Difference between Fear and Anxiety

Fear as an Immediate Neurophysiological Response

To understand anxious pathology, it is vital to distinguish clinically between fear and anxiety.

Fear is defined as a primitive, automatic, neurophysiological state of alarm.

It is a survival response designed to be activated in the face of imminent and tangible danger that threatens the individual's physical or psychological safety.

It does not require complex cognitive elaboration, but rather an instantaneous assessment of "present danger".

For example, if a person is crossing an avenue and suddenly sees a speeding bus approaching without braking a few meters away, the reaction experienced is pure fear.

Your body releases adrenaline, your muscles tense to jump, and your mind empties of any thoughts other than immediate survival. Here, the threat is real, objective and happening in the "now".

Anxiety as a Complex Anticipatory System

Unlike fear, anxiety is a more elaborate system involving future-oriented behavioral, physiological, affective, and cognitive components.

It is defined as an alert response to the anticipation of events that are judged to be aversive, unpredictable or uncontrollable, even if the danger is not present at the present moment.

Following the above example, if that same person is sitting on his or her couch, totally safe, but begins to sweat and have a tachycardia when thinking, "What if I get hit by a bus tomorrow when I go outside and am incapacitated?", that is anxiety.

There is no actual bus in the room; it is the mental construction of a potential future threat that triggers the physiological response.

Unpredictability and Uncontrollability

The core that distinguishes pathological anxiety is the perception that future events may threaten the individual's vital interests and that the individual lacks control over them.

While fear prepares for immediate action (fight or flight), anxiety prepares for a diffuse and prolonged threat, generating a state of sustained tension and vigilance.

The person feels that something bad "might" happen and that he/she will not be able to predict or avoid it, which keeps the nervous system in a state of unnecessary chronic "on".

Summary

To understand the pathology, fear, an automatic neurophysiological response to imminent and tangible danger, is distinguished from anxiety, a complex system of future anticipation.

While fear prepares for immediate survival in the face of a real threat, anxiety warns about uncertain future events that are judged as aversive, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Anxiety generates sustained tension in the face of diffuse threats. The individual feels that he or she lacks control over potential events, keeping the nervous system chronically activated without present danger.