What is the connection between stress and anxiety?
Fear is a sensation that very often leads to subjectively experienced stress. In itself, anxiety is a basic feeling that is intended to protect against imminent danger. Just like stress, it leads to an activation of the circulatory system.
However, it always has the character that the person affected feels threatened. Stress, on the other hand, is a phenomenon that is perceived as rather stressful. From these findings it follows that a persistent anxiety can certainly cause stress.
However, stress in anxiety states is not caused by external factors, but by internal factors. The fear leads namely to the fact that the thoughts only turn around the release of the fear and an avoidance behavior is initiated. This in turn leads to stress, as everyday life and habitual courses of action are changed.
Anxiety and stress therefore maintain each other. In order to break the vicious circle, it is necessary to cope with fear. The form in which this happens varies from case to case.
For example, if someone is afraid of a clarifying conversation, he or she will avoid the person in question for fear of pronunciation. Small detours or not answering the call can thus be part of the avoidance behavior and subconsciously lead to stress, as more attention is paid to the surroundings or an incoming call. However, if the fear is overcome and the conversation is conducted, the stress also stops, as there is no need to avoid the call.
It is important to make it clear in this context that the intensity of fear varies greatly and is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it is a kind of instinct that should protect against potential dangers. Sometimes, however, the assessment of dangers is disproportionate, so that they need to be reassessed.
What is the connection between stress and lack of sleep?
Lack of sleep and stress are two factors that directly influence each other. They can be both the cause and the consequence of each other. If one assumes the existence of a sleep deficiency, the missing sleep leads to an insufficient recovery of the body.
The consequence is an increasing exhaustibility during the day, which manifests itself in an increasing loss of performance. If mistakes are increasingly made as a result, the consequence can be increased criticism of the person concerned. This in turn leads to increased stress, as the affected person feels more under pressure.
A vicious circle automatically develops, as additional work has to be done to fulfill the given workload. Since this takes longer, however, the sleeping time is often further reduced. If, on the other hand, stress is seen as a trigger for lack of sleep, the stress prevents the body from relaxing to find its way to sleep.
The increased tension during the day makes it more difficult to switch off from everyday life at the end of the day.In this case it is often the mental occupation with the contents of the day that prevents falling asleep. The duration of sleep is thus shortened by the longer time it takes to fall asleep. If the sleep time decreases so enormously that a recovery over night is not given, the efficiency over day decreases as already described and it develops again a vicious circle from sleep lack and stress. Thus, these two factors are in themselves two different problems, but they influence each other through their influence on the day-night rhythm. This could also be interesting for you: Consequences of sleep deprivation
