Between fear and anxiety
Anxiety is a general term for a group of disorders called “anxiety disorders.”
These are common disorders among adults, adolescents, and children, and they have a significant impact on our daily functioning, sometimes to the point of severely affecting quality of life.
So what is the difference between fear and anxiety?
When we walk down the street at night and a stranger begins to follow us, we feel fear due to the real threat.
Because of this, we use the survival defense mechanism “fight, flight, or freeze” one of three responses that protect us from danger and threat.
Anxiety, on the other hand, will make us react this way not when there is a real threat to our lives, but “only” when a worry or thought about a stranger following us arises.
It triggers physiological and mental responses as if the threat is right in front of us, while the situation is not real.
In simple terms: anxiety is an intense fear response based on worry or thought about a potential future threat, not an actual danger.
It does not match the real risk present.
The bright side of anxiety
The threat may not be real, but the anxiety disorder certainly is.
According to data, 3.1% of the adult population in the United States suffers from a general anxiety disorder.
In absolute numbers, this amounts to 6.8 million people.
So if you also struggle with anxiety, you are not alone.
Many studies also show that women are twice as likely as men to develop an anxiety disorder by age 50.
Why? Because the “fight, flight, or freeze” mechanism is more easily triggered and lasts longer in women, partly due to hormones like estrogen and progesterone.
But like many things in life, anxiety is not entirely dark it also has positive aspects:
- Motivation: Often, anxiety pushes us to act complete a delayed project, take a step, or make a decision we feared.
A 2017 study by Italian researchers found that some of us perform better when experiencing a certain level of anxiety, which leads to more successful outcomes. - Attention: Anxiety about a future event (for example, public speaking) focuses and sharpens our attention. Anxiety “forces” us to recognize the importance of the event and prepare for it to handle it successfully.
- Empathy: People with anxiety disorders tend to be more sensitive.
One study found that people who experienced personal challenges themselves tended to be more sensitive to others’ difficulties and showed greater empathy toward the sensitivities and struggles of others.
Who are you, anxiety?
Anxiety has symptoms expressed emotionally, physiologically, and cognitively-behaviorally.
- Emotional: feelings of helplessness, numbness (“I can’t believe this is happening to me”), lack of focus, tension, and intense fear.
- Physiological: shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, chest pressure, feeling of suffocation, nausea, trembling, and hot or cold waves.
- Cognitive: extreme thoughts “I will never get out of this,” “This will never end.”
- Behavioral: avoiding situations or places that may trigger anxiety, freezing inability to react.
How to manage anxiety
Anxiety, like other emotions, is part of our lives even though it is heightened now due to the war.
If we understand that it is normal, common, and not necessarily an immediate and real danger,
we can fear it less.
Every challenging and negative emotion we experience now is a normal response to living in an abnormal reality.
Here are three tools to help live with it more peacefully:
- The 333 Rule
This is an easy-to understand technique available to practice anywhere, which helps “ground” and reduce anxiety.
It can be practiced while driving, before a meeting, or at any moment anxiety arises.
According to the 333 Rule, when anxiety arises, we identify three things around us that we can see, hear, and feel.
The practice allows noting the following details:
- Which 3 items we see around us right now: chair, window, pen, cup? Focusing and identifying items around us helps shift attention.
- Which 3 sounds we hear: ticking clock, children playing, rustling leaves, passing car? Paying attention to external sounds shifts focus outward and away from internal thoughts.
- Which 3 things we can touch or move: feel the texture of our shirt or move a body part. Practicing touch and movement shifts attention from anxiety and reduces its intensity.
- Physical activity
The mind transfers mental tension and anxiety to the body, which may develop pain, itching, burning, tingling, nausea, and fatigue with psychological rather than physical origin (somatization).
Anxiety may worsen when mental stress increases and physical activity is minimal.
Any physical activity you do (even a single short workout) reduces mental tension, making you less prone to anxiety during the day. - Reframing
To reframe anxiety in a less anxiety provoking way, it is important to face it and remember two things:
- It is an intense fear response based on worry about a potential future threat, not actual danger, and it intensifies due to unpleasant memories from past experiences (how stressed we were, how the body sweated, tensed, heart raced, and distress felt).
- If we focus on the fact that it is a physical and emotional experience that does not constitute real danger, we may fear it less.
Anxiety arises from worry about possible danger, so coping is mainly with our feelings and emotions.
If this is the case, we have a significant chance to regulate these feelings and emotions and influence them, rather than reacting to an external event.
The main practice should focus on regulating those feelings and emotions.