Before we start exploring these topics further, let’s get some basic definitions cleared:

What is Stress? 

Stress is our reaction to a challenging situation. These reactions could be in the form of bodily responses (“sweating hands, shaking legs, headaches) or a mental response (thoughts such as “Will I do well in life, images about a gloomy future). Generally, challenging situations are accompanied by uncertain outcomes. And any uncertain outcome is bound to induce stress within us.

What exactly does tension mean?

Stress is often divided into two types: short-term stress and long-term stress. Short-term stress is usually referred to as tension. Sometimes, a certain period of your life can be highly demanding and your ability to cope may be affected because it feels like there is too much on your plate. During times like this, we start referring to having “too much tension”. In psychotherapy, however, tension is more often a verb. When pressure builds up in our chest, and our hands and legs start to become rigid and tight, this is referred to as muscular tension, or tension in short. Tension is basically a byproduct of stress.

Concentration is the behaviour of focusing our attention on a task. Attention is like the torch-light of our mind, that helps us to zoom into things are around us or inside of us. You can bring your attention to a sensation on your legs, and then change it to the sound of traffic. 

When we narrow our attention, and focus on one particular task – we refer to it as “concentrating on the task.” Now, concentration is generally the first thing that gets affected when stress shows up, because it gets difficult to work on a particular task when your mind is continuously chattering in the background.