My name is Jose Lopez. I am going to be talking about stress and anxiety today. Stress and anxiety can be a good thing. It can create a sense of motivation for us to accomplish tasks. It’s also important to make sure that we know when stress and anxiety is becoming something negative in our life.

In order to get to that point, we have to recognize how it’s impacting our life. Stress and anxiety is normal. We all experience it, but it becomes something negative when it starts to impact how we live our daily life. When we are experiencing a significant amount of stress and anxiety to the point where we’re no longer engaging in the things that we usually engage in, avoiding social situations, when we’re no longer being productive or choose to avoid doing work- these are negative impacts.

When we choose to avoid doing work, avoiding going out to lunch with our friends because it creates anxiety to the point we just choose not to go – that is when it’s starting to impact our lives in a negative manner. When when act in ways that are not typical for us to do.

But we won’t know until we are able to identify some of the symptoms that that stress and anxiety create. What are those symptoms of stress and anxiety? Stress and anxiety can impact us both physically and psychologically.

Stress and anxiety symptoms that we typically experience can be upset stomach, shaking, rapid heartbeat, sweating, not being able to concentrate, feeling like something bad is going to happen, feeling in a constant state of worry. It’s a normal question for people to ask themselves, is what I’m experiencing normal? And, when do I need to seek professional help or additional help? It comes down to being able to assess ourselves and recognize if what we’re experiencing is healthy or not healthy.

It is normal to experience stress and anxiety on a short term basis. If you have an upcoming test, you have an upcoming presentation, social events or public speaking, those create stress for some people which can be normal. It becomes something different when you are experiencing the stress and anxiety to a severe extent where you are avoiding situations, canceling situations because you don’t want to deal with the stress and anxiety.

For example, studying to take a test can cause short term anxiety and stress but it also creates that motivation for us to study and for us to do well or to put the effort in to try to do well. For individuals who might need to seek professional help or additional help, instead of studying, that stress and anxiety might create so much trauma that they’d rather drop the class or stop going to school.

That is the difference. Short-term stress and anxiety are normal. But, when it becomes long-term and we’re experiencing it to a severe extent which is impacting our daily life and how we live it is when we should be seeking professional help.