Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast

This week, and as we are at the very beginning of the new year, I'm tackling the subject of anxiety and change. I've covered this subject before but this time I am joined by Dr Harry Barry, author of Embracing Change, and one of my most listened to guests on the podcast thus far (he was on a previous episode where we unpacked anxiety at a more basic level). The change that requires you to take action and the change that comes at us out of the blue; we cover both. Also in this episode we go off on a helpful tangent, talking about our (mostly MY) need to be in control. What's happening in my mind when I get anxious when I can't control things exactly how I want to? And what can I do about it? Read Dr Harry Barry's latest book here. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Word of warning: My guest's audio wasn't ideal for this episode, there was very little I could do about the feedback issue on Dr Clare's side of the audio, so I hope you can forgive this. Hopefully next time I record with Clare we can be in person in studio.For this episode of Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast, clinical psychologist Dr Clare Kambamettu joins me to discuss the impact that consuming news around the clock can have on our minds and bodies. Maybe that's social media, maybe that's news on your TV, and it's especially relevant now with Covid. We are facing a very legitimate threat with Covid and keeping tabs of all of the latest news surrounding the virus has become a coping mechanism for many of us. We think it benefits us but if you're aware of it, it might be making you feel more anxious. So what can we do about it? How do we stay informed without overwhelming our threat system? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in

Christmas can be a time of high anxiety. In this solo episode I talk through my approach to this time of year and how Covid has given us an opportunity to practise setting boundaries and putting our needs first. Episode includes my coping mechanism and mindset swaps that makes Christmas a far more enjoyable experience. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this bonus episode I was so thrilled to sit down with (virtually) Millie Mackintosh. I have long been a fan of Millie's, particularly since becoming pregnant and seeing how open and honest she is about the experience. She keeps it real. Millie has had her fair share of anxiety down through the years and here she shares her story with me. We talk everything from the Made in Chelsea days when panic attacks were a common experience, to pre and postnatal anxiety, the anxiety of having millions of people watching and judging you on social media, IBS and so much more. As she's about to have her second baby, I'm so grateful to Millie for taking the time to chat and be so honest as always and allow herself to be vulnerable.My books: Owning It: Your BS Free Guide To Living With Anxiety / The Confidence Kit: Your BS Free Guide To Owning Your Fear / NAKED: Ten Truths To Change Your Life all available on amazon.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv

For this final episode of season 6, I am joined by the very lovely Cressida Bonas - actor, writer and more recently podcaster. Her podcast Fear Itself is earning rave reviews and features guests such as Ellie Goulding, Sir Richard Branson, Dr Pippa Grange and many more. Her focus is on fear and how fear might actually be at the root of all of our main emotions. Joining me here she tells me her experience of anxiety - including some pretty debilitating catastrophic thinking - as well as navigating a life as a very shy person for whom much of their work is public facing. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am explaining a few key tools that I use again and again when feeling anxious about an upcoming event or a change of some kind. Fear hacking - using catastrophic thinking to work in your favour - followed by positive visualisation which involves a tool in itself called 'anchoring' and much more. This episode is just me and the content I'm discussing is based on what you'll find laid out in my 13 part toolkit in The Confidence Kit, my second book to have been published. Available now on audiobook and in hardback/paperback online and in book stores. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am going back to where it all started for me: with gut issues. Diagnosed and plagued with IBS for most of my teenage years, I had no awareness that a lot of what I was experiencing was anxiety manifesting in this way. My tummy issues made me anxious, my anxiety made me have tummy issues. I am joined here by the world renowned author of The Mind Gut Connection, Dr Emeran Mayer. (I wrongly title it the gut brain connection in my intro so apologies for that!) He is not just a gastroenterologist but a neuroscientist too and where these two disciplines overlap, you know there is a lot to be learned. I hope you find this episode helpful and validating. Dr Emeran Mayer's new book is out now, The Gut-Immune Connection.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sometimes in life, things change or thing go drastically downhill, without any forewarning. For Jane Enright, author of Butter Side Up, big, negative life changes occurred to her 3 times within the space of one year. 3 changes that would leave almost anyone in the throes of anxiety, negativity and hopelessness. But Jane realised she already had a lot of the skills necessary to get through this, if she just tapped into them, now that she really needed them. In this episode she shares her story with me, and how she handled the anxiety that went along with such traumatic incidents as well as how we can better process the things in life that happen that we do not see coming, so that they don't swallow us up. Her book, Butter Side Up, is available widely now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happiness anxiety sounds oxymoronic but it's a real thing: it's known as Cherophobia which sounds sinister but really it's just the anxiety that can arise intermittently (or it can also be quite all consuming) when you fear that if things are going well, something has to go wrong. For me it manifests as feeling so grateful for what I do have in life that I think it will be taken away from me or that I don't deserve it. For others it can be an actual aversion to joyful experiences which require an element of letting go and being comfortable with being vulnerable and the idea that things are transient and not everything works out. For this episode I am joined by clinical psychologist Dr Malie Coyne to unpack Cherophobia, what it is, why we might struggle with it and crucially what we can do about it.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am joined by Katy Milkman, award winning behavioural scientist and Wharton University Professor to talk about anxiety and more specifically how to change, and how labelling will impact your behaviour in a way that exacerbates your anxiety. Katy is a legend and explains everything so well. Her new book, How To Change is out now. My books are NAKED: Ten Truths To Change Your Life, The Confidence Kit and Owning It: Your BS Free Guide To Living With Anxiety, all widely available online. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am joined by the founder of Happy Not Perfect the app plus the new book of the same name, Poppy Jamie. She has an incredibly illustrious career behind her with a refreshingly honest story. As much as I know about anxiety today, Poppy said many things that really gave me an a-ha moment, making me think twice bout things. She offers in this podcast, a step-by-step approach to dissolving anxiety in the moment. Most notably, she's all about employing curiosity as her most reliable tool for quelling anxiety when it rises. I found her insights here incredibly helpful and I'm sure you will too. A conversation I didn't realise I needed to have until I'd had it.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am joined by Dr Soph for this episode, she is absolutely fantastic, I have adored following her for years now. She is a clinical psychologist and now author of A Manual For Being Human. She breaks down anxiety in way that make it so easy to understand and move forward with. Here we talk through her approach for understanding why you're here (feeling anxious), what's keeping you here and how to move forward. We talk about therapy and therapists, how to flip social comparison on its head and lots more. I'm sure you will find her as wonderful as I do. Her book is out now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Johann Hari is a really interesting if somewhat controversial character. He is a prolific journalist, an NYTimes bestselling author and his Ted Talks on the reasons why we might be anxious/depressed has been viewed a staggering number of times. He too also struggled significantly with anxiety and depression. He has some really hard-to-argue-with insights on the various reasons why we collectively struggle so much: we have a series of unmet needs, or as his book title suggests, we are suffering from various lost connections. Here he chats to me about some of the key reasons why we struggle (according to him and the research he has done around the world chatting with experts) as well as what we can do about it: social prescription, questioning our junk values and more. A very interesting guy, did I say that already?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I asked my followers on Instagram where in their life anxiety was most likely to pop up, the most common response was at work. Dealing with a difficult boss, a confrontation colleague that you don't get along with, anxiety about proving your worth in your role and so much more. Lynda Barry - communications expert and career consultant - has been on the series before when we discussed career related anxiety, but that was around getting a job, moving jobs, wondering what to with your career on the whole. Here we drill down further into the job you are in, the day to day anxieties that crop up and can wreak havoc on our wellbeing. Lynda offers plenty of practical advice that should help.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am joined by life coach and all round straight shooter Mark Fennell. We unpack the whole idea of mindset, which is a word that gets thrown around a lot. What is it? Does it influence anxiety and vice versa? Is it a fixed thing? Can we change it? What would a good mindset be? Buy my anxiety journal here. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to season 6! Dr Judson Brewer is legit amazing; he has his own neuroscience lab in which he and his team carry out lots of research to back up everything you'll find in his latest book Unwinding Anxiety, which is probably one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. In it, and in our conversation here, Jud puts forward the idea that maybe anxiety is simply a habit loop we've got stuck, something that plays out several times a day in the format of trigger, behaviour, result. It's a really interesting and empowering idea because when you start to wrap your head around it, it becomes something you can better manage or almost hack. My journal - OWN IT: THE ANXIETY JOURNAL, is available to order here.My books are all here on AMAZON. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode of Owning It, brought to you in partnership with NIVEA, I am joined by Claudia Hammond. Claudia is an award-winning broadcaster, she is visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex and the author of four books, most recently The Art of Rest.  We talk about the significance of human touch - something we've been seriously missing since lockdown - when it comes to lowering our anxiety in particular. It's not just something that feels nice, it has a real impact on your body at a biological level, boosting the nice hormones and dissolving the bad ones. We talk through the science behind it, the findings from an incredible piece of research called The Touch Test, and how we can gently reintroduce human touch back into our lives as things begin to open up. We also talk about the natural apprehension we're likely to experience as things return to 'normal', and how to circumvent this. NIVEA Cares beyond Skin, to find out more about N

For this final episode of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast (season 5), I am joined by Dr Clare Kambamettu who was actually my very first guest ever on Owning It. A clinical psychologist and wonderful speaker, Clare distills anxiety into something we can very easily understand. For this episode we look at the 5 Ps to help us better understand where our anxiety is coming from, what keeps it going and how we might find a way beyond it. It's a common exercise within CBT, a psychological formulation that many therapists will explore with their clients. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode I am joined by Amy Thomson, fellow anxiety sufferer and founder of the hugely successful (globally) Moody Month App and Moody, her new book by the same name, that explores how hormones impact our everyday experience. Here we hone in on anxiety in particular, the hormones involved - how it all happens in the body - as well as Amy's personal experience, which led her down this particular career path. We also talk a lot about the impact of our menstrual cycle on anxiety, and so it as an episode particularly relevant to those who experience periods. Enjoy!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode, I am joined by Layla O'Mara, founder of Nuanua.com, a wonderful online resource with courses that nurture mamas in their postpartum journey. Layla was someone I turned to in a moment of desperation, when I found myself, having come home from hospital with my new baby boy, feeling as though I had plummeted to the depths of anxiety. I didn't feel happy or excited or relieved, I felt consumed by anxiety, physically and emotionally. It's not nice to say this out loud, but it took me a while to feel happy. Layla here explains where this postpartum anxiety comes from, why it makes complete sense and how you, as a listener, can help yourself if you find yourself in the same position. I hope you find this helpful. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/owningittheanxietypodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.