Managing Anxiety: Begin Again Moments

Begin Again with Davina McCall

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.7 • 970 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week’s Moments episode, we bring you two powerful clips from full Begin Again conversations exploring the reality of anxiety and how to navigate it. Fearne Cotton opens up about her personal experience with anxiety, reflecting on the period of her life that triggered it and how it continues to show up in unexpected ways. She shares the challenges of living with racing thoughts, disrupted sleep, and the pressure of environments that no longer feel safe, while also offering an honest look at the progress she’s made and the self-awareness she’s built along the way. Following that, mental health expert Owen O’Kane offers a grounded and reassuring perspective on anxiety, explaining why it’s a natural human response rather than something that defines us. He explores how anxiety can become something we rely on for protection, and shares practical ways to better understand and manage it without letting it take over. This is a Moments episode, featuring two impactful clips designed to give you insight, perspective, and practical takeaways in a short space of time. The full conversations with Fearne and Owen are available now wherever you get your podcasts, just search their names, or watch them here on YouTube: Fearne Cotton: https://youtu.be/XZHZ_Ltbv08 Owen O’Kane: https://youtu.be/fR2WPgWBtRM ✨ Access theBegin Again newsletter here: https://linkly.link/2g2xx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Where do you think this staying up all night and thinking about something and going over something you said comes from?
0:06.5	Is there an event in your life where you think, oh my God, you know, I said this to someone and this happened?
0:12.6	Yes. Yes. I mean, I went through a whole ton of shit in my late 20s, early 30s. And I guess I've spent the last seven years
0:26.9	writing and talking around events, but never about them necessarily, talking more about the
0:34.8	feelings and the repercussions and the hangover from it. And it was a
0:41.2	deeply challenging era that still troubles me greatly. And I'm still in therapy every damn
0:49.3	week and I'm very lucky to be able to do so. And I'm still triggered by the same things. I'm still
1:00.4	unnerved by stuff in my past. But there is a lovely incremental climbing out of a big deep ditch that I was in. And it is a bit of a
1:15.2	wiggly line, but it's definitely a wiggly line that goes up. And I really, really felt it.
1:21.0	We just had the Happy Place Festival in Manchester. Yeah, I saw that. And on the Sunday,
1:25.4	I felt so overwhelmed, but in the best way.
1:28.1	And I stood on the stage thanking everyone for coming, and I could have wept my heart out.
1:32.6	But I was so happy and I was so content and I was so comfy with feeling like it was okay to have all those people there, not sort of undeserving or like out-of-body experience.
1:46.8	I thought, yeah, I've done this and this is fucking great.
1:50.4	And I felt really happy.
1:53.0	But in my body, I wasn't like euphoric floating around.
1:58.0	And it really made me think back to like, say, 13 years ago, an unrecognizable
2:03.8	person who no way could have done that. But I've still got a long way to go. There is no way
2:12.4	I would want to host a live TV show. I would want to host a live radio show. There is no way that I could
2:20.3	sleep in, I don't know, a house with a bunch of people that I don't know really, really well,
2:28.3	or even that I do know well, sleep's a massive issue still. So I've still got these really niche things that I can't get over.
2:36.0	Yes. I cannot get. And I will, but I feel, and I've got over, like I couldn't drive on the
	...

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