Difference Between Anxiety and Fear
People often talk about fear and anxiety in their daily life. They are face to face with many incidents which arise the feeling of anxiety and fear. But most people do not know the difference between the two terms. Often people get confused and do not which words should be used to describe a particular feeling. Both anxiety and fear are emotions.
A child becomes fearful when he commits something wrong. He fears that his mother would scold him. In the same manner he has the fear of punishment at the hand of his teacher in case he does not complete the homework. We are fearful of dogs, snake, bull etc. Some women fear when they encounter a lizard in home. All these are examples of fear people have in different situation. Thus, fear is an apprehension caused by a known danger.
Anxiety on the other hand is a psychological uneasiness that surrounds a person for not a clear reason. Some people become anxious with known reasons while some cannot explain the reasons for their anxiety. A boy becomes anxious when he is waiting for his results. He does not tell what will happen. This is the fear of unknown. We fear from dark as we do not know what is there hidden in dark to harm us. Phobias are results of unknown. Some people have the phobia of high places, some have fear of a large number of people, some have the fear of water etc. The reasons of phobia are unknown.
The responses aroused by both fear and anxiety are similar. The symptoms include increased heart rate, panting, sweating and twitching of muscles. These symptoms are a part of preparation of body to face the imposed danger. Generally, in face of fear we decide either to flee from the scene of fight the danger which is imaginary.
The words fear and anxiety seem to have similar meaning. However a psychologist defines both of them in different terms. Anxiety is considered as neurosis by them. They call it anxiety neurosis. Fear is something different. It is an apprehension.