You might know someone dealing with anxiety. You’ve also probably felt afraid at some point in your life. Both fear and anxiety are normal and common.
They’re not quite the same thing, though. They may have some commonalities, but there are key differences as well.
Someone who submits to mental health treatment in Costa Mesa might do so because they’re afraid, or they may do so because they’re anxious. Their treatment will depend on which of these conditions the doctor feels this individual has.
In this article, we’ll talk about fear and anxiety. We’ll cover what they are, how they differ, and how they’re the same.
What Precisely is Fear?
Fear is a primal response to something that’s perceived as a threat. Let’s say you’re walking in the woods, and a bear comes lumbering out of the bushes. You’re afraid of the bear. That’s natural, since you know that bears can be dangerous to humans.
What About Anxiety?
Anxiety is a feeling of general nervousness or unease. If you feel anxious, that might be for rational or irrational reasons. If you’re watching TV and you see pictures of a conflict taking place overseas, the bodies and blood strewn across the ground that appear on your TV screen might make you anxious.
How Are Fear and Anxiety the Same?
Fear and anxiety are the same because often, the sensations you experience when you’re anxious or afraid are similar. Let’s look at the two examples we just covered: the bear attack and the news of a conflict overseas you’re watching on your TV.
In either situation, your heart rate might be elevated. You may sweat and feel a flight-or-fight response is warranted.
When looking at the two conditions from this perspective, it’s easy to see the connection and similarities between them. You could say that fear is a heightened and more immediate sense of anxiety. You could call anxiety an earlier or milder stage of fear.
How Do the Conditions Differ?
The two conditions differ in their severity. If you’re anxious, you might live your life with that baseline. It won’t be very pleasant, and it will almost certainly have some adverse health effects as time passes, but you can do it.
If you live your life in fear, you likely won’t be able to get by in that fashion for very long without having a total breakdown. That’s because fear is exhausting and saps you both mentally and physically. Fear is a ramped-up response to some kind of stimuli. If you’re afraid, you’re actively worried that you are about to be harmed.
The real difference between fear and anxiety is generally that fear is what you feel when you perceive a clear and immediate danger to yourself. Anxiety can be what you feel when you’re slightly worried about something, or many things, but you don’t necessarily feel so acutely worried that you must go into fight or flight mode. Anxiety often leads to fear if the perceived danger is not alleviated.
