I tend to think of stress and anxiety as on a continuum. We all experience stress, it is a way of your body responding to what is going on around us. When we lose control of stress, through our experience and circumstances, then the anxiety creeps in and is difficult to dislodge; think of it as being like your old school bully, once the bully starts messing with you, you are more afraid of what the bully might do than what he actually does.