Fear And Anxiety

In our vocabulary, we often use the words ”  fear  ” and ”  anxiety  ” with a certain lightness. We even use them indiscriminately to talk about the same situation or experience, but ”  do we really know the difference between these two expressions  ? “

The fear

The fear is one of the basic emotions par excellence. It is necessary and adapts to most situations. We have all felt this emotion in our lives, to varying degrees. But, when have we really experienced it?

Fear arises in the face of a threat, whether it is a perception or interpretation of harm or danger, to our physical and / or psychological well-being. It usually appears in the face of real, present and imminent danger, although many studies believe that this emotion can also appear in the face of imaginary danger.

In any case, the common dominator of all these situations is in general the capacity to set up an emergency behavior within the individual who undergoes it, thus giving the necessary impetus to avoid or flee the situation.

Most of the time our fears will be fleeting, not realizing that they can represent a major problem in our life, but emotional reactions of fear can also appear and they significantly alter our way of life.

Thanks to the role of the prefrontal cortex we are aware of the feeling of fear, thus being able to interpret the situation in a correct way, by over-interpreting it or by misinterpreting it, it depends on the evaluation we make of the situation in which we are.

Therefore, during a fear situation there are two types of considerations, flight and immediacy, which will determine our behavior.

The reactions or strategies that we will implement will depend on our beliefs and our expectations about facing what frightens us, knowing that they can be active (confronting) or passive (avoiding or fleeing). They will be even more effective as we become convinced of our ability and resources to control this emotion.

Failure to properly control fear can create damaging feelings of mistrust, concern, and unease.

Anxiety

Anxiety is related to waiting for something to happen – that is, when we wait for something to happen and anticipate negative effects before they even happen. As in a fearful situation, we are torn between an adaptive reaction and a reaction that paralyzes us.

Thus, one of the functions of anxiety would be to make us react to the prospect of possible danger, managing to respond, in most cases selectively, to information considered to be a threat, or by responding to it. amplifying, while ignoring stimulation conditions judged to be neutral.

Therefore, we can make a real difference between fear and anxiety, and that is the certainty that there is stimulation, which is clear in fear and confusing and imprecise in anxiety.

In the case of the latter, there is a great concern created by the fact of anticipating the negative effects of a future situation, which can, in most cases, determine the mental health of the person.

How to control them

As we have seen, fear is related to assessing imminent danger and anxiety to waiting for something to happen.

Both reactions will cease to be normal and adaptive the moment they exceed our tolerance threshold. There is no longer a perception of control, and an avoidance of the aversive stimulus occurs, interfering in the functioning of the individual.

In this type of situation, one of the recommendations would be to initiate a deactivation process, since our brain tends to perpetuate a positive or negative emotional reaction, when faced with a situation considered particularly important.

For him, we will have to learn to disconnect, to detach ourselves from the link that exists between anxiety or fear and situations, to find more adaptive reactions. We can use relaxation and breathing techniques for example, as well as inform ourselves about our functioning and come to understand it, with the help of a.

It will help us understand the associations we make of negative ratings in the form of concerns, as well as understand the difference between caring about something and taking care of it, and understanding how the ratings we make relate to. fear, and fear at the prospect of imminent danger coming.

However, it is important to know that each case will have its own therapeutic approach, during which each person will use one resource or another according to their situation, personality and context.