Are you using the wrong coping skill for what you’re actually feeling?
Stress and anxiety may look similar on the outside—but they need very different responses to truly feel better.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How to tell whether you’re feeling stress or anxiety in real-time
- Why using the WRONG coping skill won't work for stress / anxiety
- A simple guide to matching the right coping skill to each emotion—so you stop spinning and start feeling calm
🎧 Tune in to learn how to move from avoidance to awareness and feel more grounded in midlife.
****
About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.
Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:00):
In this episode, you'll discover how to
feel more calm by following onesimple truth.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over
(00:23):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
-In this month of August, I canfeel the temperature rise, and I
don't mean the one outside.
August is a month oftransitions.
Maybe you're sending a child tocollege.
Maybe school routines meanearlier mornings, more homework
(00:45):
or renewed pressure at work.
You feel stressed or is itanxious?
While most of us use these wordsinterchangeably, it can be
incredibly helpful to know thedifference.
This episode is a follow-up toMondays episode 180 1.
In today's episode, you'lldiscover how stress and anxiety
(01:05):
differ in your mind and body,why?
Knowing the difference can helpyou cope more effectively.
And most importantly, I'm goingto give you a simple guide, a
one-liner to help you match theright coping skill to each, so
you can stop spinning and startfeeling calm today.
But first, let's check in onMonday's Inner Challenge.
(01:28):
How did you do?
I invited you to pause andnotice when you felt overwhelmed
and ask yourself, am I feelingstress or am I feeling anxiety?
A listener friend texted me andsaid.
Oh my God.
I've been working on my anxietyfor years and never knew there
was a difference.
(01:48):
This is so helpful.
That's the power of noticing.
It's also the power ofcontinuing to learn.
Knowing the difference doesn'tjust give you insight, it helps
you pick the coping skill thatactually works.
But there's one thing that canget in the way of noticing.
I talked about it in episode 179.
(02:11):
When you feel overwhelmed, itcan feel natural to reach for
quick fixes like snacking,scrolling, or spilling your
thoughts onto the nearestperson.
These are understandable habits.
They give you a sense of reliefin the moment, but they also
keep you from pausing longenough to ask what's really
going on inside of me?
(02:31):
Is this stress or is thisanxiety?
If you want to feel calmer, youhave to move from avoidance to
awareness.
This tiny shift of checking inrather than checking out is the
beginning of every effectivecoping skill because you can't
change what you don't name.
(02:52):
As I said on Monday, stress isyour body's response to a real
or immediate demand.
Something is happening now, adeadline, a sick family member
or a messy house, anxiety is inyour mind's response to a future
or imagined threat.
It sounds like, what if I can'tfix this?
(03:14):
What if they're mad at me?
What if I fail?
Here's another way to look at itwith stress.
Your body says this matters.
Act now with anxiety, your mindsays this might happen.
Worry.
Now, understanding thedifference really matters,
especially in midlife whenyou're juggling so much because
(03:38):
if you confuse the two, youoften reach for the wrong coping
skill, and that can make thingsworse.
It's like adding salt instead ofsugar.
To a cookie recipe.
Let me give you an example.
I live in a town with fiveinstitutions of higher learning.
A few years ago, a midlifeclient of mine was sending her
first child off to college,where she also works a month
(04:02):
before her child was to leave,she came to therapy feeling
overwhelmed.
If you've ever sent a child offto college, you know how she
felt.
It's a big deal.
She mentioned casually that shehad asked her friend the
registrar, if her son could getan early registration time for
classes.
Her friend said, sure, and myclient felt calmer.
(04:24):
In session.
I asked her to do a minute ofbreath work.
Then I said, let's consider thepros and cons of asking for that
early registration spot.
She paused and said, well, itprobably isn't fair, but at
least everyone gets to register.
Here's the thing.
When you helicopter, you're notdoing it for your child.
(04:47):
You're doing it to manage yourown anxiety.
You want your child to have thebest, you want to protect them
from disappointment, but whenyou try to control outcomes,
you're often assuming twothings.
One, the future won't work out.
And two, that your child, andmaybe even you can't handle it
(05:07):
if it doesn't.
Treating anxiety like stress ledher to take action.
That while well-intentionedactually removed a growth
opportunity from her child andfrom herself.
It may sound small, but trust meit isn't.
Here's the key takeaway whenyou're anxious, but treat it
(05:30):
like stress.
You might overreact or overcontrol instead of calming down
when you're stressed, but treatit like anxiety.
You might retreat or ruminateinstead of taking action.
So here's my helpful one-liner.
Stress calls for action anxietycalls for calm.
(05:52):
So let's talk about how to pickthe right coping skill for each.
If you're feeling stressed, yourbody needs to move or act.
Stress is physical.
It often needs a physicalresponse.
I use Notre Dame football as anexample.
When the players run out of thetunnel, they're hyped, they're
stressed.
(06:13):
They jump around and move theirbodies to release energy and
prepare to perform.
If you are stressed, reach foraction-based skills.
Make a list, do one thing.
Then the next, this action,which therapists call task
completion, gives you a sense ofprogress and reduces stress.
(06:36):
Number two, move.
Go for a brisk walk stretch, letyour body let go of some of the
physical feeling of stress.
Number three.
Do what I call a little timeblocking focus for 20 to 30
minutes on one thing.
Number four, ask for help.
(06:58):
Midlife stress often comes frominvisible labor, share the load.
And number five, break thingsdown.
So often people avoid doingbecause they are asking
themselves to clean the wholehouse instead of just do the
dishes.
Let me share one of my ownexperiences with stress.
(07:22):
My son and his wonderful wife,had an outdoor wedding a number
of years ago over Memorial Dayweekend.
Of course, weddings bring bothstress and anxiety.
About a week before I foundmyself obsessively checking the
weather.
It was eating up my time andenergy.
I caught myself.
I made a list of last minutetasks.
(07:44):
I made sure to exercise everyday, and I only checked the
weather.
Once a day, I couldn't eliminatethe stress, but I could regulate
it, and that made all thedifference.
If it's anxiety, your mind needsto slow, soften, and move to the
present anxiety lives in yourmind and hypes up your central
(08:07):
nervous system.
It feeds off worst casescenarios, imagining the future,
and filling the past withregrets.
When I was anxious about thewedding weather, I didn't
picture a sunny day.
I pictured storms like the one Isaw on Instagram with a tent
being blown up all over theplace.
That's what anxiety does.
(08:29):
So here's your plan.
Name it.
Say I feel anxious.
Tame it by doing breath work.
I like to place my hand on thepart of my body that's holding
the tension.
My heart, stomach, jaw,sometimes it's my whole head.
Then breathe.
Try box breathing.
(08:51):
Or a long exhale.
There's no perfect method ofbreath work, just the one that
works for you.
If you'd like my MP three ofguided breathing, email me.
I'll happily send it to you.
And lastly, aim.
Once calm, ask yourself, what doI want to do next?
(09:11):
That's how you move forward.
Name, tame and aim.
when I checked the forecastcloser to the wedding, it did
look like rain.
I sat in my chair.
I grounded my feet, and Ibreathed.
At first, my mind went fullcatastrophe, imagining a tornado
ripping through the wedding.
(09:33):
I kept breathing.
Eventually I laughed.
I reminded myself that'sunlikely, and even if it rains,
we'll move inside.
The bride might be disappointed.
But the wedding will go on.
In that moment, I had to let myanxiety peak and pass, and when
it did, I aimed my mind towardreality and a dose of
(09:56):
self-compassion.
What is self-compassion?
Not torturing yourself withworst case scenarios.
Using breath work to calm youranxiety so your mind stops
spinning and moves from thenegative to the now.
Wanna know how the weddingturned out?
It did rain right before theceremony.
(10:17):
Did we move it inside?
Nope.
Two of my dear friends and Idressed in our wedding best
grabbed towels and dried off thechairs.
That moment became one of themost special memories of the
entire day, and when we'rereally honest with ourself, when
our anxiety creates stories.
(10:37):
They seldom have happy endings.
But one thing being a therapisthas taught me is no matter what
life gives you, you can dealwith it.
And that's what happens when westop avoiding and start naming,
taming and aiming our anxiety.
If you don't like breath work,try present moment.
(10:58):
Anchoring.
What is that?
It's basically looking aroundand using your senses to move
your mind to the present.
Notice three things.
You see the car, the stop sign,the squirrel.
Notice three things.
You hear the train, the bird,the child.
(11:18):
Notice three things you cantouch.
The flower, your skin, the hotcar.
You are moving your mind to thepresent using the power of your
senses.
Of course, stress and anxietydon't always show up separately.
Imagine you're waiting on amedical diagnosis.
You feel stress because thismatters.
(11:40):
You feel anxiety because you'reimagining the worst.
Here's what to do first.
Ground yourself with breath,work or anchoring after that,
take one small action.
One client of mine was in thissituation.
She did breath work three timesa day and cleaned out one
kitchen drawer each day.
(12:02):
It was such an act ofself-compassion, such kindness
that she showed herself in thisreally hard situation.
She couldn't change the waiting,but she could regulate her
nervous system and accomplishsomething small that gave her a
little dopamine.
A little control and a lot ofcompassion.
(12:24):
In this episode, you discoveredhow stress and anxiety differ in
the body and mind.
Knowing the difference helps youstop spinning and choose better
coping skills and how to matchcalming tools to anxiety and
action-based tools to stress soyou can feel more grounded,
clear and calm in midlife.
(12:47):
Stress calls for action.
Anxiety calls for calm.
If you want the free MP three onbox breathing, send me an email
at mj@mjmurrayvachon.com Thanksfor listening.
And I'll be back on Monday withmore creating midlife calm.
In this episode, you'll discover how to
feel more calm by following onesimple truth.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over
(00:23):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
-In this month of August, I canfeel the temperature rise, and I
don't mean the one outside.
August is a month oftransitions.
Maybe you're sending a child tocollege.
Maybe school routines meanearlier mornings, more homework
(00:45):
or renewed pressure at work.
You feel stressed or is itanxious?
While most of us use these wordsinterchangeably, it can be
incredibly helpful to know thedifference.
This episode is a follow-up toMondays episode 180 1.
In today's episode, you'lldiscover how stress and anxiety
(01:05):
differ in your mind and body,why?
Knowing the difference can helpyou cope more effectively.
And most importantly, I'm goingto give you a simple guide, a
one-liner to help you match theright coping skill to each, so
you can stop spinning and startfeeling calm today.
But first, let's check in onMonday's Inner Challenge.
(01:28):
How did you do?
I invited you to pause andnotice when you felt overwhelmed
and ask yourself, am I feelingstress or am I feeling anxiety?
A listener friend texted me andsaid.
Oh my God.
I've been working on my anxietyfor years and never knew there
was a difference.
(01:48):
This is so helpful.
That's the power of noticing.
It's also the power ofcontinuing to learn.
Knowing the difference doesn'tjust give you insight, it helps
you pick the coping skill thatactually works.
But there's one thing that canget in the way of noticing.
I talked about it in episode 179.
(02:11):
When you feel overwhelmed, itcan feel natural to reach for
quick fixes like snacking,scrolling, or spilling your
thoughts onto the nearestperson.
These are understandable habits.
They give you a sense of reliefin the moment, but they also
keep you from pausing longenough to ask what's really
going on inside of me?
(02:31):
Is this stress or is thisanxiety?
If you want to feel calmer, youhave to move from avoidance to
awareness.
This tiny shift of checking inrather than checking out is the
beginning of every effectivecoping skill because you can't
change what you don't name.
(02:52):
As I said on Monday, stress isyour body's response to a real
or immediate demand.
Something is happening now, adeadline, a sick family member
or a messy house, anxiety is inyour mind's response to a future
or imagined threat.
It sounds like, what if I can'tfix this?
(03:14):
What if they're mad at me?
What if I fail?
Here's another way to look at itwith stress.
Your body says this matters.
Act now with anxiety, your mindsays this might happen.
Worry.
Now, understanding thedifference really matters,
especially in midlife whenyou're juggling so much because
(03:38):
if you confuse the two, youoften reach for the wrong coping
skill, and that can make thingsworse.
It's like adding salt instead ofsugar.
To a cookie recipe.
Let me give you an example.
I live in a town with fiveinstitutions of higher learning.
A few years ago, a midlifeclient of mine was sending her
first child off to college,where she also works a month
(04:02):
before her child was to leave,she came to therapy feeling
overwhelmed.
If you've ever sent a child offto college, you know how she
felt.
It's a big deal.
She mentioned casually that shehad asked her friend the
registrar, if her son could getan early registration time for
classes.
Her friend said, sure, and myclient felt calmer.
(04:24):
In session.
I asked her to do a minute ofbreath work.
Then I said, let's consider thepros and cons of asking for that
early registration spot.
She paused and said, well, itprobably isn't fair, but at
least everyone gets to register.
Here's the thing.
When you helicopter, you're notdoing it for your child.
(04:47):
You're doing it to manage yourown anxiety.
You want your child to have thebest, you want to protect them
from disappointment, but whenyou try to control outcomes,
you're often assuming twothings.
One, the future won't work out.
And two, that your child, andmaybe even you can't handle it
(05:07):
if it doesn't.
Treating anxiety like stress ledher to take action.
That while well-intentionedactually removed a growth
opportunity from her child andfrom herself.
It may sound small, but trust meit isn't.
Here's the key takeaway whenyou're anxious, but treat it
(05:30):
like stress.
You might overreact or overcontrol instead of calming down
when you're stressed, but treatit like anxiety.
You might retreat or ruminateinstead of taking action.
So here's my helpful one-liner.
Stress calls for action anxietycalls for calm.
(05:52):
So let's talk about how to pickthe right coping skill for each.
If you're feeling stressed, yourbody needs to move or act.
Stress is physical.
It often needs a physicalresponse.
I use Notre Dame football as anexample.
When the players run out of thetunnel, they're hyped, they're
stressed.
(06:13):
They jump around and move theirbodies to release energy and
prepare to perform.
If you are stressed, reach foraction-based skills.
Make a list, do one thing.
Then the next, this action,which therapists call task
completion, gives you a sense ofprogress and reduces stress.
(06:36):
Number two, move.
Go for a brisk walk stretch, letyour body let go of some of the
physical feeling of stress.
Number three.
Do what I call a little timeblocking focus for 20 to 30
minutes on one thing.
Number four, ask for help.
(06:58):
Midlife stress often comes frominvisible labor, share the load.
And number five, break thingsdown.
So often people avoid doingbecause they are asking
themselves to clean the wholehouse instead of just do the
dishes.
Let me share one of my ownexperiences with stress.
(07:22):
My son and his wonderful wife,had an outdoor wedding a number
of years ago over Memorial Dayweekend.
Of course, weddings bring bothstress and anxiety.
About a week before I foundmyself obsessively checking the
weather.
It was eating up my time andenergy.
I caught myself.
I made a list of last minutetasks.
(07:44):
I made sure to exercise everyday, and I only checked the
weather.
Once a day, I couldn't eliminatethe stress, but I could regulate
it, and that made all thedifference.
If it's anxiety, your mind needsto slow, soften, and move to the
present anxiety lives in yourmind and hypes up your central
(08:07):
nervous system.
It feeds off worst casescenarios, imagining the future,
and filling the past withregrets.
When I was anxious about thewedding weather, I didn't
picture a sunny day.
I pictured storms like the one Isaw on Instagram with a tent
being blown up all over theplace.
That's what anxiety does.
(08:29):
So here's your plan.
Name it.
Say I feel anxious.
Tame it by doing breath work.
I like to place my hand on thepart of my body that's holding
the tension.
My heart, stomach, jaw,sometimes it's my whole head.
Then breathe.
Try box breathing.
(08:51):
Or a long exhale.
There's no perfect method ofbreath work, just the one that
works for you.
If you'd like my MP three ofguided breathing, email me.
I'll happily send it to you.
And lastly, aim.
Once calm, ask yourself, what doI want to do next?
(09:11):
That's how you move forward.
Name, tame and aim.
when I checked the forecastcloser to the wedding, it did
look like rain.
I sat in my chair.
I grounded my feet, and Ibreathed.
At first, my mind went fullcatastrophe, imagining a tornado
ripping through the wedding.
(09:33):
I kept breathing.
Eventually I laughed.
I reminded myself that'sunlikely, and even if it rains,
we'll move inside.
The bride might be disappointed.
But the wedding will go on.
In that moment, I had to let myanxiety peak and pass, and when
it did, I aimed my mind towardreality and a dose of
(09:56):
self-compassion.
What is self-compassion?
Not torturing yourself withworst case scenarios.
Using breath work to calm youranxiety so your mind stops
spinning and moves from thenegative to the now.
Wanna know how the weddingturned out?
It did rain right before theceremony.
(10:17):
Did we move it inside?
Nope.
Two of my dear friends and Idressed in our wedding best
grabbed towels and dried off thechairs.
That moment became one of themost special memories of the
entire day, and when we'rereally honest with ourself, when
our anxiety creates stories.
(10:37):
They seldom have happy endings.
But one thing being a therapisthas taught me is no matter what
life gives you, you can dealwith it.
And that's what happens when westop avoiding and start naming,
taming and aiming our anxiety.
If you don't like breath work,try present moment.
(10:58):
Anchoring.
What is that?
It's basically looking aroundand using your senses to move
your mind to the present.
Notice three things.
You see the car, the stop sign,the squirrel.
Notice three things.
You hear the train, the bird,the child.
(11:18):
Notice three things you cantouch.
The flower, your skin, the hotcar.
You are moving your mind to thepresent using the power of your
senses.
Of course, stress and anxietydon't always show up separately.
Imagine you're waiting on amedical diagnosis.
You feel stress because thismatters.
(11:40):
You feel anxiety because you'reimagining the worst.
Here's what to do first.
Ground yourself with breath,work or anchoring after that,
take one small action.
One client of mine was in thissituation.
She did breath work three timesa day and cleaned out one
kitchen drawer each day.
(12:02):
It was such an act ofself-compassion, such kindness
that she showed herself in thisreally hard situation.
She couldn't change the waiting,but she could regulate her
nervous system and accomplishsomething small that gave her a
little dopamine.
A little control and a lot ofcompassion.
(12:24):
In this episode, you discoveredhow stress and anxiety differ in
the body and mind.
Knowing the difference helps youstop spinning and choose better
coping skills and how to matchcalming tools to anxiety and
action-based tools to stress soyou can feel more grounded,
clear and calm in midlife.
(12:47):
Stress calls for action.
Anxiety calls for calm.
If you want the free MP three onbox breathing, send me an email
at mj@mjmurrayvachon.com Thanksfor listening.
And I'll be back on Monday withmore creating midlife calm.
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