Anxiety Counseling: Understanding The Difference Between Worry and Anxiety

In today's society, the words "anxiety" and "worry" are often used in the same context. The terms are similar in definition, too. Dictionary.com defines worry as "a cause of uneasiness or anxiety" and anxiety as "distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune."

However, in the case of mental health, it is important to understand the difference between feeling worried and feeling anxiety. When seeking anxiety counseling, the ability to properly define what we are feeling is extra beneficial.

1. The source behind the feeling of anxiety is not so easily identified.

When we have a general worry, it is typically easy to identify why we feel worried. However, when we have a feeling of anxiety, it is usually not very easy to pinpoint where the feeling is coming from. Anxiety is often a lot more generalized. An example given by Psychology Today is comparing the worry that is felt about possibly missing an airplane flight to the anxiety felt about flying in general.

As Psychology Today puts it, "Worry tends to be more focused on thoughts in our heads, while anxiety is more visceral in that we feel it throughout our bodies." Using the airport and flying as an example again, we will observe what is happening mentally and physically. Worrying about missing the flight, typically all we would be thinking about is that we might not be moving quickly enough or that we might forget something along the way. When we are sitting on the airplane anticipating the flight, there might be a feeling of indigestion, or we might be sweating profusely at the anticipation.

When we have one simple worry, most of the time we might shrug it off for a while, even if it stays in the back of our minds. A worry is not something we will necessarily react to in a way that makes us at a point of needing to call in sick to work. Anxiety, on the other hand, while it can start with a worry, goes as far as debilitating some people. It can affect our jobs, our school, and our relationships. The physical effects make it more of an illness. Kelsey Wallour in a Huffington Post article gives an example of her own thought and action process with anxiety about a friend she had not heard from in a few days. For her, it was not something as easy as shrugging it off. It affected her time, her sleep, her work, and her overall health by the way her anxiety about it overcame her.

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