What to do when you're feeling anxious

Life Kit

NPR

Education, Business, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Health & Fitness

4.5 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anxiety can feel awful and overwhelming. But it can also be a helpful warning signal — telling us when we're in danger or out of alignment with our true feelings. We share tips on how to turn down the dial on your anxiety symptoms, so you can listen to what they're trying to tell you.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Life Kid from NPR.
0:05.9	Hey everybody, it's Mary El Segara.
0:11.5	If you've ever had anxiety, it can feel like your body is under attack.
0:16.4	Your mind is racing.
0:17.8	Maybe your heart's pounding or your palms are sweating,
0:20.9	your stomach hurts, your skin gets red and hot.
0:24.5	Psychotherapist Britt Frank says she gets it.
0:27.9	The anxiety feels awful and it can be debilitating.
0:30.8	I've had anxiety issues my life, but anxiety doesn't attack us.
0:35.0	Frank is the author of the book, The Science of Stuck.
0:37.7	And she specializes in something called somatic experiencing,
0:41.2	which is a very fancy way to say that you have a brain attached to a body and your body does things.
0:46.2	Frank says anxiety can actually be like the check engine light of your brain.
0:50.4	Anxiety is an indicator light.
0:52.3	It is something that happens in our body in response to either an unsafe situation,
0:57.8	to an injury from the past or to a perceived or a real threat coming from the future.
1:03.3	And if you think about things that way, anxiety can give you a lot of information
1:07.2	about what feels right to you, about how you want to spend your time,
1:10.4	and about who you want to spend it with.
1:13.9	But to get to those insights, you've got to dial down the overwhelming symptoms,
1:18.8	even if that's from a 10 to a 7.
1:21.9	On this episode of LifeKit, we're going to give you some practical research-backed ways
	...

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