Introduction
Everybody will have worries, and everyone will have anxieties. What’s the difference between worrying that leads to a well thought out plan, leaving one feeling excited to implement or satisfied and accomplished afterwards and a mental scenario that we can’t shake that gives us a feeling of repeated/cyclical fear and dread?
Well now that your thinking about that question lets introduce the topic of the blog, the gift and virtue of planning, forecasting, and worrying about getting things done that matter to us – as compared to anxiety about unpredictable, uncontrollable events and mental images that evoke lingering and omnipresent fear.
In this blog we will go over the origins and explanations for anxiety and worry, some pros and cons associated with both states of mind, and provide a handful of useful mental tools one can do to hopefully mitigate anxiety, and bring someone back to a feeling of healthy worry where they feel competent to handle the stressors that concern them.
Background Information Origins Of Worry & Anxiety
Our brains are unique in the animal kingdom (as far as we know). Our brains evolved arguably the most powerful biological tool to date, the ability to make forecasts and predictions and play out scenarios in vivid detail before they actually happen.
In this way, humans could attempt to visualise the beginning, middle, and end of a plan (and many offshoots along the way) to determine if a given plan would bear fruit or not; All of this without having to physically suffer the pain or setbacks associated with a plan that wasn’t so ideal. Where we find ourselves getting into trouble though is that this natural virtue also can become a vice (as many virtues can if left unchecked).
Our brains cannot really tell the difference between something we imagine happening and something that is truly happening; As such, we aren’t psychologically spared in the same way. To add salt in the wound, we are evolutionary tilted toward anxiety for our survival to begin with (Steimer, 2002). Biology would rather us experience the uncomfortableness of restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, or sleep disturbances, as are the common symptoms of worry/anxiety (Munir & Takov, 2022) as these feelings motivate us to prepare for an event that may never happen; rather than us not and be blindsided, potentially ending our lives.
In most societies, fears of running out of food in the winter or being hunted by a bear are no longer relevant. Alas, society progressed much faster than our brains could evolve, meaning our brains are still tuned (as they were hundreds of thousands of years ago) to identify possible existential threats and prepare for them. For the most part, biology doesn’t develop traits unless they are good for our survival, but there is a distinct difference between survival and enjoyment of life.
This is where our superpower begins to not be so helpful, and can become completely counterproductive to our planning and/ or significantly take away from our quality of life in today’s modern age. To bring us back to the topic at hand and to put it simply, the difference between the two emotions (worry and anxiety) can be found in the intensity, frequency, and duration of the emotion. For the purposes of this blog, those three markers are where worry transmutes into anxiety.
While not necessarily “scientifically sound” worry and anxiety will be considered one in the same emotion, where worry is the negative emotion that has more pros than cons, and anxiety will be the negative emotion that has more cons than pros. This is done largely for two reasons. Firstly, to keep the blog simpler and less wordy. Secondly, because it is intended to be in layman’s terms for the general population. It is my opinion that a lot of people would consider anxiety to be the worse form of worry which is largely correct without getting into nuanced details.
Why am I anxious about this, rather than worried?
Everyone experiences anxiety and worry to some degree, and from different causes. Often, why one person may experience worry as opposed to anxiety (or vis versa) can be rooted in the individuals biology (genetic makeup), their psychology (thoughts & beliefs), and their social and physical environments (who they are around and their thoughts & beliefs, and what’s around them in their physical environment). We’ll dive into these briefly below.
Biological
As I am sure you’ve experienced in your life people are genetically predisposed for a certain baseline of worry. They may be more resilient to feeling anxious than others, or more prone to worry; Its normal (Davies, et al., 2015). Think the classic “overthinker/ worrywart” as compared to the “care-free, go with the wind” type of individual.
Psychological
Thoughts and beliefs of the individual experiencing the “stressor” significantly affect one’s reaction to a potential “stressor”. We are uniquely primed given our belief systems to feel certain ways after particular events (Epel, et al., 2018). Events themselves are not “good” or “bad” it is how we perceive them based on our beliefs that assign the evaluative component to the events.
Naturally, certain scenarios are more likely to generate either “good” or “bad” emotions to varying degrees of intensity. These thoughts and beliefs are where therapy can have some of the most significant effect as there is not yet a shot one can take to change their genetic makeup to be less anxious, and individuals have more influence upon their own thoughts and beliefs and to make adjustments as opposed to those of other people.
Social/Environmental
If the people we share our lives with are telling us anxiety provoking things, it can be a lot easier to go along with them. Similarly to the opposite effect, the beliefs of those closest to us can be protective against anxiety, for better or for worse. If one’s environment is full of obstacles like steep long stairs with no hand rails, needless to say this would naturally generate more worrisome thoughts on a daily basis, as compared to a physical environment with less opportunities for harm.
We’ve touched briefly on the biological, psychological, and social/environmental origins and factors that contribute to worry/anxiety. Let’s look at some pros and cons of the two. For worry we will attribute the pros and anxiety the cons. While both pros and cons exist in both states of mind, it is helpful to break down the emotions in this way.
Pros (Worry)
All worry is not necessarily bad, the emotion (like most emotions) exists to energize, motivate, and organize actions/responses that are adaptive to challenges and compel us towards a particular set of actions that are often more helpful than doing nothing (Izard, 2009) (e.g. a new family having worries about dropping their baby or thinking a worst-case scenario when their little one has a cough).
The anxiety and worry can motivate people to pay extra attention that there is minimal obstacles to trip over when bringing the baby up the stairs, or placing a thermometer in his or her mouth after a few coughs to determine if there is a fever present or just a bit of spit going down the wrong pipe.
These types of preparatory and problem-solving oriented actions that are encouraged by our worries, are helpful to accomplishing our goals; and when addressed can leave us with a sense of accomplishment and/ or a sense of relief or ease. Worry can also highlight when something or someone is important to us and help us to prioritize our values, time, and energy (e.g. going home for the holidays and figuring out the logistics to see all the friends and family you want to see, not leaving anyone out).
And lastly, worry can bring about time to reflect on past mistakes; allowing us to grow as individuals from our own mistakes and/ or oversights, or those of others. (e.g. “Geez, I don’t want to do that again; That person did that so poorly, I don’t want to mimic that!”). I encourage you now to think of a time when you were worried about achieving a particular outcome and how this emotion helped you achieve the goal you were after.
Cons (Anxiety)
Often the reason why worry turns into anxiety in the first place, is that there is an element(s) of the problem at hand that the individual believes they have no control over, or ability to influence, and things begin to spiral from there, as there is not a definitive “end in sight” to the concern. It can manifest in several way with the above examples.
Perhaps someone is so worried about dropping their child, they opt to never leave the house or baby room until their skull hardens up enough to survive a fall, robbing both the young one from early life experiences as well as chaining the parent(s) to their own home and isolating them. Being so worried that a singular cough is a sign of something worse that they go sit in the emergency room full of other sickly people at every small sign of distress, where their baby is more likely to actually be exposed to a sickness.
It may manifest as being so caught up in making everyone happy while visiting home, that the entire vacation they find it hard to relax and enjoy themselves as they’ve over scheduled their trip; and they are so sleep deprived and inattentive while travelling around for all their visits that an accident is more likely to occur.
As our last example, being so afraid to repeat a mistake, that they opt to never try that thing again, robbing them of personal growth and potential achievement that may have happened. Similar to the question above, I want you to now think of a time when you were so worried about achieving a particular outcome, that the worrying got in the way of your goal(s).
Why This Matters Anyhow
This all matters because as we’ve mentioned above, anxiety robs us of our quality of life unnecessarily and can lead to behaviours or patterns of behaviours that are counterproductive or even harmful to us (whether we recognise that in the moment).
A particular quote comes to mind by Mark Twain – “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened”. Being in a state of anxiety as opposed to worry is bound to happen, but it is the goal of counselling to reduce those times spent in unproductive anxiety, and move to a place where we can accept worry as a condition of life, and do what we can to deal with it as it arises.
When these emotions or worry and anxiety come up, the most powerful tool to use to dig yourself out of your anxiety is the same tool that got yourself into the hole, your (mostly) friendly brain (Walter, Nikoleizig, & Alfermann, 2019).
Below are some tools/techniques that when used can help sand the rough edges off of thoughts and feelings of anxiety, and bring an individual back to a state of worry or neutrality. There, they may be better positioned to productively handle the situation at hand, or at the very least not feel so terrible while experiencing the uncertainty.
Practical Tools for feelings of Anxiety and Worry
Tool #1: The ABCDEF exercise (Wright, S. A. (2025)
This exercise breaks down a feeling and attempts to identify self-defeating thoughts associated with a negative emotion and replace those thoughts with more self-helping and realistic beliefs
A – Activating Event: The situation or trigger that initiates the emotional response (e.g., falling down the stairs with the baby).
B – Beliefs: The thoughts or beliefs (often irrational) about the event (e.g., “I must never harm my child, or I’m a failureas a parent”).
C – Consequences: The emotional and behavioral outcomes of those beliefs (e.g., anxiety, avoidance of situations which could cause harm).
D – Disputing: Challenging the irrational beliefs with rational questioning (e.g., “Is it true I must be perfect?” “Can I have a guarantee that all my actions/mistakes won’t harm my child?”).
E – Effective New Beliefs: Replacing irrational beliefs with healthier, rational ones (e.g., “I’d prefer to not trip on the stairs while holding my child, but mistakes don’t define me, especially if it was not my intention”).
F – New Feelings/Behaviour: The resulting improved emotional and behavioral outcomes (e.g., reduced anxiety, resilience, preparatory behaviour to slow down on the stairs and clear obstacles).
Tool #2: Temporal Distancing
Zooming out and asking yourself the questions, will this be relevant in a week, a month, a year, a decade? (Benkley, et al., 2023). Try it now, think of something that kept you up all night 5 years ago, does it still?
Tool #3: Scheduling a Time to Worry
Limit overthinking to 5-15 minutes daily at a given time that works for your schedule (Krzikalla, et al., 2024). As mentioned above, a component of anxiety as compared to worry is a perceived lack of control. This technique can help an individual have some control over the situation, even if not directly influencing an outcome. This can conserve their mental and physical resources so they may be better prepared to spot opportunities or take advantage of opportunities as they arise in the meantime.
Tool 4: The Problem Separation Technique
Separating the problem into the emotional problem and the practical problem. Emotional problems require emotional solutions, and practical problems require practical solutions, seems simple enough right? Well, that’s cause its supposed to be! Breaking the problem down into more manageable pieces can be extremely helpful (Cuncic, 2024)
Tool 5: Reframing. It’s important not to lie to yourself here and say things aren’t as bad as they seem, you have to be honest with yourself. But this is a strategy where if one is experiencing anxiety, they can ask themselves, “am I really anxious about this scenario, or am I just worried about something I care profoundly about?”. Subtle shifts in the language we use to describe our emotions can help to further shave the edge off a negative emotion we may be feeling.
Disclaimer
I hope all of these tools work for you, but I also recognise that none of these may work or that perhaps the explanation here isn’t enough. While this article intends to help people, it is not a replacement for therapy/counselling or other methods of help if youre in need. It is not intended to be a “be all end all” resource to help an individual have better mental health.
Counsellors are trained to go through interventions and exercises just like these with a person and be there alongside you should things get difficult and you try to move towards a distraction, struggle to continue in the face of heavy emotion, and hold you accountable to your past, present, and future self. To implement these tools it will take practice, practice, practice! The tools aren’t all that difficult to perform, but finding and committing to a time to sit down and think over them can be the most difficult part. In the famous words of Albert Ellis “It’s simple, but it’s not easy!”.
Small steps can lead to big changes. Even minimal work is better than nothing. And you aren’t going to be perfect at it the first time, or ever for that matter as perfection doesn’t exist. These tools are not an exhaustive list by any means, there are countless other tools that exist that can help a persons find a ways to reduce anxiety and transmute it into a healthy amount of worry or neutrality.
As mentioned in other blogs people are incredibly unique and it can take lots of experimenting with various tools like the ones listed above to create a system that works for you. Hopefully at least one of the tools listed in this blog works for you and can be added to your toolbelt, or at the very least, has encouraged you to seek out other tools that may be more helpful to you.
References
- Benkley, D., Willroth, E. C., Ayduk, O., John, O. P., & Mauss, I. B. (2023). Short-term implications of long-term thinking: Temporal distancing and emotional responses to daily stressors. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 23(2), 595–599. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001140
- Cuncic, A. (2024, February 7). What is problem-solving therapy? Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-problem-solving-therapy-5194238
- Davies, M. N., Verdi, S., Burri, A., Trzaskowski, M., Lee, M., Hettema, J. M., Jansen, R., Boomsma, D. I., & Spector, T. D. (2015). Generalised Anxiety Disorder–A Twin Study of Genetic Architecture, Genome-Wide Association and Differential Gene Expression. PloS one, 10(8), e0134865. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134865
- Epel, E. S., Crosswell, A. D., Mayer, S. E., Prather, A. A., Slavich, G. M., Puterman, E., & Mendes, W. B. (2018). More than a feeling: A unified view of stress measurement for population science. Frontiers in neuroendocrinology, 49, 146–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.03.001
- Izard C. E. (2009). Emotion theory and research: highlights, unanswered questions, and emerging issues. Annual review of psychology, 60, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163539
- Krzikalla, C., Buhlmann, U., Schug, J., Kopei, I., Gerlach, A. L., Doebler, P., Morina, N., & Andor, T. (2024). Worry Postponement From the Metacognitive Perspective: A Randomized Waitlist-Controlled Trial. Clinical psychology in Europe, 6(2), e12741. https://doi.org/10.32872/cpe.12741
- Munir S, Takov V. Generalized Anxiety Disorder. [Updated 2022 Oct 17]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441870/
- Steimer T. (2002). The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviors. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 4(3), 231–249. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2002.4.3/tsteimer
- Walter, N., Nikoleizig, L., & Alfermann, D. (2019). Effects of Self-Talk Training on Competitive Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, Volitional Skills, and Performance: An Intervention Study with Junior Sub-Elite Athletes. Sports (Basel, Switzerland), 7(6), 148. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7060148
- Wright, S. A. (2025, March 6). All about rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy
Written by:
Tim Lamont C.C.C
