Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout: Understanding the Differences - Video Transcript

Hey, everyone. I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist. And today, I'm going to be talking about the differences between stress, anxiety and burnout. So I think a lot of us have felt like we're constantly under pressure and can't seem to catch a break. And we're definitely not alone in this feeling, right? In today's fast paced world, most of us experience stress, anxiety or burnout. But these are actually very different conditions that require different approaches to manage them effectively.

So let's start with stress. This is a natural response to a challenging situation and it can actually be positive or negative. So positive stress can motivate us to achieve our goals and increase our productivity. So let's say you have a work presentation coming up that stresses performing well, is going to motivate you to prepare and maybe practice your speech or make sure you're organized. And you know that you get a good night's sleep the night before things of that nature, negative stress on the other hand, causes distress. So this can cause physical and emotional exhaustion and start to impair our performance if we don't learn how to manage it or cope with it.

So anxiety, on the other hand, is more of a feeling of fear, worry or unease about an imminent event or an uncertain outcome. So it's a little bit more future oriented. And there's a lot of difficulty with uncertainty, right? Not knowing how something is going to turn out and sort of assuming that it's going to be a negative outcome. So this is a normal response to stress, but it can become excessive and persistent to the point at which it can interfere with our daily functioning and really affect our mental health.

And then finally, burnout is a state of emotional mental and physical exhaustion that's caused by chronic stress. So oftentimes we'll experience a lot of cynicism or detachment, apathy, lack of motivation, things of that nature and burnout can occur in any area of your life. It doesn't have to just be related to work. It can be school or personal relationships as well.

So how can you tell if you're experiencing stress, anxiety or burnout? Some common symptoms if you're experiencing stress is that you might feel tense, irritable and have trouble sleeping or concentrating. If you're experiencing anxiety, you might feel restless, worried and have some physical symptoms like sweating, trembling, a rapid heartbeat, kind of a pit in your stomach, things of that nature. And if you're experiencing burnout, you're going to feel more emotionally drained, detached, have this sort of reduced sense of accomplishment and just sort of an I don't care type of attitude. 

So if you're experiencing any of these symptoms, it's really important to take action to manage them effectively. And so some effective strategies can be practicing mindfulness, exercising, making sure you're getting enough sleep, utilizing your support system. So, talking to friends or families or coworkers and then seeking professional help if needed. So, it's important to remember that stress, anxiety and burnout are all treatable conditions.

And you know, with the right tools and support, we can overcome them and improve your mental health and well-being or at least learn how to sort of manage the symptoms. Sometimes anxiety doesn't fully go away, but we learn how to manage the symptoms associated with it and just kind of learn how to live a healthier and happier life.

So if you feel like you might be struggling with anxiety or burnout, that sort of reaches that next level and, and that you would benefit from professional help, feel free to reach out. You can also download my free guide for anxiety thinking traps. This goes over some of the most common sort of thought processes that can lead to anxiety and sort of walks you through an exercise so that you can learn to become aware of those and sort of challenge them for yourself. So be sure to download that.

You can find it through my website Cathartic space counseling dot com or any of my social media profiles, Cathartic Space Counseling. And I hope this was helpful and let me know about your own experiences with stress, anxiety and burnout. I'll see you next time.