Surprising Signs of Anxiety and How to Heal It | The Mel Robbins Podcast
- Guest
- Dr. Russell Kennedy
- Read time
- ~6 min
- Uploaded
- 13 Apr 2023
- Duration
- 1:07:37
- Views
- 153.4K
KEYPOINTS
- 01
Anxiety is framed as an 'alarm' set in childhood
Recapping part one of this two-part toolkit, Dr. Kennedy, a medical doctor and neuroscientist, argues that anxiety starts with a moment in childhood when you felt separate, unsafe, or both. The alarm was useful then, pushing a small child back toward an adult, but many people keep running it into adulthood. Any hint of separation (being judged, dumped, fired) sets it off, and the mind then piles worries on top.
- 02
Sleep hygiene helps you cope; finding the root is what heals
For listener Jason, who gets anxious at bedtime and wakes up worrying, Kennedy backs Mel's 3-2-1 routine and no blue light, because a reticular activating system kept busy by 'zombie scrolling' stays on alert. He calls those coping tools, though. The deeper question is what bedtime felt like when you were a child. His own mother, a nurse, worked 3-to-11 shifts and left him with a father whose moods were unpredictable.
- 03
Talk therapy alone often misses the body
Kennedy has nothing against cognitive therapy, but says most North American therapy ignores trauma stored in the body. Mel says it took her decades to heal because she got 'so good at talking about' her anxiety. Things changed only when she 'got below the neck', learned to sit with uncomfortable sensations, and realized she had been tackling the problem in the wrong order.
- 04
The goal is getting used to the alarm, not getting rid of it
Kennedy cites Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score): the work is not removing the alarm but learning to tolerate it, so discomfort no longer sends you compulsively into your head looking for an answer that isn't there. He links this to cold plunges. The nerve pathway that carries temperature also carries pain, and emotional and physical pain use similar brain structures, so breathing through cold is practice for staying with a hurting younger self.
- 05
'Am I safe in this moment?' brings you into the present
Anxiety is always about the future, he says, so sensation brings you back to now: a hand on your chest, a breath, an essential oil, humming. His daughter Leandra, who went through a hard stretch at 21, told him it was the single most useful tip 'Dr. Dad' ever gave her. He says healing happens only in the present moment, not while you're stuck in old trauma or future worries.
- 06
Your body's state shapes your thoughts
Kennedy's quick tool is the physiological sigh: two sniffs in, then a long, slow exhale. He says it moves you toward a parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state and breaks the feeling-thought-feeling chain. 'You will think exactly the way your body feels', which is why repeating 'I'm happy' while you feel anxious is like pushing a rock uphill.
- 07
The mind is a 'meaning-making machine' that turns body alarm into stories
Sensations travel through deep brain areas that have no words, and the left hemisphere then explains them, usually with painful stories that fit the alarm. Feel bad, and your brain hunts for a reason: the dentist appointment next week, then taxes, then the relationship. He calls this 'stacking'. Find where the alarm sits in your body and you get closer to the root.
- 08
Anxiety isn't genetic, he says, but sensitivity may be
Kennedy says no 'anxiety gene' has been found, unlike the stronger genetic links in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. What may be inherited is sensitivity. Every anxious patient he has seen is a sensitive person who needs more love, even from parents who were basically fine. Children of anxious parents can also be conditioned to pick up anxiety because they feel it in the adults.
- 09
To break the family cycle, heal the parent first
Asked by Lena how to avoid passing her father's short temper on to her kids, Kennedy says that when parents ask him to see an anxious 15-year-old, he works on the parent instead. He compares it to Cesar Millan, who trains the owner, not the dog. Once a parent leaves alarm mode, kids notice ('Mom, you seem more connected'). He says it's about the adults '99% of the time'.
- 10
Survival mode shuts down connection
In alarm, the social engagement system (eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, body language) goes offline. That helps explain social anxiety and feeling cut off from a spouse or kids. People often feel guilty and wonder if they're in the wrong relationship, when they may just be dissociated.
EXAMPLES
- 01
Panic attacks after a massage
Kennedy sometimes left his massage therapist so relaxed that he had a panic attack. As a child, relaxing was exactly when his father would slide into depression, mania or psychosis. He uses this to explain 'when it's not safe to feel safe' (chapter 62 of his book) and why patients distrust feeling better.
- 02
Children of alcoholics stay on guard
With patients raised by alcoholics, he sees a cycle of blow-up, apology and quiet, then another blow-up. The child decides it's safer never to relax and stays hypervigilant, which later shows up as poor sleep and middle-of-the-night waking.
- 03
Surprising signs a parent had anxiety
For a generation that never discussed feelings, his list is alcoholism, chronic irritability, being warm one moment and cold the next (which he calls almost worse than being consistently cold), hypervigilance, over-organizing, leaning on prescription drugs, being warmer with pets than with a spouse, and polished people-pleasing, like the mom who bakes cookies for everyone.
- 04
Years of therapy that didn't reach the root
He describes patients who have spent '$40,000 on 10 years of therapy', at around $150 an hour, and feel no better. He blames therapy that never reaches the root in the body.
- 05
A photo of your partner as a kid
Mel describes Chris as a latchkey kid locked out on game day, climbing a bee-covered trellis and punching through a glass door. When she's irritated, she pictures that fourth-grader in his blue-and-white uniform. Kennedy suggests couples keep a photo of each other at age 7 to 9, because 'that's who you're dealing with'.
OTHER RELEVANT
- 01
Night-waking routine
Put your hand where the tension is, breathe into it, ask or say 'I am safe in this moment', and let yourself feel it. Add physiological sighs. Kennedy stresses linking the feeling to the thought, since he says that's how new pathways form.
- 02
Break a rumination spiral by moving
Notice the alarm first, since he says you can sit in anxiety for hours without realizing it. Then breathe, use 5-4-3-2-1, and get moving: put your shoes on and go somewhere. Rumination has inertia, like the shutdown after Mel's friend Warren died, when Chris got her out on the water.
- 03
Coping aids, kept in perspective
Kennedy lists grounding (feeling your feet on the floor), touch, hot or cold temperature, scents like lavender or chamomile (he says smell skips the thalamus and goes straight to the emotional brain), and side-to-side eye movements, which he says lower amygdala activity. He calls all of these coping, not healing. Mel warns that much viral TikTok advice is unreliable.
- 04
Kennedy's ABC process and play
A is awareness of where the alarm sits in your body. B is body and breath. C is compassionate connection with your younger self. Look at the sensation with curiosity ('heavy, sharp, purple'). Bring back the kind of play you loved as a teen, ideally with no winner or loser, and for kids try games around the dinner table guessing feelings from faces.