Guides
Guides to anxiety, without the jargon.
What a panic attack is doing, why avoidance grows the thing it protects you from, and which treatments actually have evidence behind them. Free to read, no account, nothing sold.
Tools
Start here
- When anxiety becomes a disorderThe line is not how bad it feels. It is how much the avoidance has taken.
- The types of anxiety, told apartGAD, panic, social, phobia, health. Different treatments, so the label matters.
- Does online therapy work for anxiety?What the research says, and the one presentation where in-person still wins.
- CBT for anxietyWhat actually happens in the sessions, and why the homework is the treatment.
- Exposure therapy, explained gentlyNobody is going to throw you in the deep end. Here is how it really goes.
- ACT for anxietyWhen the goal stops being “feel less” and becomes something better.
- What anxiety therapy costsSession fees, insurance, and how long a course actually runs.
- How to find a therapist who treats anxietyFour questions for the consult call, and the answers that mean training.
- Your first sessionWhat they ask, what to bring, and why the first hour is mostly history.
Panic
- What a panic attack actually isTen minutes of a false alarm at full volume, explained from the inside.
- Panic attack or heart attack?How they differ, and why the answer is still: get checked the first time.
- The fear of fearAfter the first panic attack, the real problem becomes the second one.
- How the world gets smallerAgoraphobia rarely starts with open spaces. It starts with one cancelled plan.
- Practising the sensations on purposeThe strangest-sounding treatment in this book, and the one that ends panic.
- Waking up in a panicNocturnal panic attacks, and why they are not nightmares.
Worry
- Generalized anxiety disorderWorry about everything, which means worry about nothing in particular.
- Intolerance of uncertaintyThe engine under chronic worry, and the only thing that turns it down.
- Worry timeA technique that sounds absurd, works well, and takes about two weeks.
- CatastrophizingRunning the film to the worst ending, and how to stop at frame two.
- OverthinkingWhy it feels like preparation and functions like avoidance.
- Asking for reassuranceThe relief that lasts four minutes and makes tomorrow worse.
Social anxiety
- Social anxietyNot shyness. The conviction that you are being evaluated and failing.
- Blushing, sweating, shakingWhen the visible symptom becomes the thing you fear most.
- Public speakingThe most common fear there is, and the shortest treatment on this site.
- The two-hour replay after a partyPost-event processing, and why it keeps social anxiety alive.
- Dating with social anxietyApps, first dates, and the exposure hiding inside both.
- Social anxiety at workMeetings, cameras, small talk, and the career it quietly costs.
The body
- Anxiety in the bodyChest, stomach, jaw, hands. What each one is, physiologically.
- Anxiety and sleepThe three-in-the-morning wake-up, and why CBT-I beats sleep hygiene.
- CaffeineThe dose that matters, the half-life nobody accounts for, and how to test it.
- Alcohol and the next-day dreadWhy two drinks buys an evening and charges you for the morning.
- ExerciseWhat the evidence supports, at what dose, and why the racing heart helps.
- Breathing techniques, honestlyThey work, and they can become a compulsion. How to tell which yours is.
- Before you call it anxietyThyroid, heart, hormones, medication side effects. What to rule out first.
- After the emergency room told you it was anxietyBeing sent home with nothing wrong, and what to do next.
Anxiety and the rest of life
- Health anxietySymptom checking, doctor shopping, and the reassurance trap.
- “High-functioning” anxietyNot a diagnosis, a real experience, and why competence delays treatment for years.
- Anxiety at workSunday night, the inbox, the review, and what accommodations exist.
- Driving anxietyFreeways, bridges, and tunnels — a phobia with a clear treatment path.
- Fear of flyingWhat the noises are, and a treatment that fits inside a few weeks.
- Anxious parentingHow worry gets passed down, and the small changes that stop the transfer.
- The news and the phoneDoomscrolling as avoidance, and a rule that survives contact with reality.
- Anxiety and ADHDWhich came first, why stimulants complicate it, and how clinicians untangle them.
- Medication for anxietySSRIs, the benzodiazepine problem, and how medication pairs with therapy.