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
- Interoceptive exposurePractising the sensations you are afraid of.
- What kind of anxiety is this?Twelve questions that sort panic from worry from social from OCD.
- The avoidance mapList what you have stopped doing. See the shape of it, and where to start.
- Therapy cost estimatorA realistic course of CBT, with and without insurance.
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.