Fear and anxiety are two different terms intertwined in society. People even use these terms interchangeably to describe the situation they experience. In fact, there is some anxiety in every fear, and fear in every anxiety, but they are not the same. Why is it necessary to separate these emotions from each other? Being aware of emotions and defining them correctly helps find the stimuli that cause these emotions. Therefore, awareness will contribute to bringing correct solutions to the problems arising from these emotions.
Fear is a term coming from German. In this language, the word from which it originates means to wait, lie in wait or attack. Fear is our emotional response to threats such as people, events and phenomena we encounter in the outside world. For example, if you are having a picnic in a forested area and you see a large spider climbing on you, your emotional response will be fear. When you are afraid, your body will react. You will start breathing faster, your heart will beat faster, you will tremble, all your muscles will contract.
Anxiety is derived from the Latin root "angere" meaning "obstruction", "suffocation". . Anxiety, like fear, is a response to the perception of threat, but it is an emotion that occurs in cases of uncertain internal threats whose source is unknown. So, anxiety can generally be defined as the feeling that something bad will happen in situations where there is no physical threat. Let's take a student, during the mathematics lesson, the teacher writes a problem on the board and asks this student to solve this problem on the board. If thoughts arise in the student's mind that his/her friends will laugh at him/her, make fun of him/her and exclude him/her if he/she cannot answer the question at the board, the feeling the student will experience is anxiety. The physical symptoms experienced in anxiety will be similar to those we mentioned in fear.
Other differences between anxiety and fear are that anxiety is more chronic, while fear is acute. In other words, although anxiety is not very intense, it is a persistent emotion, while fear is a sudden and very intense emotion. While excessive anxiety is called anxiety or anxiety disorder, excess fear is called phobia.
With anxiety Let's go with a clearer example to distinguish fear from each other. You are going to the Bangi-Jamping course. As a group, you will throw yourself down from the very high Kawarau Bridge in New Zealand, using a flexible rope. As your group mates throw themselves down one by one and your turn approaches, your heart beats faster, your breathing increases and you begin to shake and sweat. If you think that the rope will break while jumping from the bridge and you will fall down and die, this is fear. If you have no fear of falling and dying, but you think that you will be embarrassed and your friends will not like you because of the scream you make when you throw yourself down, this is anxiety.
Emotions such as anxiety and fear will always exist in a person's life. Realizing and recognizing these emotions that exist in our nature will be the beginning of knowing ourselves. Rather than being afraid of experiencing these emotions, understanding them and incorporating them into our lives as much as necessary will ensure a happy, successful and peaceful life cycle.
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