How to deal with stress, worry, and anxiety

Yes, they’re different. So the way we manage them may need to be different too.

But although they’re not the same, there’s overlap.

In a nutshell, stress is physical, worry is mental, and anxiety can encompass both.

Stress, as we know, is about fight-or-flight. Sweaty palms, thumping heart, and so on. It’s our body’s response to a threat or challenge — real or perceived — and it can be short-lived or long-lasting.

Sometimes there are actions we can take to reduce the pressure. For example, professional advice might help if we’re dealing with, say, relationship, health, or money matters.

A horrible day of driving and traffic will hopefully be short-lived. Slow deep breathing might be one way of calming our body’s angst, until we’re out of the car and can, ideally, go for a walk somewhere green and pleasant.

When issues are beyond our control, it’s useful to get clear on what we can and can’t change.

In addition to exercise or relaxation techniques, time with friends and pets can make a difference to what we can’t do much about. A sense of connection and support makes most things easier.

Worry, on the other hand, is mental. We’re troubled about what might happen in the future.

Again, breathing techniques or meditation can help to keep us present. Worry doesn’t live in the here-and-now — it’s bound up in ‘what if’.

Writing down what’s going through our mind can sometimes settle it and make sense of things.

It’s often also valuable to do something physical that gets us out of our head, like going for a walk or a swim.

And if we have a habit of catastrophising, it’s worth talking to a psychologist or counsellor who can bring us back to reality.

Anxiety is the body’s threat detector and it can be both physical and mental. We might feel agitated or nervous, have palpitations, or struggle to concentrate.

It can be a response to prolonged stress, and it mightn’t always be clear to us why we’re feeling that way.

Distractions such as being with people or pets can be useful. So can writing things down. But if it goes on we probably need professional help.

The difficulty in managing any of the three is that we’re often in them before we realise, then we need to try to get clear on what’s happening.

A few weeks ago, I had a brush with anxiety.

I had an appointment with a GP, but not my regular GP because she was away.

This one began sifting through my last round of blood test results and announced that my kidney function was poor. So poor that she was sending me for blood and urine tests straight away.

“We like to see it up around 90,” she said, and yours is only 66.”

That sounded concerning. But also odd because my own doctor had never mentioned it.

The thing to understand is that I only have one kidney because my right one was removed when I was 12. It didn’t function properly, no one knew why, and it was decided I was better off without it. But I’ve never given it a moment’s thought since.

I didn’t think to say that to the GP, but my mind was already off and racing with visions of dialysis and worse dancing away.

By the time I got home from the pathology clinic I was dealing with a sensation I assumed was anxiety.

It was as though too much blood was pumping around my chest. While I was distracted I was fine, but as soon as I was alone with my thoughts it was away again, and I had no clue as to how to settle it down.

I was telling myself I’d be able to deal with whatever there was to deal with, but my mind wasn’t listening.

The following day I thought exercise might help as a distraction. Bad idea. The pressure in my chest became so intense I decided to go to hospital just to be sure I wasn’t having a heart attack.

Stress? Worry and catastrophising? Anxiety? Check. Check. Check.

I tried to tell the nurse how it felt. “Like a feeling of impending doom?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “Exactly.”

After my ECG was perfectly OK, a doctor followed up my pathology result from the previous day.

“But you’ve only got one kidney,” he explained. “I’ve looked at your results for the last few years, and they’re always the same. That’s normal for you.”

And in about two seconds my chest was quiet for the first time in 24 hours.

Sometimes no amount of deep breathing, exercise, or being present is going to cut it. Sometimes we just need information.

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