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]
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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.
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