LinkedIn Presents.

I'm Maura Aronsmeli, and this is the Anxious Achiever.

We look at stories for business leaders who've dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they pick themselves up, and how they hope work will change

in the future.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, over and over again.

Anxiety isn't easy, but it can absolutely be helpful.

We know that from science, from years of work of the people who study the brain, our emotions, our relationships.

And we know that from anecdotal evidence, from the people I speak to on the show, from the listeners who reach out to me.

Later today, we'll hear from listener Andrea Para, who reached out to me a few months ago to explain why the anxious achiever was resonating with her as a first-generation immigrant.

Stay tuned for that conversation in the second part of the show.

But first, we'll hear from Dr. Wendy Suzuki.

She's a neuroscientist at New York University

who studies neuroplasticity and how anxiety can affect us.

She's also the author of Good Anxiety,

harnessing the power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion.

Here's my conversation with Dr. Wendy Suzuki.

Hi, Dr. Wendy Suzuki. Welcome.

Thank you so much.

Well, I want to dive right into good anxiety. I have to admit,

when I saw the title of your book, I was like, I did a little happy dance and I love the book.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Let's dive right in. What is good anxiety? Yeah. I call anxiety good because from an evolutionary perspective, the emotion of anxiety and

that underlying physiological stress response that always comes with it, it actually evolved to

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