It’s good that we’re talking more openly about mental health. At the same time, we sometimes use words like anxiety to describe everyday stress.

That can make it harder to recognize when someone’s anxiety is seriously affecting their life.

I’m glad the stigma around mental health is starting to lessen. I also know how easy it is to wonder, “If everyone feels anxious, maybe mine isn’t that bad. Maybe this is just how I have to live.”

One of the questions I get asked the most when talking with people about anxiety is, “What is the difference between stress and anxiety?”

It’s a great question because they can feel very similar in the body.

Here is how I think about the difference:

• Stress is your body’s response to pressure or a challenge. For example, before an important test, you might notice sweaty palms or a rapid heartbeat.

• Anxiety is worry or fear about what might happen. While worrying about failing that test next week, you might notice a pit in your stomach or tightness in your chest. It often focuses on worst-case scenarios.

Another way to think about it: stress is generally a response to a pressure or challenge, while anxiety can persist even when the stressor is gone or there’s no immediate threat.

One thing also worth making clear: anxiety is a very normal human response. It’s part of the threat-response system that has helped humans survive all these years.

So, it’s normal to be anxious about having a tough conversation with a friend or loved one.

But, it may be a sign that you could use more support if the worry starts affecting your sleep, eating, relationships, or ability to do the things that matter to you.

When anxiety becomes a constant way of life, it can shrink a person’s life. They may start avoiding anything that could stoke the anxiety fire.

I know this all too well.

I spent many years avoiding things that could make me anxious for fear of having another panic attack. This included traveling, trying new experiences, and even talking to people I didn’t know.

It’s funny to think about now, but I never wanted to call places to order food. The possibility of one awkward interaction was enough to make me avoid ordering by phone.

Who knows what could’ve happened? I say the wrong thing and the person goes to the news to tell everybody I’m an idiot?

My body was reacting as if that small interaction were a real threat. I would decide, “Nope, not worth it. Have someone else do it!”

How can we handle each now that we can better identify stress and anxiety?

I have two recommendations.

Dealing with Stress and Anxiety

Stress

For stress, it can help to name the pressure and then choose one small action.

Let’s say you have a really busy week at work with what feels like a million things to do. You might feel like your body is going to explode under the pressure.

Take a step back, name the pressure you’re facing, and choose one small action that could ease it.

When I do this, naming the pressure helps me to understand why I feel this way. Of course I’m stressed. I have a lot on my plate!

Once I can accept that, I can then choose the next best step to alleviate some of that pressure.

Maybe it’s writing down the three most important tasks I need to complete and when they’re due. Maybe it’s doing that one task I’ve been avoiding, which has caused me to delay other work. Or maybe it’s going for a walk or a hike to reduce my stress before I get back to work.

Whatever it is, I can actively work toward reducing my stress with a little awareness and choosing the next best step.

Anxiety

Because anxiety is focused on the future, and often on worst-case scenarios, it’s helpful to bring yourself back to the present moment and into your body.

I’ve covered somatic exercises before to help with anxiety and panic symptoms, but meditation, breathing exercises, and naming a few things you see and hear can help you connect with the present moment inside your body.

From experience, when my body begins to calm through these exercises, the rumination tends to ease as well.

This certainly takes awareness. You have to notice when you’re ruminating, focusing on future events, or catastrophizing.

But once you build that awareness muscle, you can then work to bring yourself back into your body and the present moment as often as needed.

And that’s a great feeling to have.

—

How do you think about the difference between stress and anxiety, and what has helped you deal with either one?

Let me know!

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I recently came across ’s post about an experience she had with a guy in a coffee shop that demonstrated what many women see as the exhausting entitlement and emotional unavailability of modern men.

I’ve been around plenty of men like this. We work with them. We’re “friends” with them. They’re in our families, our golf groups, and everywhere else we spend time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what masculinity is because it’s tied to my life pretty heavily as someone who has a history of anxiety and panic attacks.

I’ve often felt emasculated by these experiences, with my inner critic telling me I was weak, the antithesis of traditional masculinity. This is crazy to me because I’ve had plenty of examples of being that traditional masculine guy, like growing up athletic playing sports at a high level.

Regardless, I’ve walked through adulthood feeling as if I wasn’t the man I was supposed to be and that’s caused me much more suffering than necessary.

I realized that a lot of my challenges in life have traced directly back to my outdated definition of masculinity.

So when I read Erica’s post, it was yet another reminder that men, especially, continue to walk through this world with completely wrong definitions.

Many still think masculinity centers on domination, control, entitlement, and “strength.”

Basically, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

This is what has been reinforced in men since they were kids not only by popular culture, but within the families they were raised in.

Kids learn how the world works by observing.

How many of the children in our society have watched men behave badly and get away with it? How many have learned how to treat women by watching how their fathers treated their mothers?

If my experiences talking with women on dating apps are any kind of reflection on the true nature of dating for women, I really feel for them. Let’s just say I’ve heard plenty of stories about emotional and physical abuse, controlling behavior, cheating, and the like.

How do men get away with all of this and still function in society? In my mind, it’s quite simple. We let them.

Men are very guilty of this. We know what other guys are doing. It’s usually not a secret.

I have watched guys behave poorly and have said nothing.

Why do we let them get away with it? For me, it was a fear of being ostracized by the group. I was scared of not fitting in. Of being different for saying something.

It shouldn’t take something to happen for us to remind men, “Hey, don’t you have children? Don’t you have a mom? Or a sister? How would you want them to be treated? Would you let this happen to them?”

That’s absurd.

Men should not protect other men at the expense of women. There is no us versus them.

Women deserve the same love, respect, and benefit of the doubt that we give each other. They’re people just like us.

When you bring a life into the world as a man, it is your duty not only to protect that life and raise it as best you can, but also to respect and care for the child’s mother.

That certainly doesn’t mean staying with someone who is toxic. It doesn’t mean staying with someone you’re just not compatible with for the sake of your kid.

But it does mean continuing to treat that woman with the respect that she deserves as the parent of your child. Even if you’re not together anymore.

Your children will learn how to treat women based on how you treat their mother. Every dismissal of her feelings. Every disrespectful word. Every utterance under your breath.

Not every man is a father or a husband. I’m not. We still play important roles in the masculinity conversation. We’re someone’s friend or coworker, and we have a say in how other men behave.

To be clear, I am by no means perfect. I’m not making this about me or holding up my life to say live like me. I’ve made mistakes with how I’ve treated women and said things I wish I could take back.

But we do need to have this conversation. And men, we need to wake up and be the change.

We need to have standards and hold each other to those standards. Part of being a man is speaking up when another man crosses a line, so the people around us feel safe and heard.

You cannot do that if you are not respecting women. And women shouldn’t need to remind us to think about our daughters, or sisters, or mothers for us to take action. Women shouldn’t have to be someone’s daughter or sister to deserve basic respect.

If you have men you care about and they’re messing up, talk to them. Understand what’s going on. But hold them accountable.

Don’t shrug off bad behavior and say “Well, what can you do? That’s just him.”

It can be something as simple as, “Hey man, that’s not cool. Why would you say that?” to try to get them to realize their mistake.

Have some standards for the men in your life. Have standards for yourself. Live your life in a way that shows other men what it means to be a good father. To be a good husband. To be a good man.

One of my good friends, who is also a father of three, is a great example of what being a man is. He’s the most loving father and husband I’ve been around. He’s been with his wife since high school and they are raising three kids that are kind, respectful, and loving.

He treats everyone, including people he doesn’t know, with respect and his full attention.

He inspires me to be a better man.

Accountability doesn’t mean writing a man off. Most guys who mess up aren’t beyond help. They’re surrounded by men who say nothing.

We know what the men around us are doing. We always have. The only question is whether we keep letting them.

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Every time I felt extremely anxious, I felt alone, scared, and broken.

I remember going to class my freshman year of college after my first panic attack, scared to death I'd have another one.

I’d walk to class thinking, “Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I be normal?”

I’d see students walking by looking like they had no cares in the world. And here I was, brutally self-aware, monitoring every twitch, twinge, or pang for signs that the devil of anxiety, the panic attack, was coming back.

At the time, there was absolutely nothing good about what I was going through. I thought I was damaged goods. Weak. Emasculated.

I was completely alone with it, trapped in my own mind and body. I couldn’t let anybody else know about this. What would they think of me?

Well, I can tell you now what I know to be true.

The pain and suffering I went through with anxiety, depression, and alcohol abuse have ultimately been a gift because they have connected me to the human experience more than anything else has.

The compassion and empathy I possess for others come from knowing what it’s like to feel alone while struggling with things that felt outside of my control.

I’ve felt the sheer terror of thinking there was something wrong with me and that my life would be forever ruined.

These experiences have made me human in a way that all the other experiences in my life have not.

I had a beautiful, healing moment in therapy last year where I realized that I was actually grateful for my anxiety.

I had spent 20+ years vilifying it, running from it, and trying to push it deep down and hoping it didn’t pop back up.

What I realized was that my experience with anxiety has allowed me to connect with other human beings on a much deeper level. It also allowed me to connect with myself in a way I hadn’t been able.

One of my favorite things to see is the shift in a person when they realize that they can be vulnerable and honest with me (and oftentimes, themselves).

I can look someone in the eyes and show them my metaphorical scars and show them it doesn’t make me any less than. Hell, I’m proud to have been through what I’ve been through.

So many of us have spent years, decades even, hiding who we are and what we’ve been through.

There is nothing more human than connecting with another to let them know they’re not alone. That I see them. That their experience is valid. And that they’re not broken or doomed.

Part of my healing has been coming to terms with who I am and what I’ve been through. Therapy has been really helpful here.

And another part has been giving a voice to that voiceless 18-year-old kid who felt like he was destined to live a small, sad life that nobody could ever understand.

Or that confused 28-year-old who thought alcohol would keep the anxiety down while he tried to live a bigger life.

Or that hurt 31-year-old who helplessly watched his father die and lost all hope in some sort of higher power.

My healing started when I could look back and feel an immense gratitude for my journey.

It’s certainly not over. I still have anxiety. I still struggle with loneliness, fear, rumination, and a hundred other things.

But I’ve finally given myself permission to be a human being. And that has dramatically improved my ability to navigate these challenges.

What's one experience you went through that you'd now call a gift, even if it didn't feel that way at the time?

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When I started out with my sobriety journey, it was because I had hit rock bottom with my drinking.

I was binging on the weekends, only 1-2 times per week, but drinking enough each time that it would cause blackouts.

I felt terrible afterwards. My anxiety would skyrocket the next few days. I would feel ashamed of myself for blacking out yet again.

I would get fed up. I’d tell myself I was done drinking, done feeling this way, but I refused to actually make the final decision.

It was very difficult for me to finally tell myself, “I will never take another drink again.”

I’ve learned a lot through my sobriety journey and today, as I’m writing this, is my 7-year anniversary of getting sober.

I’d like to share some reflections from my life that have come with time and distance.

1. If you want to stop drinking, you have to change your identity

It wasn’t enough for me to just not drink. I couldn’t stop drinking until I finally convinced myself I’d had my last drink.

I had to change my mental model of who I was, especially in social situations. I would tell myself over and over, “I don’t drink. I’m a sober person.”

I really had to convince myself. Otherwise, the second you walk into a social situation with alcohol, boom, “Well, I can just have one.”

Nope. Sorry, Andy. You don’t drink at all.

You’ll never drink again.

It’s not an option.

2. There isn’t a drunk night that’s worth the next day hangxiety

I’ve had some really fun nights drinking. Nights that I still talk about with my friends.

But none of those nights have been worth the hangover and anxiety that inevitably comes the next day. I’ve had plenty of panic attacks the day after drinking heavily. It was never worth it.

And most of the time, I was alone to deal with them myself.

I had fun in a lot of social settings with people, but those people were never there the next day to help me deal with the aftermath of anxiety, panic, and depression.

3. You don’t have to drink every day to be a problem drinker

I used the fact that I didn’t drink all that often, once or twice a week, as a way to tell myself I didn’t have a problem.

Except only drinking once or twice a week was still severely affecting my health, my decision-making, and my relationships.

I became a version of myself I didn’t want to be, especially the next day. I couldn’t show up for people because I was busy in my hangxiety spiral.

One of the questions you get asked by doctors or therapists when evaluating your drinking is, “Does drinking alcohol ever cause you to miss important events, appointments, call in sick for work, etc.?”

If it does, that means it potentially could be a problem. It certainly was for me.

4. Getting sober means figuring out who you really are

I didn’t spend a lot of time figuring myself out in my 20s and early 30s.

I had a very hedonistic view on how I would spend my time, chasing excitement and burying the anxiety.

I really didn’t understand what I liked to do and I had very few hobbies outside of playing sports, watching sports, and drinking. And I could marry those hobbies together by drinking and watching sports!

I had a girlfriend that once told me my drinking wouldn’t stop because “there will always be a game.”

She was right. There was always a game on to use as an excuse to go drink at a bar.

The real work happens when you stop drinking and have much more time on your hands. How will you spend your time now?

5. You will lose “friends” when you stop drinking

This is inevitable.

We all have friends that like to drink. But real friends are the ones that support your decision and still want to hang out when you’re not drinking.

As I mentioned before, there is always a game, an event, an excuse to drink.

Which friends still invite you to hang out and which ones stop inviting you at all?

I had a few acquaintances fall off when I stopped drinking because we only ever hung out on the weekends when it was time to go out to bars.

That’s totally fine. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people.

You just outgrew the relationship.

6. You’ll need to get comfortable with explaining why you don’t drink

We live in a society that is very nosy. With reality TV so ubiquitous, we want to know everyone’s business.

We also live in a culture that is very alcohol-centric.

The toughest part for me when I stopped drinking was denying drinks and then having people question me about why.

I have a theory about why people are so aghast when others don’t drink around them. I think it turns you into a mirror for them to become aware of their own drinking.

It puts the focus on them. In an effort to turn the focus off of them, they want to know why you are breaking the social norms and not drinking.

I’ve tested a number of ways of telling people I don’t drink, and the ones that leave the door open for interpretation, like “I just don’t drink” or “I’m not drinking right now” always lead to more questions. Always.

The quickest way I’ve found to get someone to leave me alone is to be honest and tell them I’m an alcoholic. I also like to think it teaches them a lesson about asking someone deeply personal questions in situations they probably shouldn’t.

I have no problem making it awkward to make a point if a person really will not leave me alone.

You might not be comfortable doing that and that’s totally fine too. You just have to figure out what works best for you.

7. Find ways to replace the social connection you’ll lose

It took me years of sobriety to realize that I was still mourning my drinking years and I hadn’t replaced the social connection of getting together with all my friends and drinking.

I had a huge hole in my life and couldn’t identify it, let alone fill it.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but duh, Andy. I loved going out and meeting my friends and having a great time.

When I stopped drinking, I lost a lot of those types of opportunities that were focused on drinking.

I made the decision that I was still going to hang out with my friends, no matter what. Even if it was still going out to bars and sports games.

That decision won’t work for a lot of sober people because that might trigger the urge to drink.

If that’s the case, you’ll need to find other avenues to replace that social connection.

Finding people with mutual hobbies is really powerful when you’re in your 30s and older. Run groups, sports leagues, trivia nights, board game clubs. There are tons of options, and many won’t revolve around drinking. Though many of those also might.

You just have to identify your interests and find your people. And if you have friends that are willing to join with you, even better.

I’m in a golf league over the Spring and Summer months that plays once a week. Over the Winter, I belong to an indoor golf simulator practice facility, and I’m in a golf league there as well. I also volunteer with First Tee. I’m in a movie club with people at work. And I have regular dinners and calls I schedule with my friends to stay connected.

Sobriety is not something you should manage alone. Invite people into your world and watch your world expand.

As a problem drinker, my life didn’t get better until I stopped drinking.

My hope for you is that you find your why and always go towards that.

You can do it. I have no doubt.

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This is the first part of a multi-part series that will cover different regulation techniques for stress and anxiety. These will be short posts that will give you ideas for building up the tools inside your anxiety toolkit.

The first time I hummed trying to calm myself down (“ohhmmmmmmmm”), I felt like a real goofball.

I had been busy all morning working from home, hopping from meeting to meeting, and I was supposed to meet a buddy for lunch.

I was running a little late, racing to get to First Watch on time, and I noticed while I was driving just how anxious I was.

I felt like I couldn’t take a full breath.

My chest was tight.

I remember thinking, “I could just turn around and tell him I was too busy with work and reschedule.”

Right then I thought to myself, “Andy, you write about this stuff constantly. Use your tools.”

So here I am, driving down the highway in traffic humming out loud.

Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Ohhhhhmmmmmmmm. Ohhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I did this for about five minutes straight, focusing on my breath to ensure full and deep hums.

No music or any other sound playing in my car.

When I arrived, I took inventory of how I was feeling.

The tightness in my chest had been drastically reduced.

I was able to take a full, deep breath.

I felt less anxious overall, more grounded, and ready to connect with my friend.

Why Humming?

While I was driving trying to figure out how to relax myself, I thought back to some research I'd recently done on nervous system regulation.

I had read a bunch about the vagus nerve and how it was a core component of the parasympathetic nervous system (the “rest and digest” piece of the nervous system).

Humming happens in the throat, where part of the vagus system lives. And vagal activity is what tells the body it’s safe to relax.

Small studies on humming-based breathing (Bhramari pranayama in yoga) have shown it raises heart rate variability (HRV), a marker of how well your nervous system bounces back from stress.1

One thing to keep in mind: The studies are small and mostly on healthy volunteers rather than people with anxiety disorders. So, nobody has fully sorted out whether it's the vibration from humming or the long, slow exhales that brings the benefits. It quite possibly could be both.

It’s a promising signal that humming works, but it’s not been completely proven yet scientifically.

So, the next time you’re feeling stressed out or anxious, play around with slowing your breath down and humming.

(Here is a good video if you’d like to practice yourself)

If that works for you, you’ve just added another tool to your anxiety toolkit.

What are your favorite tools for managing moments of anxiety? Let me know in the comments.

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Throughout my 20s and 30s, my anxiety could come from any direction.

A new work email. A few unanswered texts to a woman. The lack of weekend plans.

I felt like I was sleepwalking through life not understanding what was important to me or what I should be doing with my life.

I inherited society’s expectations of me as a man, which were to go to college, get a good job, buy a house and car, get married, and have kids.

It often felt like I had no input into what was expected of me. And it was further reinforced all around me. Everyone I knew lived those lives.

I just never got there. I’ve never been married. I don’t have any kids.

And the absence of these things in my life continued to weigh on me because internally, I very much felt like a failure and an outcast.

What I've realized is I never actually figured out how to live. I had no read on what was real, no honest answer for what mattered, and no rule for what to do when two things I cared about were pulling in opposite directions.

I lacked a “philosophy of life.”

What is a Philosophy of Life?

A philosophy of life is your answer to what's real, what matters, and what you do when those two things collide.

It governs what I find important, how I choose to show up, and where I spend my time. Without one, I was just reactionary, chasing everything I'd been told was important.

It’s no wonder I had such existential anxiety.

I had no real concept of the world or my place in it.

I was a good person. I tried to always do the right thing. I had a good job. Master’s degree. Owned a house in a nice neighborhood and a nice car.

I was just checking off boxes from someone else’s checklist and wondering why I still felt empty.

Finding and Testing a Philosophy of Life

It took a lot of lived experience, exposure to new thoughts and ideas, and reflection to piece together my own philosophy.

And to be clear, I’m still piecing it together as I go.

But I’ve noticed that my anxiety levels have gone down the more I define my own beliefs and mental map.

I am comparing myself less to other people in my life, because I’m more focused on the things that truly matter to me.

I’ve read plenty of books on Buddhism, Existentialism, and more recently, Stoicism, and I’ve found that I have really taken to a mixture of lots of Stoicism and a little Buddhism.

As I’ve started making sense of the world and my place in it, I’ve been able to test out these philosophies of life when I’ve needed them most.

Did it help me, or make things worse? Did it comfort me, or make me shut down? That's how I started testing what I actually believed.

From Buddhism, I've really latched onto the idea of non-attachment: that a lot of my suffering came from clinging to how I wanted things to be, instead of letting go of what I couldn't have.

This has been helpful when I’ve found myself in pain, like dealing with a very difficult breakup.

I can reduce my suffering if I can recognize my active role in it and move to take responsibility.

For me, that meant no longer looking for excuses to keep grasping on to a person or a belief.

From my breakup, it looked like finally trying to accept that this person I was deeply in love with did not want to work things out with me.

Instead of wishing and praying that she would change her mind, or that fate would bring us back together, I've really needed to tell myself it was over and she's not coming back.

Thinking wasn't helping me. It was actually hurting me. It was causing me immense pain because I refused to accept the reality of the situation.

From Stoicism, I’ve learned to focus on only the things I can control. This doesn’t mean I have a high success rate doing this. And I still find myself getting anxious about many things far outside my control.

But like anything, living out a philosophy of life takes practice. The more awareness I have, the more I can recognize what is and is not within my control.

I really try to focus on this with golf. I’m competitive with myself and have high expectations. I often find myself mad when my ball takes an unlucky bounce on the course.

I’ve been learning to accept that many things that happen on a golf course, just like in life, are outside of my control.

I’ve hit amazing shots that have hit the pin and bounced off the green. I’ve also hit terrible shots that bounced off a tree and kicked back into the fairway.

Sometimes, I just have to laugh at my good or bad luck.

As I age, my philosophy of life continues to evolve. It’ll evolve until the day I die.

Especially in tough times, it has helped me to keep moving when my natural inclination would be to get stuck.

I still have a lot of room to grow. But I have a strong base now to grow from.

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I’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey twice already in the movie theater.

This movie has affected me at such a deep level that I think about it daily and share new interpretations of it with my friend.

One thing that keeps pulling me back more than anything else is the meaning behind Odysseus’s journey back to his home of Ithaca after his role in the massacre of Troy.

He was the person who came up with the idea to use the Trojan Horse to sneak into the impenetrable Troy and end the decade-long war.

In classic mythology, Odysseus does not feel guilty for coming up with this idea, nor for the massacre that happens after.

However, in Christopher Nolan’s version, Odysseus is plagued by massive guilt as he realizes that his idea broke Zeus’s Law (“xenia”), the sacred ancient Greek code of hospitality and guest-friendship, and led to anarchy, death, and destruction.

His journey back to Ithaca takes 10 years. He stops at island after island, in search of food and supplies, witnessing all sorts of pain and pleasure along the way.

He’s forced to confront the man he turned into during the war.

He has to contend with the guilt he carries, the temptation to forget what he’s done, and the loss of the man he used to be.

This journey is a powerful metaphor that can help us reflect on our own lives.

Are you happy with who you’ve become? Do you truly live your life with the morals and values you hold so dear? Are you treating people the way you’d want to be treated?

If you would’ve asked Odysseus if he was a good man before the war, he would’ve said “Yes.”

After? I don’t believe he’d give the same answer, not after who he had to become during war.

This led me to wonder what my wars have been. What events in my life have knocked me off course?

Anxiety and alcoholism have been my wars, and I’ve emerged from them as different versions of myself.

Anxiety made me feel like less of a man, so I leaned into familiar masculine tropes like “suck it up” and “don’t show emotion.”

When I was suffering a panic attack, I would be alone in my mind, scared to death, and calling myself weak for it.

Alcohol made me feel like I could be somebody else, but the further I got away from who I was, the worse I felt about myself.

I had a failed relationship in my 20s because of alcohol and who it turned me into. Mean, unhappy, and aggressive.

That’s not who I am nor who I want to be. But in those drunk moments, it was who I was.

The journey to self-awareness can be scary.

We come face-to-face with all the versions of ourselves we’re disappointed in, scared of, disgusted and tormented by.

The question I have is, what is your Odyssey?

What are the quiet things inside of you that are just loud enough to not ignore?

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Most of the time when I’ve felt anxiety and panic symptoms arise in my body, I tried to bottle it all up.

The feeling of my heartbeat starting to race, my palms starting to sweat, and my body starting to flush was a clear signal that a panic attack was coming on.

And all I could do was sit there, still, waiting for it to overtake me and telling myself I wasn’t going to be ok.

It Starts with Awareness

I’ve always been overly sensitive to and aware of what is going on in my body. I immediately notice a twinge in my side or a flutter in my chest.

As someone with a history of anxiety, this generally hasn’t been great for me because I immediately assign meaning to whatever that sensation is.

And I learned that certain sensations mean I’m only going to get more anxious and feel less safe.

So trust me when I say I understand that awareness can be a double-edged sword.

But what I’ve found helpful is to become aware with curiosity and non-judgment of whatever the sensation is.

“Oh, I just felt my heart skip a beat and flutter for a few seconds.”

Often, just calling out what’s happening is enough to calm me down, because it’s happened so many times now where a skipped heartbeat hasn’t led to anything worse.

But, in the times when that skipped heartbeat (or whatever sensation it is) starts to lead to more intense sensations, I need to become aware almost as if I’m a third-party observer.

“Heart skipped a beat. Body is starting to feel flush. Arms feel a bit numb. Forehead is starting to sweat.”

In the past, I would sit still wherever I was and try to white-knuckle it. This was for two reasons:

1. If I was in public, I didn’t want anybody else to know what I was going through so I wouldn’t be judged or thought less of (welcome to how my man brain thinks).

2. I thought that if I could think hard enough and use mental tricks like telling myself I’m safe and a panic attack can’t hurt me, it would stop the symptoms (and it never did).

Now, once I recognize these symptoms as escalating, I instead work to discharge them through movement.

The Lion and The Zebra

It’s a good time to remind ourselves that we’re all animals.

We aren’t the only species on the planet that experiences stress and anxiety.

Let’s take the zebra, for instance.

On the African plains, when a zebra is chased by a lion, it goes through fight or flight very similarly to how we do. Its body produces stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that push into the muscles to power its getaway.

If it’s lucky enough to get away, once it’s in safety, it will shake its entire body to release the built-up adrenaline and reset its nervous system.

Obviously, we aren’t zebras. But we’re both mammals with similar systems and similar stress responses.

Emily Nagoski, author of the book Burnout, has used this lion and zebra example to explain how humans are wired similarly and we can also learn to discharge the stress and anxiety from our bodies.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Anxiety is often energy in our bodies that gets stuck.

If my body is going to discharge energy somehow, I’d rather it be through methods I’m choosing than have my body choose one for me.

How We Can Discharge This Energy

Often, I’m sitting on my couch when these symptoms arise, completely safe with zero predators around me.

As these symptoms arise, I’ve learned to release that energy that’s being built up, and that’s where short, intense exercise comes in1.

Anything that allows your heart rate to keep rising works, like running, cycling, pushups, jumping jacks, or simply shaking your entire body as hard as you can for a minute or two.

What I’ve found works best for me is intensely shaking my arms and legs.

Yes, I’m sure it looks very weird from afar, but most often, my anxiety manifests when I’m alone at home. The only judgment I’ll feel is from my dog and I can live with that.

If you’re someone that gets these symptoms in public places, you don’t need to go so big with it.

You might simply shake your hands like they’re sore from something. Or find the nearest restroom and go wild.

I’ve noticed that when I move my body in response to these symptoms, they almost always ease.

Plus, I feel like I have more agency over my body and the process. I’m no longer trying to white-knuckle the experience while trying to convince myself I’m safe and this is temporary.

So, the next time panic starts building in your body, don’t fight it with your mind.

Release all that energy through movement. Shake, do jumping jacks, sprint in place, whatever helps you burn off that excess energy.

If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Thank you so much for reading.

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I’m sitting in my therapist’s office and she wants to work on somatically feeling and then naming emotions, an area I haven’t had much experience with.

Andy, I want you to imagine a big thought bubble just popped out of the side of your head. In it, I want you to place one thing: an idea, a person, an event, a place.

Now imagine that thought bubble with that thing inside moves above your head.

It bursts and makes its way through your entire body.

Let it wash all the way down, thinking specifically about that thing in the bubble.

Now scan your body from head to toe. Are you feeling anything? Where in your body?

“I feel a little tight in my chest. My stomach sort of feels like it has butterflies.”

Ok, good. What emotions are coming up?

“Ummm, I’m feeling anxious. A little hurt. A little sad. Still confused, maybe.”

Ok. Good job, Andy. What do you think these emotions mean in relation to [the thing]?

We went on to discuss this and then ran through a couple other examples so I could get the hang of it.

The goal was to allow me to get out of my head, where the rumination happens, and to get into my body to make sense of what I was feeling.

This exercise is really meant to help me build more trust in myself, but it got me thinking about how it relates to anxiety.

Often when anxiety symptoms would arise in my body, I would feel the sensation, like my heart pounding or my palms starting to sweat. But I couldn’t take a quick step back to label what was actually building up in my system.

I couldn’t name the anxiety and fear.

I went from “Oh crap, I can feel my heart starting to quicken and my palms starting to sweat” to “I am not safe and something bad is happening” in a split second.

I just didn't feel safe enough in my body to take that quick pause and feel what was happening before naming it.

Avoid It or Drink Through It

Pausing to feel the sensations in my body and then naming the emotions that are coming up has been powerful.

Somewhere along my panic attack journey, I lost the ability to truly understand what was happening in my body.

All I knew was I wanted to avoid anything that caused those symptoms of panic to arise.

Which, as someone with social anxiety, meant either avoiding certain events and activities or doing them if I could drink alcohol.

I never learned that the anxiety and panic I had wasn’t trying to kill me. It was simply trying to protect me. And therefore, I never learned how to sit with the discomfort.

That’s where naming comes in.

What Naming Actually Does

Research suggests that naming the fear and anxiety in the moment actually reduces your body’s stress response.

A study by Kircanski, Lieberman, and Craske in 20121 focused on people with spider phobia, and it has been seen as evidence for the benefits of “affect labeling” (naming your emotions like fear and anxiety in response to a stressor—in this case, the spider).

The people in the study who said out loud what they were feeling showed a calmer physiological stress response a week later, even facing a different spider in a different room. And the more they named what they felt, the bigger that effect.

My personal experience has shown me that the more I’m able to feel the sensations in my body and name the emotions coming up, the more in control I feel.

I don’t fear sensations in my body at the same level I once did.

A physical sensation like my heart skipping a beat used to send me into a tailspin.

Now I can simply notice it, name it as fear or anxiety, and breathe into it for a few moments until the sensations pass.

No need to panic.

If It Does Get Worse

Of course, there is always the potential for a full-blown panic attack. I haven’t had one in a long time at this point, but it’s always there in the back of my mind.

The other piece of this is knowing what to do should it get worse. And I’ve written about this before (see below).

I’ve built up a panic attack toolbox with exercises I can do to calm back down, along with people I can call to talk.

But just knowing that toolbox is there takes some of the fear out of the moment while I'm figuring out what's actually going on in my body.

How I’m Moving Forward

I still make sure that I have a note on my phone with options from my toolbox in case things get much worse.

Twenty years ago, I wasn’t able to pause and name what was happening. I was busy trying to avoid these sensations at all costs.

Now I let them come, name them, and let them pass.

What do you do when anxiety shows up in your body? I’d love to hear how you handle it.

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Lately, I’ve realized that I struggle to sit alone in silence without some kind of external stimulation.

I can’t exactly describe it, but it feels like a force is constantly pulling me to grab my phone, turn on the TV, play a podcast, or flip through a magazine.

I notice it’s strongest with social media apps on my phone. When I’m bored on the couch,with a show or movie on the TV, I’ll pick up my phone and open Instagram and scroll.

After five minutes, I’m done. I’ll put my phone down. But then a minute later, I get this feeling that I need to pick my phone back up and check Instagram again.

Of course, nothing happened. I saw no important information. It didn’t make me feel any better about myself (probably worse actually).

I’ve recognized this is a problem, but I’ve still struggled with building up any capacity to be alone with my thoughts and not have some kind of external stimulation going on around me.

I know I’m not alone. I’ve heard from many people that have similar feelings. But it got me thinking, why is it so hard these days to sit in silence and be with our thoughts?

I’m Not Alone

If you’ve read this far, I’m not sure you need any proof that this is a challenge. You’ve most likely felt this as well.

But let’s talk quickly about a University of Virginia study1 that showed just how far people are willing to go to not sit alone in boredom with their thoughts.

In the study, people were left alone for 15 minutes without any kind of stimulation, just their thoughts. Except, they were given the option to shock themselves.

So, sit alone and do nothing and think. Or sit alone and shock yourself lightly.

Here are some interesting statistics from the study:

• 67% of men and 25% of women shocked themselves at least once

• Of the people that shocked themselves, the average was 1.47 shocks

• One outlier shocked himself 190 times

The authors’ conclusions, while not definitive, were that people prefer any kind of stimulation over non-stimulation, even if it’s negative.

From Silence to Gutter Anxiety

This study aligns with what I’ve experienced in my own life when I’ve become aware of my habits.

It’s uncomfortable for me to sit and do nothing, especially when I’m bored.

My brain and inner dialogue are very active, meaning sitting alone with no external stimulation means I’m inviting my brain to run wild, which has been a scary proposition throughout my life.

I have a history of anxious thoughts and ruminations, which means that empty space typically is where my brain might decide to latch onto negative thoughts and away I go.

Let me give you an example.

I was sitting on the deck reading a book and took a brief break to just sit and be still.

I noticed that part of my gutter is starting to fall off. It looks like a nail might be missing that attaches it to the side of my house.

I then started thinking about how much that was going to cost to fix, what would happen if there was a heavy rain storm before I fixed it and it made even more damage, how much that would then cost, who could even do the work, why I struggle so much doing my own home maintenance, and eventually I felt bad about myself, was stressed about what was needed and how much it would cost, and I chose to completely ignore it all instead. (It’s still falling off)

Experience has taught me that sitting alone with my thoughts can be unsafe and/or uncomfortable. And the UVA study seems to confirm I’m not alone.

So if silence is where my brain goes to spiral about gutters, what else is it capable of doing in there?

What the Silence Is Actually Doing

There's a part of the brain called the Default Mode Network (DMN) that comes online only when we're not preoccupied with outside stimulation.

It gets activated when we are daydreaming and its activity is tied to our creativity.

However, many of us struggle to actually bring the DMN online as we go from external stimulation to external stimulation the entire time we’re awake.

Hell, I sometimes even go to bed with the TV on just to have some background noise to focus on instead of what is going through my head.

But I'd venture to say we're missing out on something.

If DMN activity is tied to creativity and daydreaming, and we never let it come online, we're probably limiting our abilities. And I'd also guess we're missing out on opportunities to build up our discomfort tolerance.

How I’m Building Resilience

Over the last few weeks, I've started experimenting with a couple things to build up more inner resilience.

Walking Without Headphones

I’ve started to take my daily walks with my dog without headphones, meaning I’m no longer listening to music or podcasts as I walk her.

It was pretty awkward and uncomfortable at first, feeling like I didn’t know what to do or think about. And this is typically where I get myself into trouble with rumination by letting my mind run wild and not having the ability to reel it in.

If I notice my thoughts drifting into anxiety or rumination, I can now steer it back to focus on the sensations of walking, with my feet hitting the pavement. And then I come up with a topic I want to think about, like what I’m grateful for or some ideas for the next app I want to build.

Sitting Alone in Silence

This has proven to be the tougher exercise for me.

At least when you’re walking, you can observe everything around you, like the trees, the squirrels, the clouds, and the people.

Sitting alone on the couch or the deck has much fewer stimuli for me to interact with, which, duh, is kind of the point.

I’ve started to run a timer, starting with three minutes, where I sit alone in silence and just think. I put my phone face down and out of arm’s reach and don’t let myself move.

I’ve noticed time goes by pretty slow to start, but the more I do it, the quicker it feels. My next threshold is five minutes. And I’ll keep increasing from there.

Still Uncomfortable

Once I started down this path, I’ve found it easier to spend time with myself. The discomfort isn’t totally gone, but I’ve been building up an inner capacity to be alone with my thoughts and feel comfortable.

It's going to take continued work, especially with the TV and my phone still sitting right there, waiting. But I'd rather build the capacity than keep avoiding the discomfort altogether.

Did you notice yourself in any of this? And how comfortable do you feel being alone with your own thoughts? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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Yesterday was our nation’s 250th anniversary of our independence and I celebrated by going to a Reds game.

The patriotism of this day has always struck me as a defining characteristic of what it means to be American.

At the end of the day, we’re all Americans.

I’ve struggled with feeling very disconnected from our country with the increasingly polarized nature of our politics and hard-lined government.

I can’t control any of that. I can’t fix Washington and I definitely can’t fix social media.

What I’ve realized in my last few years, throughout all the personal growth and healing, is that the only thing I actually have control over is me.

Let me explain.

I interact with the world entirely through myself. Every person I talk with, every task I complete, every deed I do flows through me.

My interactions leave ripple effects on the world based on how regulated I am.

Back when I was drinking, I was highly dysregulated. The day after drinking I struggled to hold conversations, leave my house, and generally show up for the people in my life.

I wasn’t dependable.

If I did show up, I would show up as a poor version of myself with a short temper and an even shorter ability to carry a conversation.

I had zero control over my nervous system and I was probably dysregulating others’ nervous systems through my interactions.

These days, my nervous system is well-regulated. I show up as authentically myself with other people. And my purpose, which I know is to help others, is not just possible, it’s inevitable.

We can’t truly help others unless we’ve helped ourselves first.

As I was at the Reds game thinking about the dichotomy of celebrating our nation together for one day, while hearing everybody yell at each other seemingly every other day, I realized just how dysregulated we are as a society.

And it was further evidence that my focus needs to remain on myself, because when I focus on myself, I have the power to change the world.

Every interaction I have can change someone’s perspective, no matter how small.

If I am able to keep an open heart, I might inspire someone else to do the same. If I am able to be more authentic and vulnerable, that gives somebody else permission to do the same.

Can you imagine if every single one of us made these incremental changes in our life, how that would compound over time?

To me, getting my anxiety and apathy under control is a sign of love to myself, but it’s also a sign of love to the world.

I deserve to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. If I can do it for myself, and share my journey, that shows others it’s possible too.

My journey of self discovery has given me insights into every other person I interact with in the world. I understand you more by understanding myself more.

But it starts with me.

So if I want to continue to help people, I have to continue to help myself. I deserve it.

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On nice mornings and evenings, I like to spend time on my back deck with my dog, Greta.

In the morning, I usually write my daily journal entry.

At night, I’ll read a book or watch the Cincinnati Reds game on my laptop, all while Greta does stuff like this:

I’ve noticed a trend. Sitting outside relaxes me. I feel more grounded. I feel like I can breathe deeper. The world moves a little slower.

I’ve never stopped to think about this, although I have read plenty of times that being in nature is healthy for us.

Sure, a lot of things are healthy for us. How can you keep track of it all?

It wasn’t until, ironically, I was sitting on my deck one night and saw an Instagram post about the benefits of “forest bathing” that I started to get really curious.

How in the world would spending time in nature amongst the plants and trees actually make us feel better?

As one does now, I naturally turned to my AI minions to inquire about the legitimacy of what I’d read in the IG post.

And shockingly enough, there is hard science behind the benefits.

Trees give off essential oils called phytoncides. It’s part of how they defend themselves against bacteria and insects.

Turns out, when we breathe them in, our bodies respond too.

Research from Dr. Qing Li at Nippon Medical School1 found that phytoncide exposure lowers cortisol (the stress hormone) and blood pressure. It also increases the body’s production of Natural Killer cells, the ones responsible for hunting down virus-infected and tumor cells.

There are very similar benefits for dogs as well.

What?

As I was reading summaries of the research, it got me thinking about how I spend my time. The vast majority of it is spent indoors in artificial lighting, breathing stale air and looking at the blue light of TVs, phones, and laptop screens.

I made a decision that night on the deck that I’m going to spend more time outside amongst the trees.

They’re another tool in my mental health toolkit, even if I’m not quite at the hugging phase yet.

A few nights later, I was back on the couch, stressed about something, and caught myself wondering if I’d actually followed through. Had I been outside at all that day?

I hadn’t.

So I grabbed my laptop and went and sat on the deck instead.

Greta followed me out, like she always does, and got comfortable in about four seconds.

She figured this out a long time before I read an Instagram post about it.

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“I don’t feel like I have experienced joy in a very long time.”

This is what I told my therapist a month ago in a session and kind of caught myself by surprise.

I’ve been mentally well—my nervous system feels regulated, I’m continuing to experience a wider range of emotions on a much lower dose of my antidepressant, and I’ve developed a deep sense of understanding myself that has made me feel more whole than I’ve ever felt.

But that pesky joy! It felt elusive.

She asked me what things provided me a sense of joy and I was so dumbfounded that I had to ask her to define joy and what it can feel like.

She brought out a chart and I felt like a little kid trying to learn what an emotion was.

“Andy, when was the last time you felt this way?”

All I could think of in the moment was when I spent time with my niece playing. The outside world didn’t matter. I wasn’t worried about external factors like how I looked or who was watching. I just felt deeply engaged with this angelic (but sometimes devilish) being that shared my last name.

We decided we’d work on cultivating more joy in my life, which I was excited about. But I left feeling like I hadn’t gotten to the bottom of my lack of joy.

I was stuck in traffic on the way home and it hit me. The last time I truly felt consistent joy was when I was drunk, surrounded by friends, with endless possibilities in the moment.

I emailed her while I was in a gridlock:

Alcohol was the most exciting thing in my life. It always seemed to allow me to turn off my brain and have so much fun with my friends. I never liked drinking alone because it made me sad, but I would legit look forward to going out with my buddies and drinking. It energized me.

Some of the best moments of my life have been while drinking with others: concerts on the beach, day drinking at college and playing drinking games, etc.

I realized I was addicted to the feeling of being a different person.

Alcohol gave me the confidence to become someone else, if only for some time.

I became easy-spirited, confident, spontaneous, outgoing, and secure. I didn’t feel the loneliness of never having felt deeply loved by a significant other. I didn’t feel pessimistic about my future.

I could go flirt with that beautiful girl at the bar. Or make friends with those guys who thought I was hilarious and wanted to hang out again soon.

I felt ALIVE.

I could step into this character at any moment and turn into Don Draper with the charisma and charm.

Add in the connection and camaraderie of drinking with friends and I felt unstoppable.

And then my ability to switch characters ended, cold turkey when I got sober.

Add in my friends moving into a different phase of their lives with marriage and kids, and I lost the ability to experience joy in the way I knew how.

Each year, I was congratulated for staying sober another year. But I also continued to lose the confidence in myself to cultivate joy and excitement.

Sober, amazing. Joy? Not so much.

That’s why sobriety to me has felt…meh. Boring. Bland. It’s just been whatever.

I never realized how important alcohol was to my ability to improve myself. In a screwed up way, alcohol was my first foray into self improvement, which by now you know is very important to me.

Give me a few drinks and I was who I wanted to be.

So what do I do with this knowledge now?

In full transparency, I’m still figuring this out.

My first step has been realizing that alcohol only brought out the parts of me that were already there but hiding behind the barriers I’d created.

I already possessed all of these abilities. Alcohol just made it easier to call them forward.

I don't know yet what it looks like to call them forward sober. I'm still figuring that out.

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I’m standing over a 130-yard shot into the green on a tough Par 5. To stay in the playoffs and move on to the next hole, I need to stick this shot pretty close for my partner to have a chance to sink the putt.

All eyes are on me.

Thirty golf carts are surrounding the green as people watch the playoffs of the member-guest golf tournament I was playing in with my friend.

My heart is beating out my chest.

A brief mental image of me chunking the shot 10 yards crosses my mind.

I take a few deep breaths using the psychological exhale I’ve learned as a tool for anxiety.

I step up. Flush the shot. It lands within 10 feet of the pin and stops on a dime.

Golf claps.

I exhale and fist pound my buddy.

Whew.

We came in fourth out of roughly 40 teams, and there were a number of moments like this throughout the weekend.

Once I got home late each night after the dinner and socializing, I noticed my brain was quiet.

All that rumination about my ex-girlfriend, all that stress about upcoming work tasks, all that loneliness that tends to creep into my bones on the weekend nights, it was silent.

The day after the tournament was over, I spent some time thinking at a coffee shop while I tried to come up with the next post idea.

I was having trouble because I typically write about topics freshly on my mind—some new tool I learned for anxiety, some new mindset shift from therapy, some experience that showed me a valuable lesson.

Instead, my mind was quiet after spending three days fully engrossed in this tournament.

And then it hit me: flow state.

I was in the flow state these last few days, so engaged in the tournament that I lost track of time and almost everything else.

When I’m in a flow state, the stress and anxiety from my daily life seem to melt away.

Depending on the topic I’m writing about, I can also get into flow when I’m writing.

If I want to get out of my head, I need to build more flow into my life.

This morning, the rumination is back. It always comes back. But now I know what quiets it. And I’m going to be more intentional about making space for it.

What activities get you into a flow state? And what does that feel like to you? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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I grew up with every possible need met.

I had parents that deeply loved me and provided for me.

I grew up in an affluent suburb in Ohio with a great school district and a high marriage rate.

I was surrounded by people that loved their families, had good jobs, and cared about the wellbeing of others.

I didn’t have a single issue growing up outside of the low grade anxiety I felt on a daily basis.

The downside to my idyllic childhood was not learning how to truly trust myself and my ability to deal with challenges.

I always had loving parents nearby to catch me. I was always surrounded with good friends who kept me busy and grounded.

When I went off to college at 18, no matter that it was only 15 minutes up the road from my family, I was extremely unprepared mentally.

I knew nobody. It felt like I no longer had that safety net I was so accustomed to.

My mom and dad weren’t there to make dinner and do my laundry and make sure I went to bed at a decent time.

I’m slightly embarrassed to say that freshman year, I called my mom on the phone and asked her how to do laundry because I’d never cared to listen when she had described it to me numerous times before. My dirty clothes went into a hamper and they magically showed up in my room a day or two later clean and folded. (Thank you, Mom. I love you!)

Later on in my 20s, when I was feeling invincible like most at that age, I created habits in my life like drinking that gave me a sense of the things that were missing in my life—excitement, an absence of anxiety and worry, and spontaneity.

And when my drinking got bad enough, I was unwilling to talk about it with anyone lest that mean I have a problem and I can’t handle it on my own.

I’ve always tried to fix my own problems because I thought that was what being a man was.

The truth was, I was partially correct. And also way off base.

I’ve learned two important lessons over the years and they seem contradictory at first:

1. You cannot fix all your problems yourself

2. Nobody will fix your problems for you

I was incapable of solving my toughest challenges myself. I’ve needed family, friends, significant others, and medical professionals to help me navigate my anxiety and sobriety.

I work closely with my doctor on my health. I go to therapy twice a month. I go to a hot yoga studio three times a week. Without these, I shudder to think at what my life would look like.

I couldn't make meaningful progress by myself. The self-made man is a story we tell. It's not how any of us actually get anywhere.

The other lesson is that nobody will solve your problems for you.

This requires you to have the self-awareness of your challenges, but also choose to take active steps to addressing them.

Once I got into my upper 30s, I looked around and realized I felt empty. I couldn’t feel anything. I felt numb.

My relationships hadn’t worked out. Yet all my friends and family were in relationships and seemed to be doing well.

I remember sitting alone at home, truly feeling the loneliness and wondering why me? Why can’t I drink like my friends? Why can’t I be in a loving, secure relationship? Why am I still terrified of panic attacks?

I just remember not having a single answer that I believed. I was dumbfounded. That’s when I realized nobody was coming to save me. It was just me and these things I couldn’t fix alone.

The truth was, I had never been tested that way before. Growing up with every need met meant my mind was never sharpened by real hardship. There was always a safety net. So I kept expecting one, even when it was no longer there.

Life doesn’t work that way. Nor should it.

These challenges were mine and mine alone. But that didn’t mean I had to go it alone.

My life didn’t get better until I asked for help. I built a team around me that included my doctor and my therapist.

They didn’t save me. But they enabled me to save myself.

Who’s on your team?

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I used to be terrified of my body.

After I had my first panic attack at 18 seemingly out of the blue, I learned I couldn’t trust my body.

How else could I explain being fine one minute and the next feeling like my body was attacking me, sending a three-alarm fire surging through it with deadly intent?

I became anxious about anxiety. I became panicky about having a panic attack.

I remember going to class in college terrified of having a panic attack. What would people think of me? Would I pass out and embarrass myself? Would people think I was a wimp?

The Old Anxiety Frame

After the first few deeply traumatic panic attacks, I became a victim of my own nervous system. The only thing I was sure of was that all this panic and anxiety was coming from the outside and it was here to hurt me.

I vividly remember a few of the panic attacks I’ve had alone at home where all of a sudden, my heart started beating out of my chest, I started feeling flushed and sweaty, and my mind told me something was terribly wrong.

My mind has always been how I’ve defined myself (my “Self”). My thoughts were me. However, the anxiety and panic were always happening to me from some external force I couldn’t control. Even if that external force appeared to be very much inside of me.

When I would feel the wave of anxiety and panic rush over me, I’d think “Oh shit, here we go again” and I’d immediately feel out of control and deeply unsafe.

Death was at the door, except I was perfectly healthy according to my doctor.

Worse yet, it often felt like it wasn’t a real thing. After all, I’d been to the doctor and emergency room where they told me nothing serious was wrong with me.

Are you sure? Why is my body trying to kill me?

Believe me when I say, I understand just how debilitating and terrifying anxiety can be, especially when you feel like you have zero control over it.

A Healthier Reframe around Anxiety & Panic

I have a much better relationship with my anxiety today.

It certainly didn’t happen overnight.

It’s taken me almost two years of therapy and personal growth to reframe my relationship with anxiety and panic.

It started with this question:

For someone that’s really been through it, that can almost be a slap in the face. I know because this was my reaction:

What do you mean it’s trying to help me? You have no idea what I’ve been through. Or how terrible I’ve felt. Or what it’s caused me to do and not do in my life.

That’s a pretty normal reaction in my opinion when you’ve really been through it. And if you’re currently going through it, this reframe isn’t going to land right now.

Come back when you feel more emotionally regulated.

Working Through the Reframe

What exactly does it mean for my anxiety and panic to instead try to help me?

Here's what I had to understand first: your nervous system wasn't built for this world.

It developed when real predators existed and the alarm system that kept your ancestors alive is still hardwired into you.

It just can't distinguish between a genuine threat and the anxiety of sitting in a meeting you don't want to be in.

Your alarm system is simply trying to protect you.

Every symptom you’re experiencing with anxiety—the shakiness, the feeling “off,” the racing heart, the terror or feeling of losing control, all of it—is simply your body trying to protect you.

How would that change your anxiety if you shifted your mindset from your body attacking and hurting you to wanting to protect you?

It certainly doesn’t make it go away, especially as you’re first working through this reframe.

But shifting from a mindset of “happening to me” versus “happening for me” was very powerful.

I learned to do two things: thank my nervous system for trying to protect me, and personify it so I could work with it directly.

The second part is where my real growth has come from.

How I Work with My Anxious Alarm System

I’ve mentioned my love of Internal Family Systems (IFS) before.

It’s been quite profound for developing a better relationship with myself and stepping into a real leadership role for myself.

I’ve identified this anxious alarm system as the 18-year-old boy that had his first panic attack. And is constantly monitoring every situation looking for the slightest hint of anxiety and panic symptoms.

He’s stuck at that age, in those deeply scary and unsettling situations, feeling alone and terrified.

Now, when I feel that twinge of anxiety in my body, as a skipped heartbeat, or a flush of heat across my body, I can take a step back realizing this younger part of me is active and he’s shouting,

EMERGENCY! WE NEED HELP! WE ARE NOT OK!

I first thank him for always trying to protect us. His love for us runs so deep that he has taken on this role 24/7/365.

Thank you so much for always being there to protect us. And thank you for alerting me now that we’re feeling this anxiety. I can feel it, too.

But what comes next is where I step into my new self leadership role. I am 40 years old. I have been doing the hard, internal work for years now. I know how to regulate my nervous system and have tools should things get worse.

I remind him of the work I’ve done, ask him to trust me, and let me handle it.

You’ve done your job and alerted me. Really good work. I’m letting you know that we are safe right now. And remember, I’m 40 years old and have done a lot of hard work for us. I know how to handle this situation. I am more than capable. I will keep us safe.

From my experience, my anxiety typically lowers. Why is this?

My prevailing theory aligns with the purpose of IFS. I feel like I have agency again in my life.

Anxiety isn’t happening to me. It’s happening for me.

I can have a racing heartbeat and be totally fine. My hands can shake and my muscles spasm and I can still go about my day.

Stepping into a leadership role for myself has allowed me to work with my alarm system to listen, but decide whether to panic. Instead of jumping to panic at the first physical symptom.

And if worst comes to worst, if I’m having a panic attack that’s a 13/10, I still have the agency to get myself help.

It Takes Practice

This shift didn’t happen for me overnight, but it becomes muscle memory.

The more I practiced stepping into that leadership role, the more agency I felt when anxiety showed up.

And it all started with one reframe: my anxiety isn't happening to me. It's happening for me.

I choose to listen to my alarm system. But I don’t have to choose to agree.

What has been a meaningful shift for you with your anxiety? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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I turned 40 years old this past Wednesday, which is a big milestone.

It typically garners lots of introspection:

• “Am I where I want to be in life?”

• “Doing what I want to be doing?”

• “With the person I want to be with?”

• “Am I happy?”

Turning 40 wasn’t quite as dramatic for me because I’ve had a head start asking myself these questions.

I’ve had multiple mid-life crises before I reached 40. Once when my Dad died. And a long, painful one when a relationship ended.

I’ve spent some time reflecting on my life, especially hard-fought lessons I’ve learned over the last few years.

Here's what the last decade has actually taught me.

Lesson 1: Your Body Tells You The Whole Time

We’re not taught what stress and anxiety feels like in our body, especially as kids.

What we are taught is how to mask everything. How to numb.

“Hard day at work? Have a cocktail!”

“Feeling stressed? Go binge Netflix and have a pint of ice cream.”

It took me until I was 38 to realize my body had been trying to tell me something the whole time. It wasn’t there to hurt me. It was telling me when I was living out of alignment with who I actually was.

For me, the solution wasn't to numb it away. It was to dive inward and understand where that anxiety was coming from.

It came from deep fears like not being enough, being abandoned, not being lovable, and not having mattered in this world.

That’s the work I’ve done in therapy that has changed my life.

My therapist has helped me to identify core beliefs that are flat wrong, and to build more accurate and positive core beliefs, like I matter because I’m human, not because I’ve achieved anything of substance.

Lesson 2: Intimate Relationships Are Mirrors for Your Inner Child Work

Nobody can trigger you quite like your partner.

As I mentioned in Lesson 1, we all have core beliefs that are built from deep fears. These live under the surface in our subconscious and we often don’t know they exist.

Understanding your relationship patterns is important to identifying and then working through these fears.

I have a lonely boy part inside of me that was severely triggered when my last relationship ended. This fear of abandonment and loneliness caused my inner critic to pick me apart, making me feel unworthy, unchosen, and hopeless in finding another partner I was so madly in love with.

I’ve gone through most of my life single and I’ve often felt like women never wanted to really know the true me. They were only attracted to my external factors that weren’t really who I was.

Because of that, I’ve not had many women that have fully seen me and loved all of my parts.

In past relationships, I’ve always been the avoidant partner who learned to shut down and dismiss because that’s how I’ve seen most men in my life act. And it was much easier for my anxiety to run away than sit in the fire and talk through hard things.

For the first time in my life, I'm learning to actually sit in the fire instead of running from it.

Lesson 3: We All Get Healthy Masculinity Wrong

Neither men nor women fully understand healthy masculinity. And it's not entirely our fault.

The version of masculinity that has been sold to us is a lie. Us men want to be the big, gruff, movie hero types that are ass kickers. Think John Rambo (Rambo) or John McClane (Die Hard).

Men learn that women are attracted to these types and women learn that these types will keep them safe.

These characters embody the essence of toxic masculinity and it’s worth calling out that we don’t live inside a movie. We live in reality, where we have responsibilities, needs, and wants.

John McClane is divorced—a bad husband and father. A functioning alcoholic. An asshole that pisses off almost everybody he comes into contact with.

This is who we want our men to be?

Many of us men are constrained by what we think society expects of us: be strong, be stoic, avoid vulnerability and deep connection, etc.. And so we refuse to change.

It’s time we all recognize what healthy masculinity is and support that version: Men that show up for women consistently, respectfully, protectively, and supportively are the men that are good husbands, good fathers, and good community members.

Lesson 4: The Habits Were Never the Point

I used to think that healing my nervous system from the anxiety I was running from was strictly about the practices I was doing.

If I do enough hot yoga, or meditation, or journaling, or this or that, my nervous system gets healed and I have no more anxiety.

Part of this can be true. These practices all help to lower my baseline level of stress and anxiety. That’s certainly been helpful in my everyday life.

However, I was just hoping doing enough things would change my life.

What I realized was these habits were part of a larger journey where I learned to show up for myself.

I learned that I can control so much more of my life than I thought. I wake up every morning now and do the work because I've learned I'm worth showing up for.

The habits were there to help me lower my regular stress and anxiety. But building a better relationship with myself was the real work.

Finally

None of this came easy.

Sobriety, therapy, my continued journey with antidepressants, learning to actually feel things again. It’s been a long road to get to 40 feeling like myself.

But I’d take this version of 40 over any earlier version of me.

Whatever age you’re at, the work is worth it.

What’s one thing you’d tell your younger self? I’d love to hear from you. Leave it in the comments.

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As a technology nerd, I always enjoy learning and testing out the latest products and apps.

Never in my life has the technology improved so dramatically as with artificial intelligence in the past two years.

It’s been shocking to say the least.

The turning point for me was earlier this year. I built a fully functioning iOS app from scratch using AI, with no previous app development or coding experience.

I can use it every day on my iPhone!

Granted, it took me many hours of configuring everything to work in Apple’s app ecosystem and lots of testing. But, the sheer ability for me, somebody who’s never created an app before, to build a professional-looking journal app in days is truly astounding.

If someone with zero coding experience can build a functioning iOS app in a few days, you can probably guess where this is all heading.

Regardless of how you feel about AI, it’s not going away.

The top AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have too much capital behind them to slow down.

Many large US-based companies are actively working to incorporate AI into all facets of their business while cutting human jobs. (See: Meta, Amazon, Cisco Systems, Snap, Cloudflare, Ford/GM, Citibank, Walmart, etc.)

Are you worried? I certainly am.

Each week, I’m testing the latest AI models and seeing how advanced they are becoming. And how quickly they are evolving. And I’m reading about executives at these companies aggressively rolling out AI while posting record profits and announcing layoffs.

The sci-fi movies aren’t that far off anymore.

I have deep fears about what AI will do to our planet, humanity, society and the job market, not to mention our individual roles.

The more I use agentic AI tools, the more I’m realizing they are rapidly learning how to replicate the knowledge work I do, from building presentations and reports to automating actual complex workflows.

I know I’m not the only one experiencing this existential anxiety.

How do we make sense of something this big, and figure out what, if anything, we can actually do about it?

Let’s Name the Fears

There are levels to these fears:

1. The macro level fear: The world is changing more rapidly than it ever has in ways I can’t control or stop.

2. The micro level fear: What does this all mean for me specifically—for my job, my income, my relevance, and my happiness?

These fears both combine for an existential angst I’ve been feeling for a while now.

It’s a deeply unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach coming from the fact that I’m not sure what jobs will look like in two years. Or five years. Let alone in 10 years.

The only thing I am confident in at this point is that AI isn’t going away.

So what are we supposed to do? How do we not lose ourselves to constant anxiety worrying about the future?

The Macro Fear—Stop Resisting It

Anxiety has taught me this over and over: the things I resist hardest are the things that cause me the most suffering.

The solution has been to stop focusing on things outside my control.

The cat is out of the bag with AI. There is far too much money that has been poured into AI for it to slow down now.

And neither can any of us individually stop it.

Sure, we can fight to keep data centers out of our neighborhoods (and we should). And we can vote for people who align with our views on how AI should shape our future (and we should).

But I cannot single-handedly stop OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others from continuing the AI arms race.

At least for me, I’ve accepted this is happening.

And while that doesn’t completely end my existential anxiety, it does allow me to choose to focus on what I can control.

The Micro Fear—The Fork in the Road

As I see it, there are two main options for us right now:

• Path A: You can choose to upskill around AI with the knowledge and skills that companies will be requiring moving forward, OR

• Path B: You can choose an AI-resilient path in skilled trades like HVAC, plumbing, electricians, barbers, physical therapists, etc. that require a physical presence, judgment calls, and human trust that can’t be replicated anytime soon.

Regardless of the path you choose, the important thing to realize is you have agency to make that decision for yourself.

I’ve already made my decision. I’ve been continuing down Path A for over a year now.

Practically, that's meant getting comfortable with tools I dismissed a year ago. Specifically for my day job, I use AI to draft, research, and automate parts of my workflows that used to take hours. I built that iOS app not just because it was interesting, but because I wanted to understand what these tools could actually do — and what they'd mean for someone like me.

The more I use them, the less they feel like a threat and the more they feel like leverage I actually have.

You might instead choose Path B. Choosing a field for its AI resilience is its own form of agency.

I've noticed for years that once I make a decision and start moving, the anxiety quiets down. Choosing to upskill myself with AI has been no different.

It’s not up to me to solve AI for humanity.

I just need to continue to improve my knowledge and ability, which is a much smaller, less anxiety-inducing task.

Bringing It Back to Anxiety

At the end of the day, this post isn’t just about technology. It’s about sharpening your mindset to reduce anxiety.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers when it comes to AI.

I still often wonder if I’m doing enough. And if the skills I’m building will even matter in five years.

What I have is the decision I’ve made, and the small sense of agency that comes with it. On the days the anxiety takes over, I can remind myself I’m doing what I can. And that’s enough for me.

What are you doing about it? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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For most of my adult life, I thought therapy was for people who couldn’t figure things out on their own.

I decided to start working with a therapist because I wanted to get my anxiety under control as I was tapering off an antidepressant I’d been on for 20 years.

I really was just looking for tools and tricks to help me as anxiety might come up throughout the process.

I also specifically chose a woman as my therapist so that I could practice being vulnerable and opening up to someone of the opposite sex. This has always been a challenge for me, because I’ve always equated vulnerability with weakness. And I knew that women were not attracted to weak men.

Turns out, sitting across from a woman and saying the hard things out loud was exactly the practice I needed.

And I learned quickly that my expectations didn’t match with reality once I got started.

What I Expected vs. What I Found

What I realized once I started therapy was that my anxiety went deeper than I imagined.

I thought everyday life stress was the driver of my anxiety and so I was looking for a few quick fixes. Easy, right?

What I found once I started the work was that to truly deal with the anxiety, I needed to turn inward and understand my inner world.

What causes me to feel anxious? What existential fears did I have? What core beliefs did I have that just aren’t true but I still believe?

My inner world was full of parts I didn’t even know existed.

My therapist has helped me to reveal these parts, understand their deep-seated beliefs, and teach me how to start working with them so they feel seen and at ease.

The Map & The Compass

Therapy gave me a mental map for my inner world, helping me connect the dots between my thoughts, my feelings, and my actions.

And then it gave me a compass to better navigate my life towards my true North Star, helping me to steer back in the right direction even when circumstances might occasionally cause me to get lost.

It’s helped me to really show up as the person I actually want to be, leading myself in ways I’ve not been able to in the past.

My self-talk is much more positive. I’m more compassionate with myself. When anxiety spikes, I can drop into my body and figure out what is actually scared — and talk to it.

This would’ve never been possible if I continued to try to figure everything out on my own.

What I Wish I Would’ve Known Before Starting

Not all therapists are the same — and neither are their approaches

Before I found my current therapist, I worked with two others in the past who didn’t really help me. Both leaned heavily on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which just didn’t resonate with me.

I didn’t know then that the modality and the person matter as much as the decision to go. A bad fit doesn’t mean therapy doesn’t work. It might just mean that therapist didn’t work for you.

You will probably go in thinking one thing is the problem

I went in for anxiety management tools. What I found was that the anxiety was a symptom of something much deeper. Go in with an open mind about what might actually come up. It’s probably not what you expect.

The first few sessions might feel like nothing is happening

Building trust with a therapist takes time. I left my first couple of sessions thinking, “When do we make progress?” That’s normal. The breakthroughs don’t come until the relationship has some foundation under it.

Discomfort in a session usually means you’re close to something important

When a topic makes you want to change the subject or you feel physically uncomfortable, that’s not a reason to back off.

In my experience, that’s usually exactly where the useful stuff is.

What I Was Wrong About

I spent years thinking I didn’t need therapy. I thought I could figure it out on my own. I thought needing help was weakness.

I was wrong on all three counts.

The work can be uncomfortable. But for the first time in my adult life, I feel like I actually know myself. And I know how to find my way back when I get lost.

I spent years thinking I could figure everything out alone. Turns out, I just needed the right person in the room.

If you’ve been on the fence about therapy, drop your questions in the comments. I can answer from my experience.

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I used to be embarrassed to admit this, but making friends as an adult has been really hard for me.

Yesterday, I golfed with a guy I didn’t know existed up until four months ago. We met at the indoor golf simulator club I belong to over the Winter.

We played in the same Winter League there and on the final weekend, he and his partner were paired up with me and mine.

We started talking about where he regularly golfs and he mentioned he was single, no kids, and likes to golf at some of the popular public courses around here I love.

My antennas went up.

I’m always looking for people to golf with and here we were, serendipitously meeting each other over our favorite activity.

It’s not always that easy.

The Problem With Making Friends in Your 30s

I’ve always had friends since I can remember. I played sports throughout my life, which gave me a strong base of guys I could make connections with.

And from there, there was school, the neighborhood, and then summer jobs. These were all rich opportunities to make friends.

When we are younger, we’re always in environments that foster opportunities to make friends. We don’t even have much say in the matter.

Once you become an adult, these opportunities started to dwindle.

This was even more true when I got sober.

I was no longer out at bars meeting people with my social lubricant flowing through my veins.

My 30s have become my loneliest decade by far and I don’t believe I’m alone in this. There’s a certain sadness that takes root when you realize your days of making fast friends in the schoolyard are over.

We fall into our routines, get stubborn about testing our edges, and fall into patterns that cause us to shut down.

I’ve found myself thinking many times, “I’ve always had friends. I shouldn’t need to make more friends.”

The last few years of my 30s have proven me wrong.

It’s not easy to hang out with my friends anymore. Most are married with kids. They need at least 28 business days’ notice to plan anything.

I’ve realized that I don’t have a lot of friends that are in a similar season as me.

And that’s a very humbling thing to feel.

Especially as a man, we do not like the vulnerability of opening up to a stranger.

I’ve written before about covert depression in men, which turns men inwards, focusing on unhealthy coping mechanisms like overworking, numbing behaviors, seclusion, and the like.

I’ve been here. We don’t reach out. We don’t initiate. We don’t ask for help. We keep everything surface-level.

But feeling this loneliness in your 30s is natural as the structures in your life break down and your friends go separate ways.

It’s simply time to build new structures.

Start With What You Already Love

I really enjoy golf, hot yoga and wellness-related stuff, and writing, just to name a few things.

I’ve made a few friends already just through being a member at the indoor golf simulator club I belong to over the winter.

I wanted to play in the Winter League there but didn’t have a partner, so I asked my buddy that works there if he had any ideas. He found me a partner who I’ve since become friends with and we’ll be playing in his Summer golf tournament at his country club in June.

It took a lot for me to actually ask my friend for a partner because a big part of me was trying to convince myself it wasn’t worth it. I could just keep practicing by myself.

I’m glad I pushed through.

Just Say Something

This is a silly one, but especially for me as an introvert, it can feel quite daunting to spark up a conversation.

I am always very aware of awkwardness, so the last thing I want to do is make an interaction awkward for someone else. Or make myself feel super awkward.

That often causes me to not say anything at all and just keep it moving. How many cool people have I missed out on meeting because I was too worried about being weird?

I still have to talk myself into it most of the time. But I’m continuing to press forward despite the fear of being judged or creating an awkward interaction.

An example of this was when I went to the baseball game by myself a few weekends ago. The old Andy would’ve sat in the stands scared to look around or talk to anyone lest they notice me there by myself.

Instead, I struck up an awesome conversation with the guy next to me who was manually keeping score of the game. I got to learn more about him. And we connected through the wonderful game of baseball.

All I had to do was be willing to ask him why he was doing it manually.

Someone Has to Go First

This is where I’ve struggled the most historically. Meeting someone face-to-face is one thing, but then texting or calling them later to ask them to do something? For me, that can feel needy. (Yes, I know now it’s not!)

When I met the guy I golfed with yesterday during Winter League, the course he mentioned he liked to play was one of my favorites. So I suggested we should play it sometime. And we exchanged numbers.

Now, whenever we’re looking for a person to golf with, we text each other to see if the other can play.

If either of us weren’t willing to initiate, it would’ve gone nowhere.

It takes some vulnerability, because I could always be ignored or shut down. Each time you practice this, it gets easier. The connection you build gives you more confidence that more of your people are out there.

As I was golfing yesterday, I thought about how cool it was to be golfing with this guy I had just met a few months before.

Four months ago he was a stranger. Yesterday we played 18 holes. Funny how that works.

What are some hobbies or activities you’ve made friends through? Let me know in the comments.

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