Navigating Anxiety: What’s Normal, What’s Not & What Helps | Dr. Tracey Marks
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trying to eliminate anxiety can make it worse. Do this instead…
If you wake up with a tight chest, a racing mind, or a constant sense of unease, this conversation offers clarity, relief, and a more grounded way forward.
In this episode, we unpack what anxiety actually is, why it shows up the way it does, and how to tell the difference between normal anxiety and anxiety that starts running, or even ruining your life. You’ll learn how fear, uncertainty, and your nervous system interact, and why trying to eliminate anxiety often makes it worse.
Dr. Tracey Marks is a psychiatrist, mental health educator, and creator of one of the most trusted science-based mental health platforms online. With over twenty years of clinical experience, she translates neuroscience into practical tools, and she’s the author of Why Am I So Anxious? Powerful Tools for Recognizing Anxiety and Restoring Your Peace.
In this conversation, you’ll discover
- How to tell when anxiety is helping you versus quietly harming you
- A simple way to recognize when worry has crossed into catastrophizing
- Why anxiety can feel physical even when medical tests come back normal
- The overlooked body-based tools that calm your nervous system naturally
- A healthier expectation for anxiety that makes it easier to live with
Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re broken. But ignoring how it works can keep you stuck. Press play to understand what your mind and body are asking for, and learn how to respond with more clarity and self-trust.
You can find Tracey at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So anxiety shows up for so many of us these days. Sometimes it's a loud and obvious things. Sometimes it's |
| 0:06.8 | just a low-level hum that never really goes away. And a lot of us quietly assume that feeling anxious |
| 0:13.7 | means something's wrong, something's wrong with us. But what if that's not true or at least not |
| 0:18.5 | entirely true? In this conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Tracy Marks, a psychiatrist and mental health |
| 0:23.9 | educator who has spent over two decades helping people understand what's really happening |
| 0:28.9 | in their minds and bodies. |
| 0:30.2 | She's the author of Why Am I So Anxious, Powerful Tools for Recognizing Anxiety and Restoring |
| 0:36.1 | Your Peace. |
| 0:36.9 | And together, we explore what anxiety |
| 0:39.0 | actually is, why your brain creates it and how to tell the difference between anxiety that's |
| 0:44.0 | protecting you and anxiety that's quietly limiting or loudly crushing your life. We talk about |
| 0:49.4 | why anxiety can feel so physical, even when medical tests come back normal and why counterintuitively, |
| 0:55.2 | the goal isn't actually to try to eliminate anxiety, |
| 0:58.7 | which can make it worse, |
| 1:00.4 | but to change your relationship with it. |
| 1:02.4 | This is one of those conversations |
| 1:04.0 | that helps you feel less broken |
| 1:05.6 | and more informed. |
| 1:07.1 | So excited to share this conversation with you. |
| 1:09.5 | I'm Jonathan Fields, |
| 1:12.5 | and this is Good Life Project. |
| 1:20.8 | Let's dive into this topic of anxiety. |
... |
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