Even amongst scientists, the word “stress” has no single definition. Sometimes people use ‘stress’ to describe what’s going on inside us (thoughts, emotions, and physical responses) and sometimes they use it to describe the problems we face (anything from daily irritations to major life challenges1 2.
How can we explain stress when there’s no single definition?
Years ago, when a cardiologist first suggested I had stress and anxiety, I felt completely misunderstood. I’d never felt ‘stressed’ or ‘anxious’ in a significant way, so it felt like an absurd suggestion.
But I later learned that everybody experiences stress differently – in fact some people don’t feel ‘stressed’ at all, while others may feel viscerally “stressed out” or “anxious”. The same goes for physical symptoms: Everyone’s different.
Yes, there are emotions or feelings we call “stress”, “anxiety”, and “panic”. But those are different to the health issues of stress, anxiety and panic: And the former don’t necessarily come together with the latter.
