Anxiety Files

Simple and powerful techniques for coping with anxiety and worry.

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

October 19, 2009

Afraid of Being Rejected?

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

August 7, 2009

Time Urgency and Anxiety: The Seventh Step for the Final Week

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".

July 13, 2009

Practicing Your Obsessions: The Boredom Cure

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.

July 10, 2009

Having a New Relationship to Your Obsessions: Welcome to the Guest House

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.

July 6, 2009

Overcoming Your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

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

June 19, 2009

How Do Obsessive Compulsive People Think?

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

June 8, 2009

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?

June 1, 2009

Those Damn Unwanted Thoughts!

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.

May 13, 2009

Listen to a Lecture on How to Handle Your Worries

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.

May 11, 2009

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.

Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before They Unravel You

The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You

Anxiety Basics

From normal butterflies-in-the-stomach to clinically diagnosable conditions such as Panic Disorder, anxiety motivates some people but paralyzes others.

Go to the Anxiety Basics page for more on Anxiety including:

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