What is anxiety?
Anxiety is a feeling of unease, worry or fear which, when persistent and impacting on daily life may be a sign of an anxiety disorder. Occasionally feeling anxious, particularly about events or situations that are challenging or threatening, is a normal and extremely common response. However, if feelings of anxiety regularly cause significant distress or they start to impact on your ability to carry out your daily life, for example withdrawing or avoiding contact with friends and family, feeling unable to go to work, or avoiding places and situations then it may be a sign of an anxiety disorder.
Symptoms of anxiety include changes in thoughts and behaviour such as:
- Restlessness
- A feeling of dread
- A feeling of being “on-edge”
- Difficulty concentrating
- Difficulty sleeping
- Irritability
It can also involve physical feelings such as dizziness, nausea, heart palpitations (a noticeably strong, fast heartbeat), sweating, shortness of breath, headache, or dry mouth.
Recommended resource: Mental Health Foundation: Anxiety
Recommended resource: Students Against Depression: What is anxiety?
What is depression?
Depression is a common mental health problem that causes people to experience low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration.
Depression symptoms may vary among people but generally encompass a feeling of sadness or hopelessness. These can include:
- Tiredness and loss of energy
- Sadness that doesn’t go away
- Loss of self-confidence and self-esteem
- Difficulty concentrating
- Not being able to enjoy things that are usually pleasurable or interesting
- Feeling anxious all the time
- Avoiding other people, sometimes even your close friends
- Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
- Sleeping problems – difficulties in getting off to sleep or waking up much earlier than usual
- Very strong feelings of guilt or worthlessness
- Finding it hard to function at work/college/school
- Loss of appetite
- Physical aches and pains
- Thinking about suicide and death
- Self-harm
Depression symptoms can vary in severity, from mild to moderate to severe depression. If you experience symptoms of depression for most of the day – every day – for more than two weeks, you should seek help from your GP.
Recommended resource: Students Against Depression: What is depression?
Recommended resource: Assignment Bro - What is depression?
What is stress?
At the most basic level, stress is our body’s response to pressures from a situation or life event. What contributes to stress can vary hugely from person to person. Some common features of things that can make us feel stress include experiencing something new or unexpected, something that threatens your feeling of self, or feeling you have little control over a situation.
When we encounter stress, our body is stimulated to produce stress hormones that trigger a ‘flight or fight’ response and activate our immune system. This response helps us to respond quickly to dangerous situations. Sometimes, this stress response can be an appropriate, or even beneficial reaction. The resulting feeling of ‘pressure’ can help us to push through situations that can be nerve-wracking or intense, like running a marathon, or giving a speech to a large crowd. We can quickly return to a resting state without any negative effects on our health if what is stressing us is short-lived, and many people are able to deal with a certain level of stress without any lasting effects.
However, there can be times when stress becomes excessive and too much to deal with. If our stress response is activated repeatedly, or it persists over time, the effects can result in wear and tear on the body and can cause us to feel permanently in a state of ‘fight or flight’. Rather than helping us push through, this pressure can make us feel overwhelmed or unable to cope. Feeling this overwhelming stress for a long period of time is often called chronic, or long-term stress, and it can impact on both physical and mental health.
What are the signs of stress?
Emotional changes: anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, or frustration. These feelings can sometimes feed on each other and produce physical symptoms, making you feel even worse.
Behavioural changes: you may become withdrawn, indecisive or inflexible, irritable, tearful, more aggressive than normal, experience sleep difficulty, increase in smoking, alcohol consumption, or taking drugs. Stress may also affect the way we interact with our close family and friends.
Bodily changes: increased headaches, nausea, indigestion, rapid breathing, increased perspiration, heart palpitations and other bodily aches and pains. .
If you experience stress repeatedly over a prolonged period, you may notice your sleep and memory are affected, you’re eating habits may change, or you may feel less inclined to exercise.
Recommended resource: Mental Health Foundation: Stress
Recommended resource: Mental Health Foundation: A-Z guide of mental health
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