Therapy For Real Life asks: “How can you tell the difference between anxiety and fear?” Take a moment now to do your own mood check as your learn about functional vs unhealthy signs of anxiety and stress. Learn how to interrupt the anxiety cycle as host Anna Lindberg Cedar MPA LCSW translates therapy research into actionable self-care strategies for everyday use. This is not therapy. This is Real Life. 

(Please excuse any typos -- transcribed by AI!)

Anna Lindberg Cedar, MPA, LCSW:

How can you tell the difference between anxiety and fear? And why does it matter? Welcome back to the Therapy For Real Life Podcast. This is not therapy. This is Real Life. I'm your host, Anna Lindberg Cedar, MPA, LCSW. I'm happy to welcome you back because today we are going to do another mood check. And we're going to focus on anxiety. If you are listening in on the last episode, you heard us talk all about depression. And you probably heard me mentioned that depression and anxiety are practically best friends, because you in 50% of cases, don't have one without the other.

So before we launch into talk all about anxiety and understanding how we catch it and what is the difference between anxiety and fear. I invite you to do a quick little mini mood check now. And just notice you've taken the time to listen to a podcast, you're going to hear me talk about a whole bunch of language to describe moods and you're going to see if it matches your experience. But before we do that, just go ahead and pay attention. Notice any feelings that are popping up any physical sensations or complaints that you have -- notice any thoughts running through your mind. And if you had to put a word to that state of mind or that mood, just notice that for yourself, and you might even do a little before and after after this episode to see if you have any different moods, come and go. 
So today we're going to do a mood check and talk about anxiety. And the cool thing I've noticed about anxiety is that culturally, we're allowed to talk about it now. It's interesting how that has happened. I've noticed over the years, we've gotten a lot more comfortable as a culture talking about what depression looks like. Some people are more familiar with postpartum depression and how that might show up in moms or you'll even see what depression looks like in the news. If it goes untreated. Oftentimes, people can go to violent extremes. And last episode, we talked about how it can can get missed. Well, today let's look at it anxiety.

And what we've learned from depression is that when we have language for those uncomfortable moods, we get access to the therapies and resources that that work. I've noticed with anxiety, we're starting to catch up in the same way. And perhaps it's elevated levels of stress and politics and difficult triggering news that people are confronted with. We have had to catch up and develop a language for anxiety because a lot of people are experiencing that. The old statistics say something like one out of five folks are experiencing anxiety, depression or some other kind of mood condition. I think if we include stress, or even, you know, not clinical forms of anxiety Those numbers would be a lot higher. And of course, we're keeping in mind that when we talk about anxiety and stress, we're using a self care framework. So we're going to talk about information that you might keep in mind, and resources that you can use.

If you are in crisis. You should pause this episode and access a crisis resource near you, such as CrisisTextine.org, or 911 if you're in the United States.

If you’re not in crisis, we're going to talk about what things you can do in a moment to take care of yourself with stress and anxiety. So what is the difference between stress, anxiety and fear? That's a really good place to start. Last episode, we talked about the fact that emotions are You know, they help you identify needs.

So emotions communicate needs to yourself. So if you're hungry or tired, that will tell you what you need to do next. If you're paying attention you'll follow through with those needs and emotions also communicate your needs to other people. And emotions also motivate behavior, and will notice that each emotion has certain action urges associated with . Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT, the counseling style that I use a lot in my practice, it gives individuals a whole bunch of tools to develop language around talking about their emotions. What we find is that when we have a language to talk about strong and often painful feelings, It has a way of offering comfort and even soothing part of that, that painful, painful response. So with anxiety, we have to think about what is functional about anxiety since we know that emotions are, are part of the the body's response and way to alert us to our needs. Anxiety is functional, when it helps us to pay attention and get our needs met.

So anyone who's listening on this podcast has probably had the experience of showing up for a test or maybe a first date or crossing a busy intersection. All of those experiences might trigger heightened anxiety, which will even trigger a chemical response in your body To help you pay attention and respond if you need to, if you're called to something, it is actually a very healthy emotion that helps us stay productive, get things done, especially if it stays in that really functional zone. We have to notice that anxiety is different than fear.

Fear is a heightened emotional response that is designed to help us stay safe when our physical wellbeing or or emotional wellbeing is threatened. So the difference between anxiety and fear is fear would say, "Watch out! There's a Bear!" Anxiety might say, "Hey, I heard there might be bears around here." Fear is in response to an immediate threat. Anxiety is a response to the idea of a threat.

Where we want to take a look at anxiety is it where it's in that place that's no longer functional. So, if we look at the difference between stress, stress is just a difficult thing that happens in your life happens to all of us and we have to respond. When you start to feel stuck with anxiety, you might notice that you'll feel anxiety lingering, even in those moments when you're completely safe. And there's no immediate threat and you're left with your thoughts were a sensation Anxiety which feels very similar to sensation fear. You think about that running away from the bear sensation of your, your heart beating fast and your muscles tensing up and that feeling of urgency. So we have to think about when you are in that mood state, for a lot of people, this is a very uncomfortable place to be. We also have to think about what are the action urges that come with that feeling. So anxiety or with fear, you're going to have the urge to run awayand hide and with fear that's really functional of your work walking down, you know, an alley by yourself and you get freaked out or you feel unsafe, you should walk faster and you should get somewhere where you feel comfortable and protected and know someone.

If you're feeling anxious. And you've already paid attention to the thing you need to pay attention to. Let's say you've finished a full day of work you're done that. That feeling of stuckness might get in the way of other things that you want to do, like, go to sleep, or be with your friends and family.

How do we recognize when anxiety is no longer function? Or when do we have that? How do we catch that feeling of stuckness?

So that's a question I'm, I'm going to ask you to think about for yourself, "How can I tell whether anxiety is helping me pay attention to what's important to me? or How can I tell if anxiety is making me feel stuck and it's actually getting in the way of what I need to do procrastination?" is a perfect example of that. 

Let's look at what therapists will often look for when they look for signs of anxiety that is no longer helpful. A lot of therapists use a really common tool called the GAD-7. They use this, oftentimes in medical environments or in therapy appointments. It's a very brief and quick tool that clinicians will use to ask you about, usually the last two weeks, and they'll go through a series of seven questions. So I'm just going to go through and read those for you now. And you can think about whether or not any of these problems have been true for you. And the thing about these is that these can happen even on a bad day and you can look at how often that happened for you over time. So for Perhaps during periods of stress, you'll have more or less you can just pay attention nonjudgmentally to whether or not you've had any of these experiences that could be part of anxiety.

So, over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems? Number one, feeling nervous, anxious or on edge. Number two, not being able to stop or control worrying. Number three, worrying too much about different things. Number four, trouble relaxing. Number five, being so restless that it's hard to sit still. Number six, being becoming easily annoyed or irritable. Number seven, being feeling afraid as if something awful might happen. And then some people add on another question of, Do you ever feel panic or as if your heart is beating so fast out of your chest.

And if you are going through this questionnaire with a clinician, the therapist or in a doctor's office, they would ask you how often any of these problems have bothered you whether, not at all or several days or half the days or nearly every day, you would talk about how much of a problem it is for you. That's where you get to talk about your experience. But that's the tool that a lot of therapists use. And you can also think about how you notice feelings of anxiety in your own life. Maybe it matches the way the questionnaire described it, or perhaps for you, maybe it's more of a sensation that just builds and you notice, or it makes you have that sensation of not feeling like yourself in the same way that you do when you're calm and relax and in that centered place.

So that's how the therapist might ask about anxiety. What we know about anxiety is that you can experience anxiety and a lot of different ways. And so just like depression, where you want to look for perhaps physical reasons why you can experience those mood changes. Same thing with anxiety you want to check out. Trauma history will often make you feel anxious or worried about the future. Oftentimes anxiety can run in families and family histories, again with trauma. You can see that epigenetics, you know that family history across generations often gets passed down. And with anxiety, you also want to look at substance use and misuse. And that often goes through family trees as well.

So that underlying feeling of anxiety or discomfort, again, we talked about all the different action urges that can come with that sensation. Sometimes it comes with the sensation of urge of wanting to medicate or soothe. So noticing the first signs of anxiety for you, is going to help you catch up and then what?
Because we talked about the difference between anxiety And fear, I believe the most important question you can ask yourself when you start to notice those first signs of anxiety is: "Am I safe?" If you can look around your surroundings and maybe perhaps you have problems and you have bills to pay, but I'm asking about your immediate safety. Is there a Lion Tiger or bear in front of you? Do you need to call the cops or your lawyer?

If you need to do any of those things, go ahead and do what you need to do to get to safety. If the answer to that question is I'm immediately safe, but I'm feeling anxious... that's a great time to soothe the body physically. Mindfulness is a great way to do this. There are also bio mood hacks that are shown to help you reduce feelings of anxiety and stress. The Therapy For Real Life Podcast is full of examples of guided, medicate meditations that you can use in a moment of stress. 

Let's go ahead and try one gentle bio mood hack which is just reconnecting with the breath, which you can do at any time. With anxiety, we know that slowing down the rhythm of the breath is a great way to signal to the body that you are indeed safe. You'll notice with anxiety or panic, you'll often have that sensation of wanting to breathe really quickly. That's your body trying to get you to run away. From the tiger or bear, but if you decided that you're already safe, then you can signal to the body that you are safe by relaxing into the breath. So let's do just one minute of simple paste breathing and notice the before and after effects. All we're going to do is simply inhale and I will go ahead and count the rhythm for you. As you inhale, I'll count to three. And on the exhale, I want you to space out that the breath a little bit longer on the exhale, and I'm going to count to six. 

So go ahead and get your attention ready by just taking one simple deep breath breathing in, breathing out ... good... I'm going to count to three. Breathing in 1... 2... 3.... Gentle breathing out counting to six, exhaling 1... 2...3...4...5...6... deep breath in... 1...2...3...slow breath out exhaling 1...2...3...4...5...6... more deep inhale breathing in. 123 exhaling out 123456 returning your attention to the natural rhythm of your breath, go ahead and take just a gentle deep breath.
Breathing in and out and noticing just the natural rhythm of the breath after little gentle paste breathing and notice the effect of that has and notice feeling that you're safe and relaxing the body. 

You can also remind the body through your thoughts. You can repeat to yourself in your mind, I am safe. I'm okay. This feeling will pass. Those gentle thought reminders are cognitive behavioral therapy. Those are little mini self care strategies that turns out they go a long way and they might feel silly. to rehearse them. But they're a lot better for a lot of people than me alternative thoughts that come with anxiety like this will last forever or I feel like I'm going to die or this is terrible. practicing those gentle little reminders of this is going to be okay. I'm going to be all right. This will pass can feel better. 

Other things that work for anxiety studies show, scheduling worry time. So if you find that with anxiety, worry kind of every which way and interrupts the other things that are important to you. Studies show that if you go ahead and put five minutes on the calendar, and worry, worry, worry, worry, worry about all the terrible things that might happen to a lot of people find this helps them relax because they know that if worries pop up during Other times, they can tell themselves well, I'm not going to worry about that right now because I already have that scheduled. And a lot of people notice that when they get that worrying out of their system, they put it down pen to paper, it's kind of like, "Oh, I already did that it's done." Sometimes it even leads to feelings of getting really productive and an urgency to do that. So you can schedule worry time and you can also schedule problem solving time, which is a great way to reduce stress and anxiety by just getting busy and solving those problems that caused so much stress in the first place.

The last suggestions that I want to make about anxiety is a really fun one. In my mind, I thought this research was really cool. I'm trying to remember the exact study I learned it from but I learned this along the way that they did studies with college kids and they found that for those who had anxiety for something they asked them to just Think about anxiety and of course that made them feel worse. And for others, they said, Okay, take that anxiety, and go ahead and channel it into something that you are excited about. And they found that that was really effective. 
So that's my invitation for you the next time you're feeling anxious about something, I want you to think about, what is the good thing that just might happen here. So for example, if you have social anxiety, you don't like going to parties and making small talk and introducing yourself. I want you to keep in mind, I do that. what might happen, maybe I'll meet someone interesting. Maybe I'll learn something I never would have thought about before. Maybe I'll feel really good about myself for having done that. Think about that in your own situation. If there's something that you're really worried or nervous about. Even if it's unlikely to happen, even if it feels like winning the lottery really low odds, it means that it's on the table. So that's my invitation for you.

I hope that you find the strategies that work for you. And of course, feel free to message me. You'll find my contact information at TherapyForRealLife.com

Tell me what strategies work for you when it comes to self care and anxiety management. On TherapyForRealLife.com, you'll find more information about different therapy styles, therapy resources, and also learn more about the therapy options available in the Bay Area counseling and burnout prevention consulting practice. 

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