My earliest memory of abnormal anxiety centers on my first panic attack. I remember everything about that night, including how confused I was afterward. I imagine that you must have felt something similar when this all started for you as well, right? You ended up confused, mentally paralyzed, and worst of all, stuck in a useless, unproductive cycle of worry and reassurance seeking. This, of course, is a problem if you ever intend to get better. You need direction; a firm expectation of full recovery. Not everyone would agree with me
How to Lower Stress and Anxiety Without Taking Drugs
Let me guess. You want to get better without taking drugs? Yes, of course you do. I did too. It sounds pretty good, right? No side-effects, no one questioning your toughness or stability; it would be perfect. What's crazy is that it isn't some wild dream. You probably agree, yes? That's why you're busy trying to imbue this dream with life. You eat right, you exercise, you meditate; it's all perfectly reasonable. And that's exactly why you feel so frustrated. No matter what you do, you're not making any progress. Even those of you that
A Personal Challenge From Paul Dooley
I don't like New Year's resolutions because they don't work. The reality is that you can start to change on any given day. So I'm not going to ask you to set a goal with an arbitrary timeline. Instead, I want you to reflect on a few things. For starters, what are you going to do differently this year to lower your anxiety? I want you to take a step back and really think about that. After you and I stop stuffing our faces with cookies and pie (or is that just me?) this holiday season it's time to get serious about your
Why It’s Bad to Focus All Your Attention on Anxiety
If I asked you to tell me what anxiety is I'm sure you'd do a fine job. After all, you know your stuff. You could probably tell me a lot about what your anxiety feels like, what fear feels like, even what terror feels like. I'm confident that you could give me all the intricate details. In fact, I'm sure you and I could easily get lost in the details of your latest complaint, but what would be the point? I know why you do it. You're on the lookout for danger. You're anticipating, calculating, always watching. To be fair, I
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
I am psyched to introduce you to AG's first full time contributor Valerie Murphy. I met Valerie over 3 years ago at my first internship. I always thought that Valerie was a blast to be around, but I later found out that she also happened to be an anxious person! I had so many questions. Over time we became friends and eventually I asked her to share her knowledge and experience with my audience here at AG. Over the past few months we have been working hard to develop new material and even plan to start a free webinar series to strengthen
How the Right Foods Can Improve Your Mood
One of the biggest concerns for the average person with anxiety is figuring out how to decrease their physical symptoms. For the vast majority, that means endless hours researching deep breathing, yoga, or feel good quotes. Now, there's no doubt in my mind that if you take meditation and yoga seriously that you will see results, but how many people do? That's why the motivation factor is all-important. Rather unfortunately people get discouraged if they don't see results within a few days. Bottom-line is that if it takes too long to
How to Manage Everyday Anxiety
It makes sense why people focus their attention on things like panic attacks and crises of the week (COWS). But what about everyday anxiety? To me this anxiety is far worse. A panic attack comes and goes in a flash, but daily anxiety grinds on you over a long period of time. This, of course, can impact your self-esteem, level of resilience and quality of life, which gets old quick. So on today's episode of The Anxiety Guru Show I discuss everyday anxiety and what you can do to manage it better. I also interviewed one of my
This Is How a Solid Anti-Anxiety Plan Will Change Your Life
Want to know the secret to recovering from abnormal anxiety? It's obvious right? It's so obvious that you've completely ignored it. The secret is having a solid plan for recovery. It doesn't matter if you experience high anxiety twice a month or twice a day, if you don't create a plan nothing will ever change. You might get a break every now and then but as soon as life gets stupid you can easily find yourself in a state of anxious misery. You probably hope that your emergency internet research will suffice but how far has
Hope in the Face of Fear
I'm intrigued by anxious people. What isn't interesting about somebody else's anxiety? In some ways it's like holding up a mirror and confirming, among other things, that you aren't alone in all this. At the same time it's an opportunity to learn about how others manage their symptoms and fears. I just recorded an interview with Jess, a brave soul that wanted to share her story to help you move on, past fear and away from anxiety. What We Covered During the Interview: The origins of Jess's anxiety Her family's reaction to her