The Secret to Stopping Anxiety & Fear (That Actually Works) | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Most anxiety is a normal emotion, not a disorder

  Harvard Medical School psychologist David Rosmarin, author of Thriving with Anxiety, argues that society is over-medicalizing a normal human emotion. Treating everyday nerves as if they were clinical anxiety, he says, has made us 'allergic' to them and feeds today's anxiety epidemic. He points out that his centers have treated more than 10,000 patients and none has died from, or 'gone crazy' from, an anxiety attack, even though it can feel that way. He also notes that real harms can travel alongside anxiety, including substance misuse and self-injury.

• 02

  Fearing anxiety makes it worse

  When you read clammy hands or a nervous stomach as proof something is wrong, your adrenaline spikes and the anxiety builds on itself. Rosmarin says he spent years asking himself 'David, what's wrong with you?' on stressful days. During the COVID pandemic he realized that feeling anxious in a hard time is a sign of health. Mel describes nearly 30 years of being 'afraid of my anxiety,' trying to drink it away and outwork it.

• 03

  Anxiety has three parts: thoughts, body and behavior

  The cognitive side is worry and catastrophic stories, like 'if I wear the wrong thing on this date I'll never have another date.' The physical side is adrenaline: sweaty palms, cotton mouth, labored breathing and a sense of dread. The behavioral side is usually avoidance, sometimes checking. Mel adds a definition Rosmarin endorses: anxiety is uncertainty combined with doubting your ability to handle it.

• 04

  Nerves show that you care

  Rosmarin asks why newborns scream. A healthy baby facing light, air and noise freaks out, and a baby who doesn't is a reason to call a neurologist. In the same way, a little apprehension before a hard workday shows you are connected to the work and the people. If you felt nothing, you might be disconnected from what matters.

• 05

  The four steps: identify, share, embrace, let go

  Identify: dig down to what you truly fear instead of shutting out the symptoms. Share: talk about it with someone, telling them what you need ('just hear me out'), so it becomes connection instead of loneliness. Embrace: do the thing that makes you anxious, when you are ready and at a pace you can handle. Let go: accept what you can't control, since anxiety always revolves around control.

• 06

  Rate your anxiety from 1 to 9

  Nobody is at zero, and 10 would be catastrophic. Rosmarin calls 1 to 3 low, 4 to 6 medium and 7 to 9 high. At 7 to 9 the anxiety is usually disrupting sleep or causing avoidance, and he wants people getting therapy or medication, not relying on self-help alone. Many people function reasonably well at 4 or 5, especially during a breakup, a new baby or medical school. He warns that promising to get anxiety down to a 1 and keep it there isn't even helpful.

• 07

  Rosmarin criticizes a zero-cutoff anxiety screening

  Rosmarin describes a federally funded physician panel that recommended screening patients for anxiety at primary-care visits using the two-item GAD-2. He says he supports screening. His objection is that, as he describes it, the cutoff was set at zero, so any worry in the past two weeks could flag someone for clinical treatment. He believes this leads to overdiagnosing ordinary stress.

• 08

  Gender differences show up in how anxiety is handled

  Rosmarin says women have about twice the rate of clinical anxiety as men. He links it to women being harder on themselves for feeling anxious ('something's wrong with me'), while men tend to suppress it, which shows up as higher rates of substance and alcohol abuse. Mel mentions research she has seen suggesting that women who lose a job turn the doubt inward and take roughly a 25% pay cut in their next role, while men's salaries hold steady.

• 09

  Underneath most fears is the fear of being alone

  When Rosmarin keeps asking patients what they're afraid of, he says it usually comes down to one thing: being alone or abandoned. He knows he has reached it when they start to tear up. You don't let go of that fear. You use it to connect with other people, and you let go of the idea that you can control it.