Pushy and distracting, it weaves its way into your mind and gets in the way of your life.
Everyday discomfort feels dangerous and disquieting. Your thinking is less focused, your experiences less joyful, your world less secure, and your relationships less fulfilled. Living is interrupted too often as your thoughts race from one worry, fear, or panicked response to another.
Some people live with general anxiety that just never seems to dissipate.
Nothing really appears to brings it on or shut it off. Every day is generally fraught with worries and unease. That is life with chronic anxiety.
Some people suddenly feel the world crash in. Everything seems to indiscriminately spin out of control. Panic takes over. Bouts with anxiety are powerful and physical.
We call this acute anxiety.
What are you dealing with? Here are some more specific ways to tell the difference:
Commons Signs of Chronic and Acute Anxiety
Symptoms of Chronic Anxiety
- Excessive worry about safety, social situations, future events
- Tendency toward catastrophizing
- Oversensitivity to physical sensations, health concerns, and illness
- Persistent nervousness and disquiet that never really ends
Symptoms of Acute Anxiety
- Chest or abdominal pain
- Rapid pulse and heartbeat
- Lightheadedness, disorientation
- Shortness of breath, weakness
- Sense of doom
- Exaggerated self-awareness and worries about physical health
- Episodes peaking at around 10 minutes, then slowly fading
How much time do you spend dealing with the actual symptoms of your anxiety?
Chronic anxiety often manifests as an anxiety disorder, like general anxiety order (GAD), because it behaves like an illness. It is pervasive and seems to just be a fact of your life. You attempt to manage it daily rather than anticipate it.
Acute anxiety is brief despite its intensity. It rises and falls, usually in under an hour. You’ll probably spend more time worrying about the onset of another episode, than dealing with acute anxiety. Actually, that ongoing worry and anticipation could lead to a more chronic condition called panic disorder.
Does your anxiety feel explosive or experiential?
Chronic anxiety isn’t particularly marked by its intensity. Again, it is more mentality than a specific happening. It is more nervous, worrisome experience than an explosive, fearful event.
If things just seem to always be heavy with insecurity, catastrophe, or negativity, you’re dealing with a chronic sense that things are not okay and can’t be okay. Your brain is stuck there. Your thoughts play anxiously on repeat.
Acute anxiety, on the other hand, is all about intensity.
You feel the world tip, spin, crash. Your body and mind are, for a short, upsetting period, focused on feeling fear or panic. It is all there is and then it’s gone. Until next time. Every time is overwhelming and extreme.
Is your anxiety triggered by something else or simply always on your mind?
Chronic anxiety isn’t prompted, triggered, or inspired by something going on in or around you. This anxiety is thought patterns and an altered way of living life. So nothing in particular needs to happen to feel chronically anxious. The longer it goes unaddressed or untreated the more chronic anxiety becomes the way you perceive the world. Help from a trained professional is key, otherwise you may reach a point where you do not even realize there is another way to experience the world.
Acute anxiety is triggered, most often, by stress. Though, sometimes, it may seem to be brought on for unknown reasons. Usually felt most in the body rather than the mind, some stimuli or thoughts can trigger panic sensations. This may drive many sufferers to avoid the perceived source of their stress and significantly reduce the quality of their lives.
Whether your anxiety is chronic or acute, the high alert, “on edge” uneasiness you live with has likely assumed too much mental space. Anxiety doesn’t have to suck any more of the fun out of your life. Reach out soon to a therapist for help and loved ones for support.
