Lately I’ve been feeling super overwhelmed with life stuff, work stuff, relationship stuff. It feels like it’s never-ending and it’s all quite stressful and anxiety provoking. I thought I was doing all the “right” things to manage and cope, but I was still waking up at midnight or 3 am not able to go back to sleep. My appetite was off, brain fog was off the charts, and I making a lot of scheduling mistakes.
In talking to my therapist and doing a bunch of research, I learned that I was conflating stress and anxiety. Turns out that there are actually important distinctions between the two. My ignorance was affecting my ability to manage and cope.
In a nutshell, stress typically stems from external factors like deadlines or significant life changes which impact our thoughts. Anxiety often accompanies stress, hanging out long after the project is completed. It persists internally manifesting in constant worry and unease.
Imagine stress as a sudden downpour, pelting you with deadlines and demands. It's intense and immediate, but it eventually subsides.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is like a lingering fog that obscures your clarity of thought and weighs heavily on your mind, even after the storm has passed.
The distinction between stress and anxiety is crucial for developing effective coping mechanisms. While stress can be manageable with practical strategies like time management, prioritization and exercise, anxiety can require a deeper understanding and a more nuanced approach.
STRESS 101
Let’s first take a closer look at stress. Stress primarily originates from external factors that exert pressure on us and the thoughts they trigger. These factors can include:
Deadlines
Significant life changes such as moving or starting a new job
Unforeseen events like illness or loss
Situations where we feel a lack of control
Experiences of discrimination or bias
Even positive changes, like welcoming a new baby, can induce stress due to the adjustments they require
The effects of stress are not limited to our mental state; they can also manifest physically. Symptoms may include:
Tired or sore eyes
Muscle aches
Fatigue
Digestive issues including heartburn or indigestion
Sleep disturbances like insomnia
Difficulty concentrating (aka brain fog)
Headaches or migraines
Breathing challenges
Panic attacks
It’s not atypical for the body to react in pain from seemingly innocuous actions like bending to pick up a crayon for your kid and having your back seize up.
For some people, stress serves as a catalyst for action. For others, stress triggers a paralyzing response, causing them to freeze or retreat.
ANXIETY 101
On the flip side, anxiety is characterized by worrying that does not go away — even after the external stressors have dissipated.
This ongoing apprehension can lead to a variety of physical symptoms, such as:
Nausea
Light-headedness or dizziness
Restlessness
Faster breathing
Insomnia
Difficulty focusing on the task at hand
Difficulty breathing
Fatigue
Overindulgence in food or alcohol
Panic attacks
Again, this is not a comprehensive list and there is overlap with the physical symptoms of stress. The key understanding here is that anxiety is an internal struggle that permeates our entire being, affecting our bodies, emotions and mind.
Emotionally, anxiety often manifests as irritability and a reduced tolerance for stressors, causing people to feel on edge and easily agitated.
Mentally, anxiety impairs our ability to focus and think clearly, leaving us feeling disoriented and unable to process information effectively.
For many of my clients, anxiety is like a suffocating blanket that clings to them, hijacking their daily routines. They find themselves consumed by worry at all hours of the day and night. This constant state of preoccupation robs them of their ability to stay present and engaged, leaving them feeling disconnected and overwhelmed.
A STRESS STORY
Let me bring this alive by sharing a story.
I’m under a deadline to deliver a big project and it’s going well. It’s a lot of work, but I have created a system and a timeline and I’m confident I’ll make the date.
Then I get an email telling me the deadline has been pulled by one week.
I feel my heart speed up, my breath goes shallow, my jaw tenses, and I do this weird thing where I open and close my hands while wiggling my fingers. My stress has spiked. Normally, I would ignore my body and buckle down to do the work.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE STRESS
With new knowledge and experience, I’m learning to activate these three stress coping mechanisms.
(There are a lot of options out there — these are ones that work well for me.)
Work smarter, not harder: As a recovering perfectionist who values excellence I have a tendency to over-deliver and drown myself in unnecessary tasks. I review my to-do list and get real about what truly needs to happen to deliver an excellent product.
Identify what I’m doing well and be grateful: This is also a tool that helps me battle the gremlins that naturally show up when my confidence wanes. So I acknowledge that I am in constant communication with the client, I’ve asked relevant and clarifying questions, and have revised the scope of work. I’m grateful that I have the creative intelligence to tackle the new challenge, a family that will pick up slack in the short-term, and that I work from home where I concentrate better.
Accept what I can’t change: I sorta hate and love this. I can’t change the requests for deadline changes, but I can change how I respond to the request.
Bonus Affirmation: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Suffering comes from expectations. In this situation I had an expectation that once deliverables were agreed upon and the contract was signed nothing would change. When the request came in, it was an ouch moment. However, I don’t need to suffer by expecting that changes will never happen when an agreement has been reached.
Each of these mechanisms help me to regulate my nervous system by assessing without judgment the current situation. As a result, I can create choices and look at them with discernment — instead of immediately jumping into action.
With these tools, I see that I have the following choices:
I can take a closer look at my timeline to see if there’s any wiggle room and what I would need to say “no” to in order to meet the new deadline.
Push back and say I’m not available to meet the new deadline.
I can ask for additional resources to complete the job with the new deadline.
Now I can check which of these options feels most aligned with my values as opposed to listening to my people pleaser and perfectionist gremlin. I choose to ask for additional resources to complete the job with the new deadline because it honors my values of curiosity and courage. I also value collaboration. And if I’m honest I also want the client to be pleased.
Flash forward: the conversation goes great and I receive the additional resources requested.
ANXIETY PERSISTS
However, I can’t stop thinking about what I might be missing, what might be falling through the cracks, how the quality of the project might be affected, why they even asked to pull up the deadline. I start to make up stories about delivering a not great product and how that will affect my reputation.
My sleep goes south, I’m grumpy with my family, I’m short-tempered with team members. I start to make “stupid” mistakes like forgetting about a zoom meeting or to send a follow-up email. I find my ideas are uninspired and my excitement for my job is waning. I want to sleep, I have trouble getting out of bed and I can’t stop ruminating.
This is anxiety. And it’s a beast.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE ANXIETY?
Like stress coping mechanisms, there are a lot of tools to help combat anxiety. Here are ones that help me the most.
Marry notice, naming and journaling with the 5-4-3-2-1 tool. I write out what’s happening in my body. I write out the thoughts that are running through my head. I write out that I am experiencing anxiety. I then write down five things I see, four things I can feel, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can taste. This is a grounding tool to get me to a place of here and now. It forces me to refocus, and from this place of grounding I can then take these next action steps to quell my anxiety.
Data over drama. This is a slogan my business coach @DallasTravers taught me. I look for the data to support any claims my anxiety is making. Is there hard information to show that the client really hates me? If the data is there then I write out how to course correct. If there is no data to support the claim, I write out “I release the fantasy that everyone hates me for sending the email late.” For me, I have to write things down in order to make it visceral. To literally take it out of my head so it can be released.
I then assess what happened and write out the narrative. It might look something like this: The deadline got pulled up. I made a choice to ask for additional resources which I received. However, my perfectionist gremlin popped up and wondered if I had asked for the proper resources and wanted to know what I would do if I couldn’t deliver excellence under the new time table. The gremlin hijacked my brain and I know that the goal of the gremlin is to stop me from honoring my values, living my purpose and meeting my potential. The potential that I’m being pulled away from is having this deliverable tee-up a long-term commitment from the client. I am choosing to honor my value of process over perfection.
I create an affirmation or image to focus on when the anxious thoughts pop up. One of my favorite affirmations: I am not for everyone.
By acknowledging and naming my feelings, grounding myself in the present moment, and challenging the validity of my anxious thoughts, I can begin to regain a sense of control. Each step forward is hard-earned and sometimes they feel like a very small victory.
Anxiety is a formidable foe, but I am a fighter — who needs to occasionally take time to lick my wounds.
BOTTOM LINE
Navigating the intricacies of stress and anxiety is a journey that requires both self-awareness and proactive coping strategies.
While stress may stem from external pressures and deadlines, anxiety can linger long after the storm has passed, affecting our minds, hearts and bodies.
By understanding the distinctions between the two and employing techniques such as grounding exercises and challenging anxious thoughts, we can regain control of our mental and emotional well-being.
Remember, you are not alone in this journey, and seeking support from friends, family, or mental health professionals can provide invaluable guidance along the way.
I hope that you take what you’ve read and proactively identify your coping tools. This way you’ll be prepared the next time you become overwhelmed by stress or gripped by anxiety.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
Here are A LOT of questions to help you re-define your relationship with stress and anxiety. 😁
Stress often comes with a bunch of warning signs, like feeling tense, snapping at people, or even having trouble sleeping. Reflecting on your own reactions can give you some insight into how stress shows up for you personally. How do you typically react when you're stressed? Can you pinpoint specific physical or emotional symptoms you experience during stressful times?
One of the big distinctions between stress and anxiety is that stress tends to be tied to specific events or circumstances, while anxiety can stick around even when everything's going fine. Considering how your worries behaved in a recent scenario can shed light on whether they might lean more toward anxiety. Think about a recent stressful situation you encountered. Did your worries persist even after the situation was resolved, or did they fade away?
Anxiety has a way of latching onto thoughts and refusing to let go, even when there's no immediate reason to be concerned. Paying attention to the nature and duration of your worries can help you tease out whether you might be dealing with more than just everyday stress. How often do you find yourself worrying about things that haven't happened yet, or that you can't control? Are these worries fleeting, or do they stick around for a while?
When you're stressed, do you tend to feel better once the source of stress is removed or resolved? Or do you find yourself still feeling on edge or anxious even after things calm down?
Sometimes the way we handle stress versus anxiety can be pretty different. Maybe you rely on exercise or talking to friends to unwind from stress, but when anxiety hits, those strategies don't seem to make much of a dent. Paying attention to what works (and what doesn't) for each can give you some clues about whether you're dealing with one or the other, or maybe even both. How do you cope with stress versus anxiety? Are there different strategies you use for dealing with each, or do you find yourself approaching them in similar ways?
How would you describe your relationship with stress? What is that like for you?
How would you describe your relationship with anxiety? What is that like for you?
What is the best relationship in your life? What are the qualities of that relationship?
How might you bring some of those qualities into your relationship with stress and anxiety? What might become possible?
What are 3-5 coping tools you have for stress? How about anxiety?
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Stress vs. Anxiety