Worry is what just about every person experiences as a normal part of everyday life. Anxiety on the other hand gets to the point where it interferes with life tasks and therefore brings a level of dysfunction beyond what you would normally expect.

Here's an example.

Worry - My family member is sick. I'm worried about them and their recovery, but I go about my day and carry on.

Anxiety - My family member is sick and I'm obsessing over what could possibly go wrong to the point that it is keeping me up at night, dominating my thoughts, and interfering with other things that I either need to think about or do.

One is dysfunctional and the other is not.

Thank you, Sunnier Days. Chewing. . .

I have been noticing that I seem to use the words interchangeably, more for variety than a change of meaning.

My definition goes in line with what Sunnier Days was saying. Worry is simple and goes in and out of your thoughts. I worry for my friend that might be going through a hard time right now.

Anxiety is a worry at a higher level, it's not just the worry that allows you to go through your day and just check on your friend once in a while, but anxiety is the worry that makes you not be able to function to even check on your friend.

Worry...I get told "stop worrying" when I show overwhelming distress over something I'm trying to figure out.

Anxiety is to worry into distress mode.

Fret, concern, agonize, brood, bother, trouble are other words I've found myself using to replace worry in conversations with others.

Hm-m-m-m-m. . .

Could we say that anxiety is escalated worry? A question of degree, as has been suggested? My goal is to arrest the anxiety in it's worry format?

With an Olympic League Worrier (OLW, the dyslexic owl?) such as myself, it could be accurate enough for psycho work to continue using the two words interchangeably. When I start to escalate, I escalate on rocket fuel.

Makes sense to catch the anxiety in the "worry" area, as rocket fueled anxiety...way beyond comfort calm.

Good way to work through it!

Early intervention has become my psychotherapy Holy Grail. When I can catch my psychoweirds before they escalate, they are typically far more simple to remediate. Like the diff between wiping a freshly used countertop and letting ^it^ sit and accumulate for a few weeks before you worry about scrubbing.

Two different things for me, for sure! Worry is when I have something coming up and I have some options, or choices about what to do about it. Anxiety is a physical response to some trigger that I may not even be conscious of. It's like a possession, where as worry is like feeling uneasy about a specific thing.