Anxiety vs. Stress: A Therapist in Wallingford’s Guide to Healthy Coping
Stress and anxiety are often confused, but they are different. Anxiety is a long-lasting, persistent feeling of worry or fear without a clear cause, while stress can be brief and triggered by specific events or situations. Though both can manifest physically in similar ways, they require different approaches to treatment. Anxiety may need additional support like therapy or medication, especially if it disrupts daily life, while stress typically resolves once the situation causing it improves. At Embrace Calmness Counseling, we provide evidence-based treatments to help manage both anxiety and stress, offering lasting solutions beyond temporary relief.
Anxiety vs. Stress – What’s the Difference?
Stress and anxiety can show up in many ways. Meeting with your boss to discuss your yearly review, not having enough time to make it to your appointment as you’re sitting in traffic, to the uncertainty of whether your job is on the line or not. We all experience daily stressors in our lives, it’s unavoidable. Sometimes, we find ways to cope with and manage stress, but at times, it can become so overwhelming and chronic that it debilitates us, leading to anxiety.
Signs and Symptoms – How to Recognize Anxiety and Stress
So how exactly do you know if you’re anxious or stressed? Here’s a simple breakdown of the difference.
Stress Symptoms
Emotional: Irritability, frustration, mood swings, feeling overwhelmed.
Cognitive: Difficulty concentrating, racing thoughts, forgetfulness, indecisiveness.
Physical: Muscle tension, headaches, fatigue, trouble sleeping, increased heart rate..
Anxiety Symptoms
Emotional: Excessive worry, fear, nervousness, restlessness
Cognitive: Overthinking, intrusive thoughts, difficulty controlling worry, a sense of impending doom
Physical: Muscle tension, headaches, fatigue, trouble sleeping, increased heart rate.
Before your stress becomes too much, using tools and stress management can decrease the chance of it becoming anxiety. Evidence based interventions like mindfulness, CBT, and psychodynamic therapy can help target the source of your stress, defeat negative thinking, and help you focus on the here and now to relax your mind.
How a Therapist in Wallingford Can Help You Manage Anxiety and Stress
At Embrace Calmness Counseling, we offer tools and interventions that work to not just find relief but lasting healing and change. Having holistic approaches like CBT, mindfulness, and psychodynamic therapy yield positive changes and results.
CBT also known as cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of therapy approach where you learn to change your negative thoughts to more balanced realistic ones by checking “the facts”.
You learn that your negative thoughts are generally stories and exaggerations that only leave you worried and defeated.
CBT provides practical tools to help you distinguish facts from assumptions and reframe negative interpretations that may feel harmful or overwhelming. It teaches you how to recognize unhelpful thought patterns and replace them with more balanced, constructive perspectives.
If you want lasting relief not just short term, psychodynamic therapy brings you lasting relief.
Stress and anxiety follow a pattern, and simply confronting one stressful or anxious thought provides only short-term relief. Finding the source of “why” offers lasting change.
Psychodynamic therapy helps you learn patterns to your thoughts and beliefs, resolve unhealed or unaware feelings that are linked to stress and anxiety, and understand how your past can control more of your present and future.
You know the source of your stress and anxiety, you learned to recognize the thoughts as false and interpretations, but you still feel anxious and stressed. What then?
Mindfulness can be instrumental in calming the noise and chaos of your stress and anxiety. It teaches you to simply observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment.
You come to understand that your patterns are created, and you can also learn to unlearn them. Just being aware of this can empower you to make changes. By being mindful of your story, you have the ability to consciously shift your focus and change your narrative.
Paced breathing like inhaling 4 seconds and breathing out for 6 calm your nervousness and helps you observe your thoughts. You will recognize that your thoughts and feelings—though uncomfortable—are temporary and constantly changing in form and intensity.
When to Seek Professional Help from a Therapist in Wallingford?
If you’re feeling stressed just reading this as it reminds you of the week’s tasks, that phone call you’re dreading to make, or that big presentation you have next week, it’s time to seek support. Finding the right therapist to help you navigate your stress and anxiety can mean you learn to deal with stress in constructive ways so you won’t drown in them. Imagine feeling confident, and ready to tackle any task and not fear the worst. Imagine, feeling capable to handle whatever life storms or waves might hit you.