The Difference Between Worry and Obsession

Worries are normal everyday thoughts, especially if we take into account that today's society is full of stimuli. Unfortunately, complex obsessions can sometimes develop. We'll explain the difference in the following article.

Written and verified by el biólogo Samuel Antonio Sánchez Amador.

Last update: 19 June, 2024

To this day, the human being experiences a very demanding routine. Not only do you have to stand out in the workplace, but you also need to maintain a home, your mental health, and even a family nucleus. It’s normal to notice that negative feelings dominate your mind in some moments of life, but not all continued emotions are healthy. Do you know the difference between worry and obsession?

Being worried about a topic is normal, but repeating it cyclically in your mind can turn into a psychological problem. You should also bear in mind that there are people with a certain tendency to obsess over what worries them, which is why the limit between the two terms can be a bit fuzzy. If you want to know more about the subject, keep reading.

Worry, stress, anxiety, and obsession

Before exploring the differences between worry and obsession, it’s important to follow a logical scale from one extreme to the other. To exemplify the succession of emotions that human beings experience, we also have to factor the concepts “stress” and “anxiety.” We define them briefly in the following lines.

Worry

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines worry as “mental distress or agitation resulting from concern usually for something impending or anticipated.” It can also be thought of as a question or issue on which a person repeatedly focuses their attention or interest.

At a psychological level, worry is a set of negative thoughts, images, and actions that manifest themselves repeatedly (and uncontrollably) and whose purpose is to solve or avoid potential risks and their consequences. The concerned subject carries an internal conversation with themself that prevents them from concentrating on other events.

Worry is part of cognitive perseverance, a term that encompasses the processes that lead to negative thoughts about the past and the future. Rumination and the feeling of restlessness can also be found in this group. However, it should be noted that justifiable concern is a natural psychological response.

Stress

“Stress” and “worry” are two terms that go hand in hand. In any case, the one that concerns us in this section is much more primal and physical than the one we’ve just described. As the United States Library of Medicine indicates, stress is the body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. In addition, not only humans suffer from it.

Physiological and biological stress is the response that every living being (plant, microorganism, or animal) generates in the presence of a stressor, especially if it’s present in the environment. In our species, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HHA) axis are the two main systems that control this reaction.

Stress can be classified into two large groups:

1. Acute stress: This is a normal physiological response and occurs for a short period of time in the presence of a stressor.
2. Chronic stress: Any stress pattern that lasts for weeks or months is considered chronic. In this case, the physiological reaction is maintained even though the stressor isn’t directly present in the environment.

When humans perceive a stressor, the aforementioned systems are activated, the release of hormones and neurotransmitters occurs, and a fight or flight response occurs. This results in increased heart rate, vasoconstriction, lipolysis (triglyceride breakdown), glycogenolysis (glycogen breakdown), sweating, and decreased bowel activity.

Anxiety

On the next rung of human emotions, we find anxiety. Worry is one of the two essential elements of this emotional state, the second being the emotionality component. This last term refers to the ability to feel the feeling of worry, that is, the physical symptoms that this generates.

Therefore, it can be said in a general way that anxiety is the sum of a cognitive element (worry) and the physiological response that this entails (stress). In addition, this emotion goes beyond what has been mentioned so far, as it’s conceived as an excessive reaction to an event that’s seen as threatening in a subjective way.

Beyond the signs cited in the stress section, in the case of anxiety, you experience muscle tension, lack of rest, fatigue, inability to breathe properly, difficulty concentrating, and discomfort in the abdominal area. At the same time, this emotion can be divided into four different fronts:

1. Duration of emotion: While fear and the acute stress response are short, anxiety is established in the long term.
2. Time scale: Physiological stress occurs at the moment, but anxiety focuses your attention on future events.
3. Threat specificity: Anxiety is triggered by diffuse and subjectively perceived events or events.
4. Direction: Fear and specific stress lead us to escape from a specific harmful situation. At the same time, anxiety generates excessive caution that interferes with other normal psychological mechanisms.

Therefore, we can conclude on this front that worry and stress are two essential components to understanding anxiety. This emotion is complex, subjective, and is established in the long term. If anxiety is experienced for a period of more than six months, it can be assumed that the patient has a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Obsession

Approaching the main difference between worry and obsession, we now find ourselves with obsession. This term, which is associated with fixation and intrusive thoughts, is defined by the Royal Spanish Academy of Language (RAE) as a mental disturbance caused by a fixed or recurring idea that persistently assaults the human mind.

Obsession is associated with many psychological conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD or OCD), depression, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Obsessive thoughts can become paralyzing, cause anxiety, and are even linked to psychotic conditions.

Not all intrusive thoughts are obsessive, but all obsessive pictures are presented with these types of thoughts. Obsessions can take different forms, and we’ll present some of them in the following lines.

Aggressive

Obsessive thoughts can include the urge to harm yourself or others. This manifests itself when thinking about jumping onto the train tracks, jumping very high distances, injuring a vulnerable person, doing something violent at a family gathering, and many other things.

These aggressive thoughts can be related to primarily obsessive OCD, but sporadically, they’re not necessarily bad. We’ve all thought about “what if…,” but this thought doesn’t necessarily have to be related to a mental illness if it’s not something too recurrent.

Sexual

One difference between worry and obsession is that the latter can manifest itself chronically in the sexual sphere. Obsessive thoughts that involve intercourse or everything related to it are extremely common in the context of obsessive-compulsive disorders. Worrying about the sexual act is normal, but obsessing over it isn’t.

According to the professional portal Healthline, these are some of the symptoms that indicate sexual obsession:

1. Constant and chronic fantasies and thoughts that refer to the sexual act.
2. Compulsive relationships with many people, including strangers.
3. Expression of mechanisms (such as lies) to cover the real behaviors of the patient.
4. Constant worry related to the performance of the sexual act. This can affect productivity, sociality, and individual well-being.
5. Inability to stop the behaviors derived from the obsession.
6. Endangering partners with sexual intentions.
7. Feelings of guilt and remorse after the sexual act.

According to studies, the prevalence of compulsive sexual behaviors is estimated at 3-6% of the adult population in countries like the United States. Despite the condition being more common than it seems, many patients never seek help out of embarrassment and fear of outside judgment.

Religious

The term scrupulosity refers to a psychological disorder characterized by a feeling of guilt and obsession associated with religious and faith issues. This psychological picture is, by definition, maladaptive, distressing, and obsessive.

Scrupulousness and the accompanying “blasphemous thoughts” are, again, symptoms encompassed specifically in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some of the most common signs of this obsession are the following:

1. Repetitive thoughts about being sinful, dishonest, and lacking in integrity.
2. Rumination and obsession with past mistakes and possible sin-related behaviors.
3. Excessive fear of the possibility of carrying out a blasphemous act.
4. Excessive fixation on religious thought and moral perfection.
5. Unwanted sexual thoughts related to religious figures.
6. Repeated thoughts about punishment and eternal damnation.
7. Irrational fears, believing that those close to you are going to end up in hell.

People with religious obsessive thoughts will perform compulsions (anxiety reducers) to avoid the discomfort that their obsessions generate, as indicated by The Gateaway Institute. This includes constant confession to a pastor, priest, or other spiritual authority, avoidance of morally questionable objects and situations, compulsive reading of the Bible, and other behaviors.

The essential difference between worry and obsession

Throughout this article, we’ve exemplified the real difference between worry and obsession. Worries are normal thoughts that occur in anticipation of a problem or its consequences. Together with the physical stress and the symptoms that they generate, they’re the cause of anxiety disorders.

On the other hand, an obsession is a fixed and unnatural recurring idea that is usually associated with various psychological conditions, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

While the concerns tend to extend to all possible areas (money, climate change, job insecurity, and others), obsessions are eminently aggressive, sexual, and religious (although there are more).

In addition, one more key distinction needs to be made. Obsessions are often accompanied by compulsions (repetitive behaviors or mental acts that aim to reduce anxiety), while worries involve a series of logical behaviors aimed at preventing the initial problem from being magnified.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder and obsessions

If you’re looking for the difference between worry and obsession, you’ve probably observed something alarming in your thought patterns. Understanding what OCD is and what its main symptoms are is essential to differentiate normal from pathological. Therefore, we’ll dedicate these final lines to understanding what obsessive-compulsive disorder really is.

As indicated by the National Health Service (NHS), OCD is divided into three different fronts:

• Obsessions: These have been the object of most of this article. As we’ve said, they’re constant intrusive thoughts of a variable nature.
• Emotions: We link this group with previous information, as obsessions cause chronic and serious feelings of anxiety or stress.
• Compulsions: These are repetitive acts that seek to alleviate the symptoms generated by obsessions.

Compulsions differ from other normal human emotions in their repetitiveness and inability to control them. Some of the most common are excessive cleaning, constant handwashing, counting to a certain number, tidying up household items, asking for reassurance, and repeating specific words in your head.

As indicated by the Statpearls medical portal, the prevalence of OCD throughout life ranges from 1.6-2.3%. The mean age of symptom onset is 19 years, and 50% of patients begin to notice clinical signs during childhood and adolescence. It’s very rare for an OCD picture to begin after the age of 40.

Worry and obsession: Two very different concepts

As you may have seen throughout this article, the difference between worry and obsession is very clear. The first type of thinking is normal and adaptive, while the second represents a psychological disorder, especially OCD. Although obsessions may be present in other pictures, they’re unequivocally associated with OCD.

If you feel that your concerns dominate your daily life and appear in an intrusive way, you may need to see a psychiatric professional. Whether it’s OCD or not, it’s best to get tools to manage negative thoughts and emotions before they become chronic.