As a counselor, people share with me everyday about their fears. Some fear divorce. Some fear dying. Others fear themselves or their parents. Others fear being alone or even being with people. It’s a topic (https://www.mendedlife.com/the-effect-of-fear-how-to-cope/) I’ve written on multiple times because it’s an important one to discuss and work through. Afterall, fear can be crippling.
Statistics in a recent study (https://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-statistics-information.shtml) estimated about one-third of all North Americans are affected by some sort of anxiety wellness issue. For a variety of reasons (so many it’d require another blog), anxiety disorders are on the rise in America (especially amongst teens and children). To better understand anxiety, we need to be able to separate it from the idea of fear. Though interconnected, they are different.
How are Fear and Anxiety Different?
Though fear and anxiety are often experienced together, they are not the same thing and should not be used interchangeably. We have to recognize the difference between them in order to respond to them when they show up and in order to treat them moving forward. In other words, if you’re going to address an emotion, you must first know which one you’re dealing with.
The biggest difference between fear and anxiety are their starting points and causes – what they stem from or what makes them arise.
Fear is a response to something known – a defined, observable object that threatens life or survival. You can pinpoint or understand exactly what causes the fear – what event or instance made you fearful.
On the contrary, anxiety arises from an unknown threat – one that is not definitive or even necessarily present. It is very subjective in nature. Anxiety is often objectless and future-oriented, associated with the “what if” questions that can consume someone.
This is not to disregard anxiety. It’s a very really and very debilitating struggle for many. You can have fear for a few minutes over a bee buzzing around your face, but wake up in the night overcome with anxiety and lose an entire night of sleep. But when we understand that fear is related to an clear threat and anxiety is not, we can better treat them as the separate conditions they are. Given that anxiety is a result of a non-specific threat, it can be more difficult to pinpoint and treat.
Consider the following example. You are taking a nice stroll down the side sidewalk one day, enjoying the weather and your walk. You push the button for the crosswalk and when it tells you to cross, you begin to do so. But suddenly, a car doesn’t stop as it should and it zooms right at past you – only a foot or two from hitting you. Your heart is pounding hard and your is breathing accelerated. After the car past you notice you’re shaking and your palms are sweaty. Your knees are even weak. You make it to the other side, sit and compose yourself, and eventually continue on to you destination grateful you’re in one piece. The next day, your take the same path to the same crosswalk to head to the same destination. But as you hit the button to cross the road and take your first steps out, and you notice your heart start beating faster and your breathing becoming more rapid. Your mouth may be dry and you feel a little faint – even though there is no car coming this time.
On day one when the car raced past you and your body responded, this is fear. The identifiable threat was the car. But on day two, when there was no car in sight, but your body had a reaction anyway, this is anxiety. It’s just as real, but the threatening object wasn’t actually present this time.
How are Fear and Anxiety Similar?
Fear and anxiety are interconnected in that they cause similar physiological responses. Both make us narcissitically preoccupied with ourselves.
Fear results in our body’s fight or flight instinct. Our heart rate increases, our pupils dilate, our hearing becomes more acute, and our metabolism revs up – all to prepare our body to either quickly flee the imminent danger or to stay and fight the threat in protection.
While anxiety does not require a stimulus, it’s the anticipation of a threat that would be feared. Therefore, our body has similar physical reactions to anxiety. These include: headaches, muscle tension, chest pain, sweats and chills, shaking, numbness, difficulty breathing, nausea, dizziness, or a ringing in the ears.
Treating Anxiety
Our emotions are centered in the limbic system. This portion of the brain is separate from that which controls our deep thinking and reasoning skills. Anxiety can occur when the portion of our brain controlling emotions takes over and drives our responses before we’ve had a chance to understand details. It allows for quick responses and reactions. The limbic system operates much like an old school roll-o-dex as it logs our past experiences. When we encounter things that remind us of past experiences, our limbic system recounts how we felt at that time and tells us to feel that way again. It’s like muscle memory, except emotional memory. However, when the limbic system becomes overactive and hypervigilant in it’s attempt to keep us safe, we experience anxiety (fear symptoms without the presence of the object of fear). This is when the stick on the ground looks like a snake and we jump.
When anxiety is left unchecked, it can start to overdrive our reasoning ability and will begin to drive our thinking (which is separate from our emotions). This causes us to look for and find things to worry about. Rather than our body’s natural reaction to fearful stimuli, anxiety causes us to seek out any possible danger – even when it’s not there.
The process of counseling is about getting in touch with this process and working to reprogram our roll-o-dex so we can more accurately respond – so we can not become emotionally activated when we walk up to that cross walk or when a car goes racing by. The good news is that anxiety can be easily dealt with once you better understand the process and method of calming your reactions – when they are more thoughtfully processed actions rather than automatic responses you have little to no control of.
It’s been said that the human experience can be summed up as our ability to manage and respond to external information we are presented with through our senses. The two areas we most often struggle with are our security and significance. The ability to manage these two areas drives most people’s anxiety – leaving them a prisoner of their own mind.
It’s time to open the prison doors and experience healing and freedom. Working with a trained counselor can help you identify anxiety sources and empower you to regain control of your reactions and ultimately your life. Contact me today to begin the mending.
-Joel D. Walton