How to identify stress vs. anxiety and learn to cope

You know that something is causing you to feel tense, but you can’t put your finger on it. Your heart races, you have trouble focusing, and you feel a little sick to your stomach and short of breath. These can be symptoms of stress, but they can also be symptoms of anxiety. So, what exactly is going on? Is it stress, anxiety, or a bit of both?

Familiarizing yourself with stress vs. anxiety can help you take better care of yourself. Yet, since these two issues are so similar, they are easy to confuse. Understanding their differences can help you learn how to cope and respond to each and enjoy a calmer life.

Stress vs. anxiety: are they the same?

It can be difficult to tell if you’re stressed or experiencing anxiety. This is because the symptoms of stress and anxiety are similar, as are the daily coping strategies that can be useful for each.

Symptoms of both stress and anxiety can include insomnia and fatigue. They can also cause trouble concentrating, muscle pain or tension, digestive issues, and irritability.

What is stress?

The World Health Organization describes stress as worry or mental tension arising from life’s challenges. When your brain perceives a threat, you release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones affect your entire body, heightening your senses to be more alert for possible dangers. This is a normal response, and it can be useful (good) in some situations but harmful (bad) in others. 

So-called “bad stress” is stress that goes on for too long, making it difficult for you to function well in life. Bad stress can impair your ability to get work done, sleep, and connect or seek support. Stress can also affect your body, leading to serious health problems within areas like your reproductive, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems. 

But not all stress is bad. Sometimes, stress can work for you. Good stress is known as “eustress.” Eustress is generally temporary and associated with challenges that feel surmountable. It can contribute to the excitement or anticipation you experience before taking a vacation or performing on stage. Eustress activates you, increasing your mental and physical energy and making you more focused. It can also release feel-good hormones called endorphins. 

Good and bad stress can also be acute (short term), chronic (long term), or episodic acute (frequent). You might feel acute stress in the weeks following a traumatic incident or event, such as a car accident or the death of a friend. This is a normal response, and developing healthy coping mechanisms to deal with it can help prevent short-term stress from developing into acute stress disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Remember, It’s natural for you to feel stressed from time to time. Learning how to cope with various types of stress can help you move through life’s tough experiences. 

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is an emotion that involves worrying, intrusive thoughts, and tension. Anxiety can also cause physical symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, muscle tension, and surges of high blood pressure. Anxiety can increase the risk of health conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, stroke, and asthma.

In addition to creating chronic health conditions, anxiety itself can become chronic, resulting in an anxiety disorder. The latest version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes the following anxiety disorders:

• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which is described as worrying all the time
• Panic disorder, defined as experiencing panic attacks
• Social anxiety disorder, which is a profound fear of social situations
• Specific phobias or “intense fears” of an object or situation, such as fear of flying, snakes, or heights

Of these anxiety disorders, GAD is the most common. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) found that GAD affects 6.8 million American adults annually. The ADAA states that the risk for GAD is highest between childhood and middle age.

Stress vs. anxiety: how they're different

Stress and anxiety share many similarities, but they also have key differences. Here are a few ways to identify whether you’re feeling stress vs. anxiety:

• Stress may leave once the threat is gone, but anxiety often lingers after the threat disappears.
• Anxiety tends to be caused by internal factors or how you react to stress rather than to an existing threat. Stress often comes from external stressors or sources that exist around you. Worrying about an exam or being upset over a disagreement with your partner are examples of external stressors.
• Anxiety can arise even when you don’t recognize a threat or cause.

Identifying stress vs. anxiety

There isn’t one single test for measuring your levels of stress vs. anxiety. But, several different tests can give you and your doctor or mental health professional a sense of the amount of stress you are experiencing or the type of anxiety or stress you might be dealing with.

Useful stress and anxiety tests include screening tools, such as psychological questionnaires you can fill out about your mood or stress levels. For example, Canada’s Centre for Additional and Mental Health has a survey called a Perceived Stress Scale that you can complete online and another online test to see if stress is dragging you down. These are not diagnostic tests, but they can help you understand your current levels of stress.

You could also visit a medical or mental health professional and discuss any major stressors you have had, how you are feeling, and how long your symptoms have lasted. The doctor may do a physical exam, blood work, or other tests to rule out underlying medical conditions. They may recommend the use of a biofeedback machine or refer you to a specialist.

Unmasking the triggers for each

Triggers are the emotions, experiences, or events that can cause or exacerbate stress or anxiety symptoms. Understanding your triggers can help you learn when and where to apply stress-coping tools.

To identify stress and anxiety triggers, evaluate where your threats originate and how long you tend to worry about things. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do my feelings relate to things in my environment, such as an upcoming test or the frustration of sitting in my car during a traffic jam?

• Do I worry about things even after the event or threat has passed?

With anxiety, you may experience many triggers or get anxious without any specific trigger at all. Useful ways to help you identify triggers for your anxiety or stress include:

• Working with a mental health specialist to help you become more aware of the stressors that may be triggering anxious feelings
• Starting journaling by writing down when something makes you anxious or stressed
• Asking your doctor whether any medications (e.g., birth control pills or cough medications) you take could be triggering your anxiety
• Paying attention to how nutrition affects your mental health by noting how you feel when you drink coffee or skip a meal 

Sometimes, the sources of stress or anxiety may stem from traumatic childhood experiences. Other times, they come from what is happening in your life currently or worrying about what might happen in the future. You may also have a genetic predisposition to anxiety that is hereditary.

Examples of stress and anxiety

Stress is caused by a real-life situation directly presenting a threat to your physical, emotional, or financial well-being. With anxiety, there’s no imminent threat, but the thought of the possibility of one is making you feel tense.

Reading examples of both stress and anxiety may help you understand and visualize them better. Here are three examples of stress vs. anxiety.

Examples of stress:

1. Your micromanaging boss just yelled and threatened to fire you in front of your entire office.
2. A fight broke out in your train car. You can’t get off until the next stop, and you don’t feel safe witnessing and being so close to physical violence.
3. While getting into your car to head to work, you realize someone broke your back window and stole your laptop and several other personal items.

Examples of anxiety:

1. You’re returning to work after Covid and are worried about getting reinfected with the virus.
2. You are afraid of leaving your child with another caretaker and going back to work after your maternity leave.
3. You fear you don’t have the right presentation skills for the report you have to deliver in front of your office.

Do stress and anxiety affect each other?

You may wonder if anxiety causes stress, but it generally works the other way around. Acute stress that goes on too long can become chronic, overwhelming you and causing anxiety. Developing coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety can help you work through challenging experiences.

Coping strategies for stress & anxiety

Reliable coping strategies will help you manage both stress and anxiety. These strategies are also generally useful for leading a healthy life. They are good for you mentally, physically, and spiritually.  

Coping strategies and self-care techniques for stress and anxiety include:

• Activities that nurture mindfulness and are calming (e.g., virtual yoga classes, breathing exercises, meditation, and relaxation techniques)
• Using healthy eating tips like eating breakfast and choosing nutritious snacks
• Physical activities like walking and starting a workout routine at the gym
• Cutting back on alcohol and caffeine
• Improving sleep hygiene
• Connecting with people like friends, family members, or other loved ones rather than isolating yourself

How to manage stress

Stress is an inevitable part of life. The key is learning to manage stress so that it remains beneficial. Some additional ways to do this include:

• Seeking out a mental health professional before stress becomes chronic or overwhelming
• Developing a growth mindset that considers stress as a challenge rather than as a threat (how you perceive stress is key)
• Avoiding multitasking
• Practicing self-compassion rather than blaming yourself unnecessarily when things go wrong

How to manage anxiety

If you’ve ever experienced depression, you will see that symptoms and coping strategies for anxiety are similar. However, an anxiety disorder diagnosis carries its own unique challenges.

Anxiety management strategies vary depending on your anxiety disorder. If you have a phobia, for example, treatment may include exposure therapy. With generalized anxiety disorder, you may use thought records as part of cognitive behavioral therapy. Thought records involve challenging unhelpful or maladaptive thought patterns by looking at evidence for and against them. Then you can consider if there is a more helpful or more balanced way of thinking about the situation that upset you.

Depression can often accompany anxiety. According to a 2020 report from the American Journal of Psychiatry, a worldwide survey showed that 45.7% of people with lifetime major depressive disorder had a lifetime history of one or more anxiety disorders. If you are facing both anxiety and depression, your therapist or doctor is more likely to recommend medication (e.g., an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication) in addition to psychotherapy. This will likely depend on how much your mental health is interfering with your quality of life.

How to handle stress & anxiety together

Whether you’re feeling the effects of stress, anxiety, or a bit of both, there are certain tips you can use to move through your feelings. To cope with stress and anxiety, consider taking the following actions:

• Let go of trying to control things you can’t change.
• Focus on the present moment rather than worrying about the past or brooding over the future.
• Set boundaries around what you can manage by not taking on tasks that are unattainable or will cause undue stress.
• Set SMART goals.
• Seek out friends and companionship. Loneliness is not good for you.
• Ask for help when you need it.
• Prioritize taking care of yourself by making a self-care plan.

When to seek professional help

Even when you do your best to calm anxiety and stress on your own, these things may continue to interfere with your ability to enjoy day-to-day life. These are times when it may be helpful to reach out for support.

A good support for anxiety and stress could include a family doctor or other health care provider. They can talk with you about how stress and anxiety may be affecting your physical and mental health and help you find additional resources for managing it. You can also consider trying talk therapy with a psychologist, psychotherapist, or other mental health professional who can help you work through traumas that may be impacting you.

Coaches can also help with stress or anxiety. Coaches provide strategies and tools to help you identify, lessen, and cope with stress and anxiety. They focus on your personal growth and professional development through self-discovery and self-awareness. By working with a coach, you can identify your unique strengths and develop goals to help you cope with stress or anxiety.

Stress vs. anxiety: companions on the path to growth

In the same way that you can’t simply talk yourself out of depression, stress and anxiety may be something you want to seek treatment for. By working with a BetterUp coach, you can identify aspects of life you can control and move into a path of growth.

Remember, you can empower yourself against stress and anxiety and lead a calmer life.