416. The surprising neuroscience behind your anxiety
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anxiety has a way of making ordinary moments feel life-or-death. A simple interaction can feel significant, a passing thought can spiral into catastrophe, and your body can react as if something is deeply wrong - even when rationally you know you’re probably okay. In this episode, we get into the neuroscience behind anxiety - why your brain becomes obsessed with certain thoughts, why false alarms feel so convincing, and what actually helps when you want to feel less trapped inside your own mind.
We explore:
• Why anxiety feels so intense and urgent
• Our physical and emotional reactions to anxiety
• The role of GABA and glutamate in anxiety
• Why trying to ‘stop thinking about it’ doesn’t work
• How avoidance perpetuates the anxious cycle
• Practical ways for living with an anxious brain
Happy listening!
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Our favourite sources:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9559819/
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2555
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-022-01332-2
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027273580000057X
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:08.6 | Hello everybody. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk |
| 0:15.5 | through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:27.2 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here |
| 0:33.6 | back for another episode. Today we are going to talk about anxiety, but not in the |
| 0:41.1 | usual way that we normally talk about anxiety or not in the usual way that anxiety is |
| 0:45.0 | spoken about. Generally, we are going to do instead a complete and in-depth look into the |
| 0:52.1 | neuroscience behind why anxiety happens, why it lingers, |
| 0:56.6 | why it continues to be this frustrating, sometimes like uncontrollable part of life. |
| 1:02.2 | I think knowing the intricacies behind anxiety and understanding the neuroscience behind the reactions |
| 1:09.3 | that are going on in our brain is honestly |
| 1:11.6 | sometimes the most important step in becoming less anxious because you start to like distance |
| 1:18.3 | yourself from the feelings. You start to remove personal blame. You start to understand the systems |
| 1:23.5 | better. And you are able to apply logic and this information to your feelings that I think |
| 1:31.1 | counteracts the, I don't know, it counteracts the illogical nature of anxiety. That's what's been |
| 1:37.5 | really helpful for me. And I think just being able to explain what I'm feeling, how I'm feeling, |
| 1:43.1 | why I'm feeling, whatever I'm feeling, why I'm feeling, |
| 1:44.9 | whatever I am puts this distance between me and my anxiety. |
| 1:48.4 | So that's what we're going to do today from talking about the function of different brain |
| 1:53.1 | areas to neurotransmitters, cell networks, the neuroscience of fear. |
... |
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