Anxiety vs Fear Explained
Written by, Mak Estill
Anxiety, Panic & Life Coach + founder and owner of Actionable Anxiety®
First published 12/06/25 ~ Last updated 12/06/25
Are you asking yourself …
🤔 - Is anxiety the same as fear?
🤔 - Is fear the same as anxiety?
🤔 - Can fear manifest as anxiety?
🤔 - Is fear a symptom of anxiety?
🤔 - Or is anxiety fear based?
When it comes to anxiety …
It’s all one big freaking fear party 🎉 🤪.
BUT …
Anxiety ABSOLUTELY is different from fear (in and of itself).
For those ready to dive in 🐬💦👇 … scroll down!
Want the quick and dirty TL;DR?👇:
Fear = the body responding to something it perceives as dangerous (i.e. a threat to your survival) via the “fight-flight-or-freeze” response.
Anxiety = the body responding to its own fear response (i.e. the first fight-flight-or-freeze response) with a fear response (i.e. a double whammy fight-flight-or-freeze response).
Panic = the body responding to its own response cycle of anxiety with a - yet again - NEW fear response (i.e. a triple whammy fight-flight-or-freeze response). So first it’s fear → then it’s anxiety → then it’s panic (which not only is anxiety, but it’s the highest, peak pinnacle expression of anxiety 🏔️).
Many people think they have “anxiety”, when it actuality, they’re experiencing the persistent discomforts that come with the “fear faucet”, which is rarely (or never) turning off for long enough periods of time🚰 💧💧💧.
First off, a great place to start, is by taking a look at the following blog post 👉 What is Anxiety?, where I …
introduce the topic of fear vs anxiety
walk you through why millions of people remain confused about what the heck anxiety really is
and why, as an Anxiety, Panic & Life Coach 🙋🏼♀️, I define anxiety the way that I do
But here, I'll relay some of the most relevant bits of what was shared in What is Anxiety?, and take us a bit deeper into the “fear vs anxiety” confusion.
Is Anxiety Fear Based?
Anxiety, from the perspective of an Anxiety, Panic & Life Coach 🙋🏼♀️, and simplified into one sentence or less 👉 is the body’s fear response cycle to the body’s fear response cycle.
So not only is anxiety fear based, it is 100% all about fear.
But people remain confused on the difference between fear and anxiety, because it’s so common to hear one liners, such as …
Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, worry, apprehension, and uneasiness.
Anxiety is a natural human response to stress or perceived danger.
And if you’re a smart cookie (which I bet you are 🍪☺️) …
I bet you’ve been contemplating very reasonable and logical questions, such as:
🤔 - If anxiety is a feeling of fear, then how is anxiety different from fear?
🤔 - And if anxiety is a feeling of worry, then how is anxiety different from just plain old worrying?
🤔 - And if anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness, then how is anxiety different from the day-to-day discomforts of being a human?
If you’re asking these (or similar) questions, then you get an A+++++ in my book.
Because most people (including many professional practitioners) aren’t thoroughly asking these questions, and therefore don’t have crystal clear answers to gift you when you come knocking on their door asking them questions like → “How is anxiety different from fear?”.
This experience leaves you … the precious reader … YouTube viewer … social media peruser … ChatGPT goer … and late night Google-er …
TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY BEFUDDLED.
Fear vs Anxiety Explained
When we fear something … ANYTHING … ANYTHING AT ALL …
👉 Like failing out of school …
👉 Or not looking attractive on a date …
👉 Or being judged by others on social media …
👉 Or saying something unprofessional during an interview …
Or of course, something more immediately severe, such as …
🚨 Being on scene of an active crime
🚨 A bear stepping out onto the hiking trail
🚨 Slipping, sliding and losing control on an icy highway
Our body will move into some version of the “fight-flight-or-freeze” response, even if it’s at the smallest, almost inconceivable level.
YES 🎯 - this is true.
And I bet you’ve heard the term “fight-flight-or-freeze” response a million times in your research on anxiety.
But the “fight-flight-or-freeze” response is, in and of itself, not anxiety.
It is solely what happens when we are experiencing fear.
That’s why if you were to interview a survivor who just successfully outran a robber chasing her down the street - WITH A WEAPON IN HAND 😮 🔫 - if she felt “anxious”, she would look at you a bit oddly … responding, “Ummm no? Not really? I was too busy running? I had no time to feel anxious? I had to go! My life depended on it.”
That is fear.
Now let’s take a different, but similar example …
Let’s say you were to stop a woman who you saw running down the street frantically.
You say to her … “My gosh?! Miss! Are you alright? Is someone after you?!”
And she responds … “NO! Nobody is after me. I can’t breathe though. Help me. I think something’s wrong. I feel my world is closing in.”
That is anxiety.
The woman running down the street (in this second example) had been experiencing fear (likely a lot of fear … about a lot of different things in her life) …
And her body started producing symptoms associated with the fight-flight-or-freeze response, things like:
📈 🫀 an increased heart rate + …
📉 🧠 slower executive functioning + …
👀 hyper environmental awareness + …
😵💫 strange vision
AND THEN …
A facet of her mind started to fear the sensory experience she was having (from that party bag of symptoms), all of which, DID indeed originate from fear.
The secondary fear (about the way she was feeling) then ignites a new and different fear response cycle (i.e. 👉 the body produced a fear response cycle to the body’s first initial fear response cycle).
And this s*** is UNCOMFORTABLE.
That is anxiety.
And when unchecked … 🔄 😵💫 🔄 😵💫 🔄 😵💫 🔄
Anxiety can turn into “ANXIETY!” (with all caps, underlined and with an exclamation point).
Which looks like …
A fear response cycle to the body’s fear response cycle 🔁 to the body’s fear response cycle 🔁 to the body’s fear response cycle 🔁 to the body’s fear response, etc.
This is known as “panic” — which — is the woman running down the street saying it feels like her world is closing in on itself and - LITERALLY - running from herself (yes, running from her own literal, physical human body).
That was me in my 20s 🙋🏼♀️. I was leading the panic parade.
If there was an award given 🫴 🥇, I would have won “Miss Professional Panicker”.
And the reason it’s much easier to explain how anxiety differs from fear, by using an example of panic, is because … panic is the crème de la crème of anxiety.
It’s ANXIETY spelled with all caps.
It’s the tippy-top, peak pinnacle, highest expression of anxiety that the human body can experience ⬆️ 🏔️ (before you just pass out and hit the floor).
But …
There are millions of people riddled with “anxiety” that never actually experience panic …
And often …
Those folks aren’t necessarily sitting there in their home thinking that they’re “feeling fearful about their body’s own fear response cycle.”
Instead, most people think they are feeling anxious about all the things unfolding in their life …
🫠 - their husband’s affair
🫠 - their upcoming school exam
🫠 - being able to pay the bills on time
🫠 - things that happened to them when they were a kid
🫠 - feeling lost and without purpose
🫠 - wondering if they will ever become sober
But what’s actually going on (in an ultra watered-down, rapid fire, simplistic explanation) is that someone is sitting there worried about their particular life stressors … and starts to feel bodily sensations associated with fear.
AND THEN …
Either consciously (or subconsciously) starts to hate the way they feel, and dread the prospect of continuing to feel the way that they are feeling, and within that process, begin creating meaning and suboptimal interpretations about all those feelings.
This leads to further feelings of yuckiness in their mind and body, which can start a sensory-spiraling-shit-show that can so easily end up never really shutting off 🫠 🔄.
Which is why you can hear people say “I’ve been anxious for as long as I can remember.”
Are You Experiencing Anxiety or Fear?
As an Anxiety, Panic & Life Coach 🙋🏼♀️, I would say 75% of people that come to me for help with their “anxiety” are – by my definition – NOT experiencing any anxiety at all.
WHAT?! 😮 🫨😮 🫨😮 🫨😮 🫨
I know 🤭.
It’s a bit risky to say.
But it doesn’t matter either way 🤷🏼♀️.
And if anything … that should really be considered great news! 🎉
Because why have one more thing to “work on”, “heal”, “regulate”, etc?
Instead …
I find that the mass majority of people that come my way, are experiencing any assortment of discomforts that come from fear – in and of itself!
We’re talking …
🫠 – hidden, undefined or difficult to understand fears
🫠 – prolonged fears
🫠 – and/or fears stacked on fears
Creating a mass amount of consistent discomfort in the body.
A slow drip of the fight-flight-or-freeze response (let’s call it … the “fear faucet💧”) that doesn’t really ever shut off.
With the fear faucet staying on …
A slow drip of discomfort persists throughout the body’s system, leading them to always feel some mix of …
🌊 - being “flooded” or “drowning” in themself
🌪️- or like they’re spiraling & losing control
🫠 - or just feeling plain old shitty and weird
Many people choose to call that sensory experience, “anxiety”.
I choose to call that phenomenon the “fear faucet being left on” 🚰 💧💧💧, which - in my world - is NOT the same as anxiety.
As an Anxiety, Panic & Life Coach 🙋🏼♀️, I do not choose to define anxiety the way that many others do, because I’ve seen over and over again how common definitions and explanations of anxiety do not help folks differentiate: fear vs worry vs apprehension vs uneasiness, etc.
Nor help us move forward with crystal clarity about:
1️⃣ - what it is we’re experiencing in our body
2️⃣ - why we are experiencing it
3️⃣ - and what there is to do about it
For example …
👉 I have met MANY people that are worrying about something but are not anxious.
👉 And I have met MANY people that are fearful about something and not anxious.
👉 And I have met MANY people that are completely flooded and paralyzed by fear, but have never hyperventilated, or ran down the street, or landed themselves in the ER because they thought there was something wrong with their heart (a very common anxiety-sufferer experience).
So what does all this come down to for → YOU ← specifically?
Regardless of whether you want to accept my definition of anxiety or not …
And regardless of whether you actually are experiencing “anxiety” or you’re experiencing the slow drip “fear faucet” …
As I said before …
IT’S ALL A GAME OF FEAR! It’s all one big freaking fear party 🎉 🤪.
And I’ve got a sneaky suspicion you are craving to learn how to turn down the fear faucet, and stop feeling so freaking uncomfortable all the time …
Am I right? 🤔
This is why most of what I do is, in actuality, is “fear coaching”.
So if you’re feeling so freaking ready to master turning down the fear faucet in your life🚰💧🫠💧🫠💧🫠💧…
Then I invite you to book us a time to chat and connect so we can explore what teaming up together will accomplish for you.
Often, folks benefit greatly from completing a single, potent session aimed at getting them a crystal clear understanding of anxiety vs fear (finally!), before crafting and pursuing their next action step - whatever that may be!
More clarity here:
👉 👀 📝 - What is Anxiety?
👉 👀 📝 - How to Heal Your Anxiety?
👉 👀 📝 - #1 Tip for Reducing Anxiety
