Is Anxiety Your Secret Weapon?

Raising Good Humans

Voicing Change Media

Education, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if anxiety isn't the enemy but the edge you've been missing? Dr. Aliza Pressman sits down with clinical psychologist, professor, and author Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary to challenge one of the most widespread misconceptions in modern parenting: that anxiety is something to be eliminated. It isn't. And understanding why could change how you show up for yourself and your kids. Dr. Dennis-Tiwary unpacks the surprising science and history behind anxiety, from its ancient roots to how modern psychiatry transformed a normal human emotion into a medical diagnosis, and why that shift has made things harder for all of us. What you'll learn: Why anxiety is actually a superpower (backed by dopamine and oxytocin science) The parenting mistake that makes kids' anxiety worse, and what to do instead Why "fixing" your child's feelings is the one thing you should stop doing today Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is the author of Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Raising Good Humans. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman, and I know this episode is going to be
0:10.2	top of mind for so many of us. We're talking about why anxiety is good for you, even though it feels bad,
0:17.3	with author, professor, and clinical psychologist, Dr. Tracy Dennis Tawari. She's pretty
0:25.1	remarkable because her approach to how we think about anxiety is to shift our mindset to
0:32.9	start to consider not just what's wrong with anxiety, but what are the benefits of anxiety?
0:39.4	What is anxiety? What is the origin of all of this? And how we can best support our kids.
0:45.7	Her book, Future Tense, Why Anxiety is Good for You, Even Though It Feels Bad, is such a phenomenal reframe that really takes into account the science of anxiety, not the
0:58.6	mainstream misunderstanding of anxiety. And all of this to help us be able to best support ourselves
1:06.2	and our kids as they move through the inevitable feelings of anxiety and when we should worry and what we can do
1:15.1	about it. Tracy has published over 100 scientific articles in top peer review journals and
1:21.7	delivered more than 300 presentations at academic conferences just to give you a sense of how influential she is in this field
1:32.0	and how wonderful it is to get to hear from her. This is actually going to be two episodes
1:38.3	because anxiety is something that is so top of mind for so many people, whether you have a baby or you have a
1:46.2	teenager, how we can respond in our households and in our family culture can have an
1:52.7	enormous impact on supporting our kids. Of course, if you enjoy this episode, please write a little
2:00.0	review and you can always sign up for
2:03.0	my Apple Podcast Premium. Go ahead to Apple Podcast, type in Raising Good Humans, and there I will be.
2:10.7	And you can sign up for my Substack newsletter, Dr. Elisa.substack.com. I would love for you to join my community. It's another way for me to
2:20.7	reach you to answer your questions and to have monthly interactions and engagement via
2:26.1	Zoom groups. So I want to start with defining anxiety and why we need anxiety.
2:36.0	Right.
2:36.8	The first thing I feel like we all need to say about anxiety is to remind ourselves it's an emotion.
	...

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