I’ve been told that hearing “anxiety is normal” can be confusing and frustrating for those that suffer from clinical Anxiety. This quick blog is meant to help clarify and simplify the distinction between anxiety and clinical anxiety because understanding the differences is beneficial for EVERYONE since everyone will interact with at least one form of anxiety throughout their life because “anxiety is normal”.

This blog will not include all of the technical language or mechanisms of Anxiety, but instead it will hopefully be a more relatable approach to how anxiety and clinical anxiety impact us.

Typical anxiety (not clinical Anxiety) is a normal brain response to stress. It is an important function of our brain because it shifts our focus to addressing the cause of that stress or preparing for it. Typical anxiety is a warranted level of worry or discomfort for a stressful event or thought. It shouldn’t last much longer than it takes to address the stressful event, so for example, if a stressful event is in a week then our anxiety towards it could last that whole week leading up to it or it may only last a few hours or days until we feel we’ve overcome that feeling of stress by planning for it, talking it through, regulating our emotions, or processing it in some way. Typical anxiety is a temporary but necessary brain response because with out some level of anxiety, we often aren’t motivated to address possible negative life events.

Based on our career, home life, finances, etc, we may interact with typical anxiety more often than others. Anxiety can start out in this typical form and then build into a clinical level when we repeatedly engage in common unhealthy anxiety habits like avoidance (can be avoiding the stressor or avoiding dealing with our emotional responses), numbing (emotionally or through substances), projecting (lashing out at others), negative changes in healthy habits (sleep, diet, activity levels) and more. Clinical Anxiety can build through these types of habits and thoughts or it can occur from changes in our biochemistry brought on by genetics or changes in the neurochemicals in our brain. Often it can be a combination of all three- environmental, psychological, and biological changes.

I like to make this dream reference when I talk about clinical Anxiety- have you ever had a bad dream that woke you- it could have been something that scared you, a dream where someone is mad at you, or where you are mad at someone, or a dream where everything goes wrong- anything that had a strong emotional response that woke you up from your sleep. Do you notice how those types of dreams can be hard to shake. We can sometimes keep that feeling of unease or discomfort for hours after waking. It can bleed into our habits, making us more irritable or maybe more withdrawn for awhile after we wake. We know that the events were only a dream and did not actually occur- our mind knows this- but our body is not on the same timeline with our mind, so we have this heavy or restless feeling under our skin still. This is a snapshot of clinical Anxiety. With clinical Anxiety, we may know that our worries or irritations are unwarranted, but the physical response of them is often so overwhelming that it can be hard to address those worries and thoughts. Also, there is neurochemical component that continually fuels those physical symptoms of anxiety. So even when we are aware that our level of anxiety may not realistic in the moment, we are fighting against our brain’s continued release of anxiety related neurochemicals.

Unlike typical anxiety, with clinical Anxiety there may not be any event or problem that we are actually bracing for or needing to address. Clinical Anxiety can just be that neurochemical response, which leaves our brain scrambling to find problems to solve. This looks like all the “What if” thoughts that are hard to escape. Our brain is in the habit of solving our problems, but unfortunately with clinical Anxiety, it can be in the habit of looking for problems that it never gets to solve.

With anxiety we can consider the “what if” questions we ask ourselves as a form of looking inward for problems. When we look outward it may look more like anger or irritability, as our brain looks to create external things or people as the cause of our discomfort.

Clinical anxiety is persistent, chronic, and excessive, meaning one’s thoughts and worries are not in line with what a typical response would be. For a clinical diagnosis, anxiety symptoms need to exist for at least 6 months. The good news is that anxiety is highly treatable with the right care.

Addressing and Treating Anxiety

When it comes to anxiety, especially clinical Anxiety, how we address it can have a major impact on our mental health. Our body typically wants to engage in habits to avoid events that make us anxious, but we know as clinicians that this can just cause anxiety to grow. If you experience clinical Anxiety, seeking professional help from a licensed therapist can allow you to build the skills to address anxiety in a way that helps you regain control of your mental health.

You can find information about addressing typical anxiety and reducing negative habit building in a number of my blogs that you can access here: