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Stress Versus Anxiety
There is a difference between anxiety and stress. Stress is basically a physiological, emotional, or psychological response to a demand, usually performance related. Anxiety is more of a persistent, excessive rumination over worries or fears, perceived or real, but ‘real’ being likely exaggerated. If it’s really ‘real’ that’s not anxiety, that genuine concern! You’re normal. Chill out. Stress can result in irritability, anger, fatigue, muscle pain, digestive troubles, and difficulty sleeping. Difficulty sleeping results in irritability, anger, fatigue, muscle pain, digestive troubles…
There is good stress and bad stress. Humans need some stress, but most of the stress we’re getting these days is fairly negative. There are ways of adding up stress to determine if you’ve reached your threshold. Granted, some people have greater capacity than other, but generally we can assign specific points to stressors. That’s why there is this nice little ‘perceived’ stress scale available, here. The Homes and Rahe Stress Scale, for example, would give you 100 points for the death of a spouse, 73 for divorce, marriage got a 50, relocating 25… You should check out this page and take a quick summary of your stress, here.
I like the scale. I am feeling a bit snarky, after one of the things it’s suggested is…
