NATALIJA HAYTERPSYCHOTHERAPY & COUNSELLINGEveryone worries. The question that brings people to therapy is a different one: when does ordinary worry become anxiety — the kind worth doing something about?
The line between worry and anxiety
Worry is occasional, proportionate and passes. Anxiety lingers. It attaches to more and more things, becomes hard to switch off, and starts to show up in the body — a tight chest, a racing heart, broken sleep, restlessness. It also quietly shapes behaviour: you begin avoiding situations, declining invitations, planning your life around not feeling it. That narrowing is often the clearest sign that anxiety, rather than worry, is at work.
A free way to check
The GAD-7 is the standard seven-question screen for generalised anxiety, used across the NHS. It takes two minutes and is scored instantly. You can take it privately here, with nothing stored: the anxiety self-test.
What the result tells you
A higher score suggests anxiety is taking up more space than is comfortable, and that it is worth talking to someone. It does not mean anything is wrong with you — anxiety is extremely common and very treatable. A lower score, when you still feel on edge, is worth attention too; panic and specific phobias don't always show up clearly on a general scale.
Why therapy helps
Anxiety is one of the best-understood difficulties in psychotherapy. CBT works directly on the engine of it — the catastrophic predictions, the avoidance, the safety behaviours that keep fear alive — while deeper work can address where a lifelong vigilance first came from. Most people are surprised how much lighter things become with the right help.
This article is for information and is not a substitute for professional advice or diagnosis. If you are struggling, you don't have to manage alone — in an emergency call 999, NHS 111 (option 2) for urgent mental-health support, or the Samaritans free on 116 123, any time.
Natalija Hayter is a BABCP-registered psychotherapist with over a decade of clinical experience across the NHS, the voluntary sector and private practice, trained at the Tavistock and AGIP. She offers CBT, psychoanalytic and relational therapy in Pimlico, London and online, in English, Latvian and Russian. More about Natalija
Last reviewed: June 2026 by Natalija Hayter, BABCP-registered psychotherapist.