What is the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma?

Knowing the difference can make a big difference in how and what you can do to take care of yourself.

Generally, stress is a response to a specific trigger (or stressor). This trigger activates the sympathetic nervous system to promote problem solving to find resolution. The stressor may be more easily identifiable. However, stress can be on-going or chronic. Chronic stress leads to the internal system shutting down due to burn-out overtime. Basically the engine starts to break down if the stress is prolonged without extra support or help.

Anxiety often involves persistent and uncomfortable physical reactions to the triggers. It can eventually be so prevalent that the actual trigger or stressor may not be identifiable, but the perspective about the threat or problem continues on. It also means that one may begin to lose feel confident about the future as their ability to cope starts to decrease. The sympathetic nervous system is now finding it harder to return to baseline of feeling calm and grounded.

Trauma is when there’s an event that occurred which felt threatening to life which one has witnessed or experienced. It can also be a one time event or on-going. After such event(s), the individual may find that they are reacting to triggers and stressors as if the trauma has occurred again although logically the trigger/stressor does not seem to be related. It may take a long time to return to baseline or sometimes baseline is an on-going activated nervous system. The best layman term that I have come across to define traumatic experiences was when Dan Harris paraphrased it as there was “too fast, too much or too little” (which happened or is happening in the person’s life) during his interview with Linda Thai, LMSW (a somatic and trauma specialist) in his podcast 10% Happier with Dan Harris. You can check it out here. In the podcast, they refer also to what stress is as compared to trauma. With trauma, the individual may know that they are safe emotionally and/or physically. But their nervous system is still responding to their environment as it they are still unsafe psychologically and/or physically. The nervous system is always vigilant towards “threats” and anxiety is often active in the person’s life when there’s been trauma in their life.

The DSM5’s formal definition of trauma include the person witnessing and/or experiencing an event(s) which was perceived as life threatening which subsequently lead to a number of symptoms. These symptoms negatively impact relationships, work performance, and daily life in general. These symptoms fall under different categories but involve intrusive thoughts/memories, persistent avoidance to prevent triggers, negative changes in mood and cognition, and/or clear reactivity or arousal due the traumatic event(s). And the symptoms have to last more than a month. The diagnosis for trauma (or any mental health condition) is more complex than described, but hopefully this provides an informative direction in finding clarity for your condition.

I recommend working with a specialist or therapist in diagnosing and treating the mentioned conditions.