is the most important. So that to me, like really increases my stress, right? I can identify, yep, I have more task items that I need to do at work right now. There are some big things in my family fun party on Friday. But I gotta cook, I gotta clean, I gotta get ready for that, right? I got a I've got a I've got, I've got, I've got, I've got it right. And so stress is really oftentimes time limited. It's about external factors that you're going through. It is can mobilize action. So when I feel stressed right I have some more energy. I might be a little more impatient, I might be a little more driven. And so stress is, you got a lot to do and you're feeling activated and sometimes over activated to with the things you've got to do. Typically, I think of the couple analogies with stress. It's almost like the gas pedal is always being pushed and and the RPMs keep going up. Yeah. And it is because I've got to do this and I've got to do this. And I think of people I've also worked with who have chronic illnesses. And so they have a certain amount of energy reserves for that, let's say like a scale of 1 to 10, they're at like a three. But the day demands about 8 or 9. Yeah. And they look at that day and they're overwhelmed. And for them it's harder because they can't tap into extra energy.

 

Yeah. For others of us. So we look at that and we think, okay, I have to keep going I cannot stop. Yeah. And it does activate the fight or flight, which is good. And it's helpful. Yeah, yeah. And stress you know we highlighted it. It can be time limited but like you're highlighting chronic pain or you know sometimes our family system and our family dynamics, they are more stressful right. If we have, you know, kids that have higher needs or kids that are needing support or there's conflict within our relationship or, we're living in an environment that has some stress factors. So stress really is like I think it's really doing it's helpful when we can look at it big picture and recognize the different factors that can contribute to stress. And so tapping to be like, what is my kind of baseline stress level that I experienced? Do I have chronic pain? Do I have some high demands in my family, my job, my living environment? Think those are important things too? It is. And we do need to check in because there are real problems for us when we're not checking in, because that can become normal. That can almost be applauded in our culture too. You know, I think it's a badge of honor to say I'm just really busy. I can't I'm so busy. And when we're living like that and our nervous system never gets a break from that kind of stress. Yeah, it has a real damaging effect upon us. In fact, I remember, years ago, I can't remember the name of the book. But he was writing as a medical doctor, and he said, it's not so much that high cholesterol kills. People don't have high cholesterol, and you've known people who have it and they live forever. But it's the combination of high cholesterol and continuous high levels of stress where it's unmitigated. Right? Right. Because that that stress. You spoke about this, right?

 

The beginning impacts our bodies like our bodies react to it, which is beautiful and adaptive. Right. So when there's increased demand like, yeah, I want my heart rate to be up a little bit, I want to be activated. I want to be able to go today. I am going from 730 to 430. Right. Like I need that activation to get me through the day and a little bit of coffee.

 

Right. And that's not like like if I try to sustain that, that's going to wear my body out. Right. Like our bodies are not, just machines. And even machines need repair. Right. So that piece of, we got to tap in and be aware of kind of what that stress level is because it really does impact our body and our mental health. Right. And one word I keep hearing from you say is awareness. We need to be aware. And we're when we're going so fast and we're always hitting the gas, we're not aware. You know, it's kind of like when we're driving or driving and when I'm going fast, which is almost all the time, I don't notice, you know, as many things in my surroundings to really enjoy. There is a really pretty drive on the way to this clinic that I always go slow so I can enjoy it, but if I'm just hitting the gas and it's go, go, go, I'm missing that right? And that sends a message, right? To like your mind and your body. Like, we gotta go. We gotta go. Yes. And it might not be that dramatic in your mind, but you can see like, oh, that is there, right. Same sort of thing. If I'm flying around running down the hall, that's when, if I can take a breath and slow down. Yes. So stress is very specific in its orientation. There are things that I tangibly can identify. Like you said, I've got all my to do list. I have the things I had to do for my kids. I have things I have to do for work, and it's very tangible. It's very much present tense and it's also problematic for us when we are in a constant state of stress. And we do kind of normalize that stress can actually turn into anxiety, then to. And we will have that part of our nervous system that's activated and it almost doesn't know how to shut off anymore. Yeah. And and when it shifts or when it's anxiety it's that activation and that we also really see a key piece is like and how would our thoughts shift and change. Right. So when I'm stressed right. It is about the things I have to do and getting it done. And again I do this and sometimes there can be some like frustration there. But it still tends to be focused on like I can do this. How do I figure this out. What do we need to do? Oh my gosh, this is so much so you can hear that it's sometimes challenging, but with anxiety it shifts to worry. It shifts to more thoughts about like inadequacy. Or am I going to be able to do this? And it becomes like more of a threat or a stress is how do I you know, this is a lot, but anxiety is more. It's like, this is too much, I'm not safe. I'm not okay. And that language internally that dialog shifts a little bit. What are your thoughts for it? Well, very much the same. And what happens then is there's a it's a generalization, if you will, of the stress to what I say as time travel to the future and sometimes to the past. And we're living in the present no more. We're living in the future or living in the past. In fact, there's some studies that show that people 47% of our time is either in the future or in the past. Yeah. And we have no control over that. I only have control over the present. So anxiety is this sense of the I call it the lambda, the what ifs when I go into the future. And now it's a perception. It's not a concrete, tangible thing I can identify, but it's it's a perceived sense of, like you said, threat. Yeah. And the alarm bells are going off now. We're not saying you're not experiencing something real. We're not saying this is an accurate. We're saying it's a perception that's real understandable and has this physiological response to the body. So we again need to be mindful of these things to distinguish between the two. Yeah. Yeah. And so if you're thinking about what what's an example. Right. So let's say you have a big social event to go to and you don't normally go to social events. And let's say it's a cocktail attire, right? Or you have to dress up a little bit.

 

Right. Stress would be like, oh my gosh, I'm anxious about that. I gotta make sure I get some shoes. What can I get? What am I gonna do here? Okay, who am I? Can I go with somebody? Great. Okay. Get a plan where anxiety might be, where you are anticipating this and you're feeling really anxious about it. You're afraid that you're going to be judged.

 

You're afraid. I wonder if I'm going to fit in. Am I going to say something stupid? Are they going to like me? Like, what if something bad happens, right? Like for people of experience panic? What if I have a panic attack? So you can see that those worries can be there, and then after the fact, it might be, you know, if it's stress, you're like, oh, that felt good. I'm glad that's done. But anxiety might present after the fact about passings of I shouldn't have said that to that person. I wonder if they think I'm this now I oh, I wonder if I offended them or I shouldn't have done that or why didn't I? And so those coulda woulda should as white and I as you can see, kind of the difference. Absolutely. And another difference between anxiety and stress, I think, is understanding. Being aware of the appropriateness of the intensity of the emotion for the situation. Yeah. So when we have stress, it's pretty understandable. I do need to hit the gas. I have to get a lot done. Yeah. And there are these demands. And if I don't oh I'm just it's going to build.

 

Yeah. And so that's very understandable. And we have we're doing what we have to do for the situation with anxiety. When we get into the land of the what if we're into the future? Now I notice I have these intense emotions of anxiety. But the question is does it really fit the situation? Is it? Yeah. And it's not that the anxiety is bad even. We're not saying anxiety because anxiety can be really good and helpful. It's just out of proportion for the situation. We talked a little bit about this before in a previous podcast about relationships. And again yep. You there too. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that I find as a characteristic for myself and what I see in clients is kind of the rumination or that they're going over and over and over again where it's when it's stress is kind of like, here's a detail, here's the fact, kind of think it through. And then, you know, kind of evaporates or kind of dissipates. But with anxiety, what you can see is it kind of like it keeps coming back. Yes. Right. And and that activation is there. And so that the physiological pieces of, you know, we might have tight chest, we might have those racing thoughts, hands might be cold because our blood goes from our extremities to our core. Again, adaptive survival. We might have GI upset. That's my trademark. Right? Like when it's just in stress or anxiety, my gut tell me. And so those are like really kind of that physical piece where stress might also give me a headache or might have some like kind of tightness in how I move. But then like being able to recognize that anxiety kind of, it's that, that real threat of like feeling unsafe. Right? Yes. And that's an adaptive right. And I like what Marsha Linehan said. I think it was her. And she's the creator of DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy. We talk a lot about mindfulness and being aware. And she says, you know, the only thing that really exists is right now. And think about that. That is true. Yeah. Nothing exists.

 

What I'm apprehensive about and anxious about in the future that does not exist. And that's where I spend a lot of my time. It's not that it's wrong, it's just not effective. And I'm not really empowering myself. And if we can be mindfully aware and in the present, we can interrupt that, because what happens, as you were alluding to, is we call this the loop, the health anxiety loop. You know, when symptoms create more anxiety, it's kind of like this snowball. Yeah. That yeah. We don't even realize it's happening. So the symptoms they can sometimes create this cycle of anxiety. Right. So the pattern is you feel physical sensations like tightness in the chest stomach upset. Right. Rapid breathing. And or if sometimes you just you're not breathing at all.

 

That's what I do. Or shallow breaths. Yeah. I just kind of hold my breath, and a rapid heart beat. And then. Then the brain is a little late to the party here. Right? The brain is what is going on, what happened? And it just automatically believes there is a threat. So it's like if I have a car alarm on my car and every time it goes off, I jump up as if someone's stealing something from my car. I'm highly activated. And yet that's kind of what our brain does. It just assumes without really checking the facts, so to speak. Right? And it reacts. And now I have more activation right within my body. And then the symptoms become stronger. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And in your healing. Right. It's the body. It's the thoughts. And it's the behavior.

 

Right. So jumping out of bed then is like activating and gets that nervous system going even more right. It reinforces that there is a threat. Yeah. Because the symptoms keep getting, intensified. The brain keeps concluding there really is the threat. Now, what also can happen with anxiety is we we reinforce it a different way. We reinforce it by avoiding.

 

Yeah. Because I avoid this really anxious situation. Yep. And when I and void my nervous system calms down. Yeah. And I say oh this is great I love this. But now I've reinforced the society and I have I've really reinforced my avoidance. Yes. And then the other piece of that is like when we avoid myself and everybody, you know, included is and we, we tell the story right then we also create this false narrative that had I done that, that would have been bad, all right. Or I would have been miserable. And I'm so glad I avoided that. So we start fortune telling. We start mind reading, assuming, catastrophizing, catastrophizing. Right. And so that can be such a helpful piece, like cognitive distortions or like twisted thinking or negative thinking, like those are really powerful things to, like, have in your repertoire of like being able to recognize when we're doing that. So we need to lean into the anxiety too. I remember I had a student ask if I could write a letter that she could get out of school, maybe five, ten minutes earlier to avoid the crazy traffic from other students. And if you've ever been at a high school, the end of the day, it is. It's like a demolition derby.

 

It is somehow, by God's grace, people aren't hitting each other. So it is rather anxiety inducing and stressful. And I said, I'm sorry, I can't write the letter for you. Yeah, I want you to lean into this, and I want you to practice some skills to help calm down your nervous system, because otherwise you're reinforcing the anxiety. Absolutely, absolutely. So it's like, yeah, we want to check in to our thoughts. Right. And watch for those negative thinking or those assumptions. Right. And being able to really challenge that. And then we can adjust our like we can check in with our bodies and then adjust our behavior. Right. So when we check in with our bodies, right, like we're talking about the classic things that aren't going to surprise you, but we reiterate them all the time because they actually are so effective. Right? Right. And so what do we do to calm our nervous system. Right. That is deep breathing right. So many times we get stuck in those short shallow breaths. Right. So I wish you could see us. Right. But it's like it's drop your shoulders. It's relax your jaw. Right. Like wipe the expression off your face. It is take that.

 

Put your hands on your belly. And as you drop your shoulders, can you take that deep belly breaths. Right. Can you do things to kind of shift and be present. Right. Yeah. And say, I can't know exactly what's going to happen at this event tonight, but right now I can take a deep breath, slow my body down. Right I can what else. Well I can, I can grab something cold and hold on to that. Like we call it grounding. You know I just look at and name five things I see. What do I do to I really enjoy doing it with clients in my office is when they're really anxious, they they're just none of us are able to think straight. So I'll say, all right, so you name five things you can see. Now we're just going to be quiet, tell me everything you can hear. And it really slows the body down. And I just really strain to hear something. And then they'll tell me I can actually hear the clock, or then I'll say, all right, so what do you feel? Can you feel your socks? Can you feel the couch underneath you? It's cetera. And it really does help people, helps that nervous system to slow down. And the good news about this is our nervous system is kind of like a light. The light can't be on and off at the same time. So when we do that and I'm in a more relaxed state, I can't be activated. And then the brain also does the same thing and says, oh, well, I guess everything's okay. Yeah. So now I think in building and then once we can get to that, I think of two other things we can do. Yeah. Just have some awareness. I always say to my clients, there are things with anxiety. There's some things that are out of my control, and I keep trying to control, and I want to get control. I'm really good at that. Yeah, I'm really good at it. I think we all are. And a great example is during Covid everyone. Oh no, this is happening. Everything's out of control. But we came up with a great solution, right? We went and bought toilet paper. Right. So and it ended up print sanitizer. Hand sanitizer. Yeah. And it ended up controlling us. So things out of our control keep trying to control and controlling us. But then there are also things that are within our control that we're refusing to take control of. And the because we do that, it continually weighs us down and that'll create anxiety. And so we can kind of waffle between both of those. And then to your point, when we can get our system to calm down, we can think clearly and assess, what is it I need to let go of that's out of my control. And what is it within my control? I can just take a hold of and do something, but it's hard to do that until our system is really calm, right? Yeah, absolutely. Such great like skills and examples to lean into. You know, another one is a simple like forward fold, like you sit on the ground and you do like a forward bend, or you do a forward fold like that kicks in that calming system. Right. And that other that another piece is we can focus in on our behavior too, so we can use a skill like act as if or act opposite emotion. Right. So if I let's say have a toddler who is real good at throwing temper tantrums right in the grocery store and I get there and I'm starting to feel really anxious and like, oh my gosh, like, what if she's like, well, you know, okay, I'm going to work to calm and I'm right to relax my body. And then if she starts to have a tantrum, what I might want to do is grab her, run out, like try to convince her, control her to stop having the tantrum. But if I can act as if I'm cool, right? So that's I'm going to like, relax my body, maybe get a little smile, okay. Maybe make eye contact with the other parents, like, oh yeah, one of those days, even though I'm feeling activated inside again, my body's going to receive that message. I'm going to start being able to start shifting and instead of not making eye contact and rushing out, I might make eye contact with that other parent who looks at me is like, oh man, I got you. And then my anxiety is going to go down. And so when we can really kind of challenge ourselves to be like, I'm going to act opposite or I'm going to act as if not in an invalidating way. So I am naming, I am acting, and then I'm like, and I think it'll help if I can do this, or if I walk into that cocktail party or wherever I'm going. And I put a little smile on and I look at people in the face and I say, hi, hi. And my expectation is only to say hello again that behaviorally is going to reinforce a connection, a calm and be helpful. It really does. That calm is contagious. We all know what it's like to be around somebody who's really angry, and they're causing a scene at McDonald's in line because their service wasn't good and everyone's kind of holding their breath. It has an effect, and yet that can happen the other way too, like you just described. And if we can attend to our own stress in our own kind of anxiety, what if my child does this and I can bring myself into a calmer place? That non anxious presence is going to have a contagious effect upon my my kiddo too. I might not even have to say anything anymore. And so. But notice, I think it's important for all of us to realize there's a kind of a top down versus a bottom up approach towards this and that more. Yeah, yeah. So top down is, is when the brain is totally online and I can think clearly. It's all good. Yes. And we can like take those tasks off my plate or challenge that. Yeah. Yeah. And we're good at that. And yet a bottom up is more kind of like that part of our brain that gets activated when there is this kind of anxiety or there is trauma, and it processes kind of what's going on literally 100 times faster than the other part of the brain can really comprehend. Yes. And that's where like the worst thing to say to somebody who's really anxious is you just need to calm down. Yeah. And that's going to activate them more because now you're part of the perceived threat. And so what we need to do when we're in this situation, maybe eight, eight, nine, ten out of ten or we see somebody we care about is don't try to fix it because the brain can't comprehend the reasonable thinking. Mind can't. Nobody's can. Right? No. But we we're not wired that way. We are not wired down. Ready for fight or flight. Yeah. And so that's all I can do. Yeah I can't reason. So we want to use these symptoms then. And if you're finding the need to maybe try to fix somebody. Yeah. Notice that that's probably an indication of your own anxiety that needs to come down first. And it's amazing how little we need to do to help people once we can regulate our own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even just saying, like, I know this is so stressful or it is a lot to navigate, right. Like, yeah. Make sense that you're anxious right. Yes. Like that makes perfect sense or I'm here with you. Can we figure it out together?

 

How can I help? Yes. Right. After we maybe regulate ourselves, too. Yeah. So that we're giving you some good, tangible things that you can utilize with yourself and people you care about. And this is really practical. I think to be human, I always say, is to be anxious. Yeah. We we don't do well when we're perceiving life and situations to be out of our control. And yet that happens a lot. So yeah, it's pretty practical stuff. Absolutely. And that there's tools when we're stressed. Right. Like that might be taking things off of your caseload, might be adjusting case load. You can tell where my brain is taking things off. You're like to do list shifting to say like what is most important adjusting expectations asking for help right. Like affirming and thoughts of like I can do this and then me like it's going to the stress is going to decrease here. Validating those are all really important things that we can do with all that body stuff do that still is helpful, right? And with anxiety really being that full of like what's happening in our body, what's happening in our thoughts, how are we behaving? Right, right. And notice then if you're finding that your anxiety is really getting in the way of your functioning, you can't sleep at night. Yeah, it's getting hard to think and get through. You're snapping at your loved ones or irritable or you're shutting down, right? You're losing weight. Maybe, you know, you just can't sit still. You can't shut your mind off.

 

Right. Feels like your mind is just always, always on, always on. And oftentimes not kind to yourself. Not kind to yourself. Mostly. Yes. Yes. That these are times when you want to go and seek help. So call somebody, call it professional and you can learn so much more about yourself and really empower yourself in a time when you feel really out of control. So yeah, we're so glad we've been able to share this with you. Hope you can apply this and really empower yourself. Thanks for joining us. We'll look forward to talking to you again soon. Take care.

 

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