Transcript
Hi everyone, Dr Cris here with The Ask Dr Cris show. Today’s question comes from the Liz, she would like to know am I just stressed or do I have anxiety.
I think it’s important to distinguish between stress and anxiety, although remember they are not often mutually exclusive, you can have stress and anxiety and vice versa, and you can be anxious and also stressed. Anxiety may not be situation specific. You may be getting palpitations, racing heart, dry mouth, sweaty palms, nausea, worrying constantly, not being able to sleep, they are symptoms of anxiety, and often people find that happen even when they’re not thinking about anything particularly anxious. So, they may be a rest, sitting, even in the middle of the night, people wake up with panic attacks, so that is an anxiety condition. Stress on the other hand comes specifically when you’re worrying about a particular situation that’s just happened, or particular situation to come, and often you can get the same sort of symptoms as anxiety symptoms. When you are trying to distinguish between the two, do have a look at the amount of stress in your life. Trying to reduce the amount of stress in your life and still having the anxiety symptoms present means it probably an anxiety condition and it’s something you need to speak to GP about in terms of looking at the different effective managements for anxiety.
Thanks Liz, thank you for your question, and I look forward to hearing more questions from you. If you wouldn’t mind leaving them below and I will answer them real soon.
#healthyhabits
Dr Cris
Holistic Medical Doctor, Author ‘Healthy Habits, 52 Ways to Better Health‘
