Anxiety Files

Simple and powerful techniques for coping with anxiety and worry.

by Robert L. Leahy

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Proven Effectiveness

A recent ill-informed attack on cognitive behavioral therapy characterizes this approach in simplistic and misleading terms. Our patients deserve treatments that work—treatments that have empirical support. CBT is that treatment. Read More

The Dangers of Optimism

Just think positively and everything will turn out the way you want. This is the premise behind the book, The Secret, which advertises itself as “Everything is possible, nothing is impossible”. How wonderful to know that we can count on the power of our thinking to change the laws of nature. Read More

Understanding Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder affects about 3 % of the population and can have devastating effects. What you should know and what your therapist should know about bipolar disorder.

You are sitting at home alone, no one to share your Christmas spirit with. All alone, you wonder what is wrong with you. " What can you do to make the Holidays better? Read More

Are You a Hypochondriac?

Do you ask for reassurance, continually feel worried about your health, or google diseases and symptoms that you think you might have. You may be suffering from hypochondriasis. Why do you do this and what can you do to change? Read More

How to Support Someone Who Is Unemployed: Seven Steps to Making a Difference

Many of us have family and friends going through the difficulties of unemployment. You can make a difference. Here are seven things to do to give support. Read More

Unemployed and Ruminating: Seven Steps to Turning it Around

You are out of work and find yourself sitting around dwelling about how bad things are. You are stuck in the rumination trap. Here are seven simple things to do today to turn it around and take back your life. Read More

It Can Happen Again: Not Listening to Failure or How to Lose Your House

Some people are buying bigger and better houses, betting on a return to a rising real-estate market. Well, it makes sense to worry sometimes and now is a good time to use some of that pessimism to protect yourself. Read More

Why Thought Stopping Doesn’t Work

Some therapists still recommend a technique called "thought stopping". This is quite unfortunate since thought-stopping leads to thought rebounding. Learn why yelling at yourself to stop having a thought will only make matters worse. Read More

When Self-Criticism is True: Turn Self-Criticism into Self-Correction

Sometimes people lose their job for good reasons---and it's really their fault. How can you deal with this reality without sinking into rumination, guilt, and excessive self-criticism?

The Shame of Unemployment

Millions of people are out of work and many of them feel a sense of shame and personal failure. How can you look at this so that you don't isolate yourself and feel humiliated? Read More

The Worst Advice for a Worrier

If you are worrier, then you've probably heard this before: "I believe in you," "Try to get your mind off of it," and "Just STOP WORRYING!" And all of this bad advice has been useless. Let's see why it won't work. Read More

Make an Appointment with Your Worries

Wherever you are, whatever time of day---you worry. Because you respond to your intrusive thought with repetitive thoughts about how to handle the thought, you never quite get away from your worry. What can you do? Read More

Are You a Crackberry? How to Break free from Addictive Checking

Are you addicted to your Blackberry? If so, here are some simple tips to free yourself.

Anxiety: Who Can You Trust?

We are faced with a decline of trust in all institutions---from government, to banks, to marriage to business. Friends and intimate relationships seem more uncertain, less stable, less trustworthy. All of this contributes to our worry and anxiety. Read More

Misunderstanding Evolutionary Theory

There are some common misunderstandings of evolutionary theory that seem to suggest that learning is never important or that evolution implies that everyone would have the trait. Let's examine these misunderstandings and see if fear and preparedness make sense. Read More

How to Think More Like a Cat… and Overcome Your Worries

Cats have not evolved in over ten million years. That's because they got the design right--and they don't worry. If you could think more like a cat, you might be less anxious. Find out how Read More

Social Anxiety: How to Be a Better Monkey

If you have social anxiety you may be giving out the wrong message--and not even know it. Think of how a warm-heated monkey might communicate and try to be a better monkey. You will make more friends. Read More

Stop Procrastinating: What to do and when to do it

You've been procrastinating for a long time--and nothing gets done. Work piles up, you are filled with regrets, you feel overwhelmed. Let's start a simple program to help you overcome yourself.

Anxiety is often the result of your fear of failure or rejection. But who has been rejected? Let's take a look.

Our anxious brains were evolved to respond to a threat that was immediate. The tiger in the bush wasn't going to wait around for your ancestor to carry out probabilistic calculations about false alarms. Danger was imminent and your response-to escape-needed to be instantaneous. Reflection was the hallmark of the" soon to be eaten".

There is nothing that will turn your anxiety around like sheer boredom. Anxiety is a readiness to run away-or, if necessary, to attack. Boredom is your readiness to-well---do nothing but fall asleep. Just writing about it makes me tired.

Imagine that your mind is a house in the woods, you are all alone and there is a guest that shows up uninvited. In the past you have been irritable with guests, angry that anyone would disturb your well-earned solitude. You have yelled at visitors to "GO AWAY" so that you can be alone. But visitors seem to pass on the road where you live. They ignore your no-trespassing sign.

Rather than try to suppress your unwanted obsessive thoughts, you can learn some new ways of accepting and tolerating them. Make room for all thoughts

You have thoughts that pop into your head, you fear them, you try to suppress them, and you feel responsible for everything that can go wrong. You are not alone. OCD is not a mystery. In fact, there is some "regularity" and "rationality" to your thinking. See if you see yourself in this post" Read More

Constructive Discomfort: How to do what you really don’t want to do

If you are like a lot of us, there are a number of things that you know you should do, but you simply can't get yourself to do them.But there is a little voice in your little head that says, "I DON'T WANT TO". How can you build the mental muscle to get done what needs to be done?

Have you ever felt plagued by thoughts and images that you just couldn't stand? Perhaps it's the nagging thought, "I made a mistake" or "I think I have cancer" or "I'm going to lose control". These thoughts seem to intrude on your mind and you try to block them out.

Last October I gave a series of lectures and workshops at the University of Louisville Medical School's Depression Center. One of these talks was on how to handle your worries. I thought that some of you might find it of interest to hear this talk which is now available on-line for free.

Turning Panic Disorder on Its Head

If you have ever suffered from panic attacks then you know how terrifying they can be. Your first panic attack came out of nowhere-you suddenly found yourself shaking, trembling with fear, short of breath, feeling like you are going to collapse and then you thought that the end was coming. In my last blog on panic disorder-- Do You Have Panic Disorder?-- I described the process of developing panic disorder and agoraphobia. In this blog I will describe the steps to reversing this process so that you can live your life free from the fear of panic attacks.

Do You Have Panic Disorder?

Panic disorder and agoraphobia can be debilitating for many people. You run the risk of limiting your life if you don't get help. Fortunately, we now understand this prevalent problem and we know how to treat it effectively. Read More

Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., is the author of Anxiety Free,The Worry Cure and Beat the Blues. He is Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill-Cornell Medical School and Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy.

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