20 Differences between Anxiety and Depression ! You must know it

Most of us actually get confused with anxiety and depression and more often we use these terms interchangeably. Some feel that anxiety is a form of depression while some believe that anxiety is just a stress. However, the reality is quite different. Although anxiety and depression, both of them belong to the same thematic area of mental health, they are two different medical conditions and there are multiple differences between anxiety and depression. Majority of them are illustrated below:

Anxiety	Depression
Worry of nervousness regarding the future and what can happen in future	Feeling of sadness about the present and future
Regular thoughts and beliefs that things can go wrong	No or diminutive feelings of hope and optimism
Feeling of running away from the situation	Being certain about the occurrence of negative incidents
Some hope and optimism are present about the events of life	Strong negative thoughts and emotions in most part of the day
No suicidal thoughts	Possible suicidal thoughts
Symptoms of shaking, sweating and need to run away	Dryness in energy and motivation to take action
Less positive thoughts and more fear	Slow thinking, low energy and lazy behavior
Symptoms of increased heart rate, bowel issues etc.	Symptoms of severe loss of appetite, sleep problems and headaches
Anxiety might be the start to depression (if uncontrolled)	Depression may result due to poor coping mechanisms during anxiety
During the initial stage of anxiety, the person will fear that everything will go the wrong way. This will eventually limit the person’s ability to work	During depression, the person will not be worried about what’s going to happen, rather they have strong belief that bad/worst is going to happen
Anxiety can lead to avoidance and isolation from the works or situation	Loss of interest or enjoyment in most of the activities
Worry about immediate and long-term future	Assumptions of hopeless future and despair
Gastrointestinal distress like nausea, diarrhea or constipation	Thoughts of worthlessness and lack of energy to take any action
Difficulty in sleeping and concentrating	Too much increased or decreased sleeping than the normal days/times
Anxiety is an umbrella of range of specific conditions	Depression refers to single illness
Feelings of irritability is more common here	Feelings of guilt, helplessness and low self esteem is more common here
Anxiety can make the brain more jumbled and busy, also known as ‘racing brain’ effect	Depression can slow down the thinking of the person
Anxiety is supposed to produce excessive energy like sweating, shaking etc.	Depression is supposed to result in loss of energy like tiredness, exhaustion, lack of motivation etc
Anxiety can be of relatively short term, if proper coping measures are taken	People will have trouble in concentrating and making decisions
People with anxiety are usually not involved in self-injury and self-destructive behaviors	People with depression may also involve in self-injury and self-destructive behaviors
It is primarily characterized by fear	It is primarily characterized by prolong sadness