Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 128: Andrea Petersen, Untangling from Anxiety

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

When author and Wall Street Journal reporter Andrea Petersen was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at age 20, she was relieved to finally have a name for the thing that had controlled most of her life to the point where she feared walking up a flight of stairs or standing in line at the store. But understanding and overcoming her anxieties was a different odyssey, one she describes in "On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety," a memoir she was inspired to write after interviewing college students about their mental health struggles. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, today we're gonna be talking exclusively about the issue of anxiety, which some of you have asked me to focus on. It's a huge problem in the country and in the world, and we have a great guest. Andrew Peterson was going to talk about it. That coughing, you hear in the background, and there will probably be a lot of coughing and clanking, and maybe even a little voice, is my three-year-old son, Alexander, who I'm lucky to have with me at the office today and I'm looking at right now and he's playing with his cars.

So as I record the podcast, then you can hear it. Before we get to the guests today, Andrew Peterson, I want to do two pieces of business and then I'm going to take your voice ma mail and then we'll get to the guest. So, first piece of business, today at ABC News, we just launched a new daily news podcast. It's called Start Here and we're in this, as you know, and I deal with it all the time. We're in this unbelievably fast news cycle and there's so much to talk about and we are looking for a way to give you a great way to start your day with a sense of what you need to know as you head into the day with all the amazing resources that we have at ABC News.

So the host is Brad Milke. He is a great guy and this show starts today. So give it a shot. The other thing I wanted to say is, as we post this, it's Wednesday. Tomorrow, Thursday, I'm doing an event in New York City at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.

And it should be really cool. Come in, you get a, if you buy a ticket, you get a book. And it'll be a small room, and so we should be able to chat. So I'm really looking forward to that. If you're in New York City tomorrow night, Thursday, come 630, New York's End Center for Contemplative Care, you can find tickets if you just Google it. And I also have posted about it on Twitter, so you can get the link there. All right, your voicemails. We're going to do two. Here's the usual caveat. I have not heard these voicemails before I start answering

the question. And I also am not a mental health care professional. Nor am I a meditation teacher. I'm just a journalist who does a reasonable amount of meditating, and I will answer these questions to the best of my ability. So here we go. here's number one. Hey Dan, my name is Lori.

I want to first say thank you so much for all your podcasts and your app and the book. You crack me up. I'm always laughing walking on the treadmill at my gym or whatever and front people and just laughing by myself. But I love your sense of humor. So my question is, I saw that you were going to have your MRI taken,

but because of your claustrophobia, you couldn't go in. So I was curious, how come your meditation, the last, what, seven or eight or nine years now, it's not helped that, could you meditate your way to be able to accomplish that without fear? Thank you for the compliment and thank you for the great question. The answer is no, I have not, I still haven't figured it out. I still have not been able to get an MRI because I'm too claustrophobic. I actually

do suspect that meditate, there are meditative techniques that would allow me to get through this. I just have not done the work. At first, the research to figure out exactly which ones might work best. For me, although I have some friends who've pointed to some stuff that I actually think looks promising, but you do have to do the work.

And I think just doing the meditation won't necessarily, there are lots of ways in which you can apply mindfulness. For example, we have a whole course on the 10% happier app about mindful eating. Even though I'm part of the producing of that course, I'm the guy doing the interviews with our expert who we use, Dr. Judd Brewer, who's an amazing guy,

the expert. I still mindlessly eat all the time. And that isn't because I'm a terrible meditator, although I may be, but I think it's just because you have to make an effort to apply the meditation in my experience. You have to make an effort to apply the meditation in the areas where you want to apply it the most. So, for me, I've spent most of my time applying the meditation on my relationships and not saying done things and also in terms of how I manage my own stress anxiety and

Depression tendencies toward depression. So I do think there's hope for me. I just need to do more work and Your question is a great reminder that it's it's time for me to do that your question is a great reminder that it's time for me to do that. If you hear a smile in my voice, it's only because I'm looking at my son who's trying to get my attention because he's playing with the cars. He's got them all lined up in a row. How many cars do you have there? You can count them. Go ahead and count them while I take this next question or just cough. All right, we'll take the next question and then we'll see if my son will answer my question. I ban my name is Shannon from Ansonitas, California. And I have been using your app daily for about a year now and meditating for a little over a year. And my question is, do you know of any resources to find a meditation teacher, a mindfulness

meditation teacher? There's all these great teachers on your app, and I love them, but most of them are out in the East or other areas of the United States, and I would love to find somewhere local and have a trustworthy resource to find that person. Thanks again and love what you're doing, bye-bye. Thank you, and that's a great question,

and so many people are in this position. You know, it just, it speaks to a need that I think perhaps I should do something about, which is that there isn't some thorough, that I'm aware of, national directory of vetted teachers all over the country. By the way, there's another need out there which is as meditation gets more popular, we're going to start to see a big problem coming into the four which is that there just aren't that many highly trained meditation teachers period. So for you, I would say it's worth, you may have already done this, but for you or anybody else in this position, I would say it's worth doing a little googling to see if there's anybody in your neck of the woods who's got some retreat if you can swing it.

And that's a great way to get FaceTime with your teacher, with A teacher. And then the final thing I'd say is there are teachers who are willing to teach remotely via Skype. So all these teachers have web pages. And what I would do is if there are teachers you like from my app or just from your own personal research, go ahead and reach out to them via their web page and ask if they'd be willing to teach you

via Skype or telephone. For example, my teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who by the way, I can't believe it's still hasn't been on this podcast and don't worry, I am on them about this. But most of our teaching other than when I'm on retreat or we're shooting something for the app together, most of our teaching is done on the phone. I just call them and we talk about my practice for a while. So for example, I know Shenzhen Young

who has been on the show and is an amazing teacher. I know he, a lot of his students just call him up. So it is possible to develop phone relationships with teachers, but it's really up to the individual teacher. So I would reach out to the ones that resonate with you. All right, so thank you for the questions. Let's bring it to our guest. Before I bring it to the guest,

Alexander, do you want to say anything into the microphone? No, he's getting shy now. We're talking, talking, for the whole time there, but now you're getting, and now he's lying curling up into a ball. Okay, Andrew, speaking of curling up into a ball, we're gonna talk about anxiety today, which is a huge subject, and so many people suffer

from it all over the country. Andrea Peterson, who's the guest today, is somebody who knows first hand what this is like. She is, she's got a really impressive CV. She's a contributing writer at the Wall Street Journal. She writes about psychology, health, and travel. She was for 18 years, a staff reporter reporter and editor at the Journal where she covered everything from telecommunications to pharmaceuticals to aging.

She then went on this big journey looking at something that was very personal to her, which is anxiety. And she wrote a book about it called On Edge. It's her first book. I learned a ton during this interview and I suspect you will too. So here she is. We're going to get to meditation because you claim you suck at it, which I am going to disabuse you of. But we'll get that in a minute. But let's talk about your book on Edge about anxiety. Just give me the background on the book, how you

came to write it, what you've gone through? Yeah, so the book is on edge, a journey through anxiety, and it is half memoir about my own very long-standing sort of 25-year tangle with serious anxiety and a deep dive into the science of anxiety. There's been, you know, obviously I have a very personal stake in this, but also as a journalist, I've been actually a health reporter for many years now for the Wall Street Journal. And I had in recent years I started writing a lot about mental health issues and realizing that there's actually a really good journalistic story here too. When you first started getting into mental health issues, did you have a kind of creeping

selfish motivation? No, I actually didn't have a think, I didn't think I was going to actually write a memoir. No, no, did you think maybe I want to investigate this because it would be useful to me? Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. Oh, yeah, I think some of the best stories often come from self-interest. Yeah. Yes, that's, I, as journalists. News and news.

Yes, news, the reporter. You can use, exactly. So, I'm sorry, I News you can use yes news the reporter You can use exactly so I'm sorry I interrupt you do I do that a lot I apologize But so you first started you started investigating mental health issues as a reporter right right right And so I was writing a lot about actually mostly about a lot about depression Which I have dealt with a bit but my my issues have actually been mostly anxiety but delving in a depression also Looking a lot about suicidal ideation as well.

And then I got really interested in adolescent mental health and I started spending time on college campuses and was really blown away actually by the energy and openness that I was seeing on college campuses. These groups like Active Ms and Judd Foundation, and stigma was really, I felt like starting to erode on these campuses and students were much more open about their mental health issues.

And that actually was really kind of the kick in the pants that I needed to actually do this. As I, here I have my own story, it's a story I know best. I've had quite an odyssey in terms of my own, figuring out what works for me. I've tried a bunch of different kinds of treatments. So I felt like now was the time that I really should kind of get due my part to help a road stigma as well.

So there was that was kind of the catalyst to sort of make me ready to kind of share that part of me. And then also just this realization that we're at a really exciting time in terms of research. You know that advances in neuroimaging and genetics are starting to really unravel some of the mysteries of the anxious brain. And new treatments are on the horizon. So there's some really, you know, it was a cool story too.

So many things I want to ask you, but let's start with you. Yeah, give me a sentence. You use the word tangle, which isn't nice word, but probably not a nice experience with with anxiety. Tell me about how it's gone. Right, so there was actually a moment that I can point to a kind of before and after when anxiety became an occupying force in my life. I was a sophomore at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and I was registering for classes and this was before you can sort of do it automatically on the web. I was actually standing looking at a wall of dot matrix printer paper detailing which classes were open for that. I'm of a certain age.

Right. Open for the next semester. And I'm standing there and I feel fine. You know, kind of groggy from a late night of studying and, you know, sort of that late Midwestern fall dread, you know, where it's the weather starting to change. And so you know that you're going to be wearing these sort of sleeping bag shaped coats for the rest of, you know, for several months later.

But it was fine. And then literally a second later, I wasn't. You know, my heart rate shot up. I started to feel short of breath. I broke out in a thin film of sweat. And I started having these strange visual changes where the words I was looking at started to dip and buckle. And I got, you know, fuzzy gray blotches before my eyes and I was just gripped with this overwhelming terror that I was about to die. And now that I know that it was a panic attack, but I had no idea what it was at the time. And so, you know, a panic attack is supposed to sort of peak and abate with about 10 minutes and I know you have experience with this as well.

But for me, actually that first episode or, was on a first episode, but that sort of severe episode landed me on my parents so far for about a month. And what felt like almost a constant panic attack? I mean, yes, my fear had sort of peaks and valleys, but it was always there. And I was pretty much kind of a mobile. And my parents took me to a doctor. They checked me out. They didn't find anything wrong physically.

But what started to launch me on this medical odyssey. And so I ended up seeing probably a dozen doctors over the next year. My main symptoms were they kind of morph, but, you know, racing heart, shortness of breath, which now sounds like, you know, classic anxiety signs, but it's actually not that atypical to be misdiagnosed initially. And, you know, I started having neurological changes too, you know, I'd have blind spots. And so doctors speculated that I had MS, that I had Epstein-Barr virus, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain tumor.

And finally, it wasn't until about a year later that I ended up in a psychiatrist's office at the University Health Service. And I basically told her I wasn't gonna leave until she helped me. I said, you have to do something. I can't live like this anymore. And she said that she could prescribe me pro-Zach

or could send me to the anxiety disorder clinic. I think they were saying Michigan Hospital. And that was the first time anyone had said the words, anxiety to me. And as soon as the word was said, you're like, oh, that's me. Yeah, I was like, well, oh, it's something. I have something that has a name and that has a treatment.

So which option did you choose? I chose, but that point, I developed so many, what now I know are avoidance behaviors and so many, like, real fears that I was barely eating. So I knew for me, I felt so physically fragile by that point, that the idea of taking a psychotropic drug just wasn't tenable for me. I felt like, the May this may sound a little bizarre, but I just felt so, I felt like my head would explode or something. I felt so vulnerable that I just didn't feel prepared to take a drug. So I decided to go to the therapy route.

And thankfully, the University of Michigan hospital had a great cognitive behavioral therapy program. And so I ended up in a group therapy program. I was the youngest by probably 10, 20 years. But it was a group of, it was all women, actually, which is now that I know that anxiety disorders tend to, and women have about twice the risk of anxiety as men do for various reasons. I did cognitive behavioral therapy.

The main sort of thrust of it is exposure, which is really not fun, but it was quite effective where I had to systematically and gradually expose myself to the very things I was afraid of. And by the time I ended up- Which you thought it? Well by the time I ended up in treatment, I had a very long list. So I had a lot of contamination fears, fears of getting sick. I was afraid to use new tubes of toothpaste because some part of my, I got, I had a lot of sort of paranoia

about, you know, that I, they maybe it was tamper. I mean, my mind would go to, you know, the cyanide scare and with Tylenol, you know, back in when I was a kid and I knew that they were irrational. I mean, this, this, so I had, my diagnosis was panic disorder with agoraphobia, but I also had a little OCD too. And so this was probably the OCD-ish part of it. I couldn't stand in lines. Basically all the places that I'd had panic symptoms, standing in line at a coffee shop, going to a movie, going to a party, all these things

that I wasn't able to do anymore, running up a flight of stairs. I was very worried about, I was getting, I was very worried about, I was convinced that there was something wrong with my heart because I was having these hard palpitations. And so, of course, my therapist had me run up a flight of stairs and then run up two flights of stairs. Basically, I had to embrace the very things that I was afraid of. And it helped. It helped.

I mean, it was very gradual. I definitely didn't. It wasn't sort of miraculous. I mean, it was painful. And it took a long time. But I eventually got to a place where I was functional. And I wasn't for a while. I mean, I had to drop down to,

I had to cut my course load in half. I didn't really see friends. I didn't go to parties. I didn't do all the things that you'd expect a college student to do. And so, and after my treatment, I was in a much better place. So you went off and became a big shout-out reporter for the Wall Street Journal, not a little known paper, not a little red paper. So you were highly functional. I wonder how it showed up in your life through the rest of adulthood. Right. So I had another relapse, my senior year of college,

where I ended up back in therapy. And it was kind of a dramatic relapse. And I ended up back on the sofa again, ended up in another sort of medical odyssey. Even though, you know, I knew from my cognitive behavioral therapy, like, you know, what anxiety can actually do to the body and how physical it can feel.

I still, you know, there's still all that, I was at seat of doubt, oh, well, maybe that this, you know, really is some, I have some horrible disorder that no one has diagnosed yet. And so, but then after, But then after I still got better, I graduated from college and I lived briefly in DC and then I moved to New York to take a job actually as a news assistant at the Wall Street Journal. So it was answering phones, fetching faxes, not very glamorous, but then writing a lot of little stories with the hopes that I would make it to be a reporter.

I was and I eventually got to that place. I was relatively healthy for about until I turned 27, then I had another relapse. It started, I had this weird, I had an ocular migraine, which I didn't know what that was, but I was walking down 7th Avenue and all of a sudden a big chunk of my vision disappeared. And I thought I was having a stroke. And I classed the arm of a stranger and I said, I can't see, can you please walk me to St. Vincent's Hospital and he walked me the few blocks.

I'm glad he didn't just shake me off, but he walked me to the ER. And my doctor told me, this is an ocular migraine, it's just a migraine that where it, and I've been to hydrated, I think I'd taken some sort of crazy spin class or something before that and hadn't drank enough water. But what happened for me was that started this another kind of spiral of worry about my health and of kind of obsessive, because that's where a lot of my, because the panic attacks are so physical and sort of this kind of hypokondrical worries about my health. So it started another kind of, it was a, I was kind of sliding into another, another

bad place. How long did that last? Well, I decided then, you know, I knew I couldn't, you know, in college, I could drop classes. I could go back and hang out with my parents so far. But here I was, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, my dream job. I had a new boyfriend, so it was in a relationship I was really excited about. I knew I couldn't press the pause button on my adult life. So that's when I decided to go for medication.

I basically said, I'm going to throw everything I can at this. I do not want to let it derail my life. And that's when I went on, actually, I tried Vizolov first. And unfortunately, I was one of the very few percentage of people that developed, I think it's parathesis, your skin feels like it's crawling. It's actually pretty horrific. I felt like I had, you know, an ant farm had basically exploded across my skin.

And unfortunately, the psychiatrist I was seeing said that, oh, no, that's actually my anxiety. And I should actually double the dose, which I did, which, that was the last dose of zooloft I ever took. But it didn't actually dissuade me. I kept, I tried, then I tried Paxilnext and that one actually worked. And it was very gradual as anyone did. So these drugs that are designed for depression work for anxiety too?

Yes, yes. Yeah, not long after SSRIs were initially approved for depression, people started studying them for anxiety too. Yes, so those tend to be, those are really the first line treatments, you know, medications for anxiety are the SSRI medications like Zolov, Prozac, Paxil, the things that we know of as antidepressants. So you went the medication route and it worked for you? Yeah, I went the medication route and I also went back into therapy too. So I kind of, like I said, I kind of try to throw whatever I could think of at it just to try to keep prevent me from, because what I know is what happened to me

is that once anxiety sort of takes hold, it just feeds on itself. And the avoidance behavior start happening. And my world literally shrinks, physically shrinks. I start avoiding things like, like I said, like the standing on line or the movies or friends. And then it just gets harder to get out of it. So where are you now with all of this? You know, I've had sort of, I mean, thankfully I've never had an episode

or relapse that's been a requirement to take a leave from work. Or, you know, actually never told any of my editors about my anxiety issues until I handed them the proposal for this book. Part of it because I was just worried about stigma. I was worried that I'd be perceived differently and that I would be maybe not necessarily that I would be punished for it or that sort of nestly that I would be fired or demoted or whatever, but more that even out of kindness and care that people, that maybe they'd be afraid,

like, oh, we don't want to give Andrea this story or don't want to, you know, that they would feel like they actually had to sort of protect me or kind of treat me with kid gloves. And I just didn't want to be perceived differently. So, so yeah, so I didn't, I didn't talk about it openly with at least with with editors. But, you know, so I have easy years and tough years, but now after so many years of dealing with it, I know what to do. I know it works for me. Cognitive behavioral therapy, medication,

or what, you know, when I'm really, when anxiety is in danger of sort of taking over my life again. But then there's also even in easy years, I have to be really careful. I have to basically do all the boring adult things that we're all supposed to do, like get enough sleep, you know, eat well, exercise. Those things are really critical for people that are prone to anxiety. I mean, there's a lot of robust research actually showing about the link between insufficient

sleep and anxiety. And actually, the parts of the brain that tend to be sort of wonky in people with anxiety, if you sleep deprived, someone who doesn't have anxiety, their brain starts to look like people who are anxious. So basically- So you're hanging around with my friends from Good Morning America? You're right. You haven't.

So it actually kind of turbocharges. It's almost like putting lighter fluid on a flyer, you know, to, yeah, that it just gets more exacerbated. And it's same with exercise, it actually seems to, I mean, there's some evidence that exercise actually can help alleviate anxiety symptoms. We remind me of a discussion I have, I told this story in my first book that my shrink was a really funny guy. I was talking to me about my anxiety, panic, depression, all that and said that you know you, he used an animal analogy to say that I really need to take care of myself, do

all the things that you just listed and get enough sleep, exercise, eat well. And I remember going back to him years later and said, remember you said I need to treat myself like a stallion and he said, no, no, no, I said thoroughbred. Five, of course, very standard. So what were you doing? Well, no, it's more just like I was ever seeing that cartoon of a kitten who looks in the mirror and sees a lion. Yeah.

So that was it was more just me and my grandiose ideas about myself. I wasn't doing anything particularly special other than, you know, trying to treat myself like a stallion slash thoroughbred, because I too suffer from all these issues. And yeah, you got to take care of yourself. And people ask me all the time, you know, well, how is it that you're so disciplined about working out or meditating? And it's not like I have great, just willpower or anything I don't. I just don't want to suffer.

Right. Right. Yeah. For me, I have that image of myself sort of on that sofa, you know, not able to move, and that I just don't ever want to go back to that place. Yeah. So it's quite motivating, you know, when I think, oh, you know, I can, I can skimp on sleep for a few days and like, oh, I mean, I really shouldn for a few days. And I really shouldn't.

It's not worth it. Yeah. Well, when I mentioned Good Morning America, but I'm always interested in the sleep habits of my colleagues from Good Morning American. And a lot of them don't, I'm thinking of Paula Ferris, my co-anchor in the weekend edition of Good Morning American.

She has three children. And I only have one. After the show, I always nap. Sometimes for two hours. And I go to bed pretty early. And she doesn't either of those things. It's not like she doesn't want to take care of herself. She just has a lot of responsibility.

And I just couldn't do what she does, or I would, I would be a mess. I have to take care of myself, or I'm a complete mess. There are a lot of, I think, technical questions that may have emerged from the last 10 minutes of you talking about your personal stories. And we just get at them because I suspect listeners will have had some of these. What is the delineation between anxiety, depression, and panic? So anxiety, you know, there's a bunch of different definitions for anxiety. The one that resonates with me the most is actually a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health told me that anxiety is anticipation of pain.

It could be physical pain, it could be emotional pain. So it's this future-oriented state, you know, what could happen. And it's different from fear, and that fear is more concrete and distinct, where anxiety is more sort of forward-looking and amorphous. You know something bad is going to happen, but you don't necessarily know when it's going to happen. You actually don't know anything. Right, right.

You're worried. You're worried that you expect that something bad is going to happen, but you don't necessarily know when it's going to happen. You actually don't know anything. Right. You're worried. You're worried that you expect that something bad is going to happen, but you don't know when, don't know exactly what it is. So, there's a lot of intolerance and uncertainty in anxiety. And anxiety is a normal human emotion. Actually, a certain amount of it is a good thing. It motivates us to study for tests, prepare for retirement, could it go to the doctor or something's feeling off, but it becomes a disorder

when it starts impairing your life. So that's really the kind of delineation between sort of normal anxiety and anxiety that needs to be addressed, as if it's basically preventing you from living your life the way you want to live it. And is a panic attack just anxiety on steroids? Well panic attack is actually, I mean panic disorder is one of the anxiety disorders. And its main sort of characteristic is panic attacks, which are these sudden intense periods of physical symptoms. And there's actually the DSM, which is sort of the Bible, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, which is sort of the Bible, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders,

which is sort of basically what psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose mental health issues. There's a bunch of different criteria for panic disorder and what a panic attack should have. Shortness of breath, chest pain, fear of going crazy or dying. There's a bunch of them, you have to have a certain number of them to meet that criteria. And they have to last, you know, that they, you've had to have them for a certain number of months and they have to sort of be distressing or interfere

with your life in some way. So it's actually kind of one of the diagnoses within a sort of the family of anxiety disorders. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownleur, we will be your resident not so expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking.

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And then how is all of this different from depression? Well, depression, I mean, well, the first thing is they often go hand in hand. Many people with anxiety often have depression, anxiety is actually usually the disorder that starts first. It's really interesting is that there's new research really looking at, you know, anxieties actually now being looked at as a developmental disorder that begins in childhood. And because it's early as sort of emerging, one of the earliest emerging mental health issues, it tends to start, it can start as early as the preschool years.

And anxious kids often can turn into depressed adults. So there's sort of a trajectory there. But a lot of people think when they think of depression, they think of it's kind of more backward looking. It's ruminating about all the ways you messed up in the past, where anxiety is about all the terrible things that are going to happen in the future. And- And-

And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And-

And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- And- question in my book. And there's some evidence that hormonal factors are in play that actually

fluctuating levels of estrogen might contribute to the increased risk. But there's also a really robust and, frankly, depressing body of research looking at the way boys and girls are raised. And the messages that boys and girls are sent. I actually delved into the research of this Canadian researcher who looked at kids on the playground and what she found was that boys were much more likely to be encouraged to be independent and to take risks and girls were much more likely to be cautioned about safety. And they actually did this experiment where they had preschoolers and their parents on this. The parents were actually teaching the preschoolers how to slide down this, you know, a pole that like you'd have in a firehouse.

And what they found is that parents were much more likely to physically assist the girls, even when the girls didn't ask for help. And even though both boys and girls were equally adept at using the playground equipment. And even when boys asked for help, the parents said no. To the point where several boys actually tumbled onto the ground. And what the thinking is is that these messages, the safety messages, actually tell girls

that the world is a dangerous place and that they can't cope on their own. And so you can see how that could fuel feelings of anxiety. You said, though, that you painted a somewhat optimistic picture about the future of anxiety as it pertains to both stigma and especially among young people. And also about meds. Can you talk about those things? Yeah, well, there's all sorts of interesting research.

I mean, there's a lot of neuroscientists that are looking at different parts of the brain and sort of how they are implicated in anxiety and also tinkering with, I mean, there's several different things. I mean, there's some of the, actually, new, they're not even necessarily new treatments, but tweaking current treatments in a way, and this is something that could happen, you know, imminently, where we're cognitive behavioral therapy.

They're actually finding that they're having people take a nap after CBT. Can you define, that was the other thing I was gonna define, because you know, that was the other thing I was going to define? How do you define behavioral therapy? It's the most evidence-based talk therapy for anxiety disorders. And the main component of it is exposure. So where you basically gradually and systematically expose yourself to the very things that you're afraid of.

And you start with the things that you're least afraid of and you kind of work your way up to sort of your emotional Everest. And for me, so if I had a, I was really worried about my big something being wrong with my heart. So, and I would get very nervous when I, you know, when my heart rate would kick up. And so for me, the exposure for that is actually running up a flight of stairs, and then running up two flights of stairs, and then running a block or whatever it is. And so what that does is it basically gives you evidence that the terrible thing that you think is gonna happen

doesn't happen. And also, the cognitive part of it is, you take that, what are you afraid of happening? So for me, you know, dropping dead of a heart attack. And then you take, you know, you basically challenge yourself. Okay, so, so what is the evidence that you have that that is actually true? Okay, for me at this time, you know, I'm, I'm 20 years old, you know, It's very unlikely that I actually have heart disease at that point. Number two, I've already had been checked out by several doctors and been told that I'm totally healthy and there's nothing wrong with my heart.

So then what's really the likelihood that I'm going to drop dead of heart attack, probably pretty slim. So those two components, the exposure and the cognitive restructuring is what they call it, are sort of the main thrust of the therapy. So you were in the middle, thank you for that. You were in the middle of talking about something having to do with a nap, though. Right. So what they're finding, because these therapies are really, really useful, but unfortunately,

about half the people who do a course of cognitive behavioral therapy don't get a lot of benefit from it. So we still have a lot of work to do. And then the other main treatment is the antidepressants, you know, the SSRIs, like prosak and paxil, and unfortunately one third of people that have like prosak and paxle, and unfortunately one third of people that have anxiety disorders don't get much relief from those drugs. So there's a lot of people that still, you know, there's basically we have a we could really use better treatments. So, you know, some people are actually, you know, finding ways to make cognitive behavioral therapy more effective. And one of the ways, or yeah, if you have you take a nap after nap after it? That actually has been found to sort of strengthen the learning that happens during therapy.

I know some researchers in UCLA, they're actually experimenting with having people take a run after because exercise actually boosts the level of a protein that helps consolidate memories. So little tweaks like that are, but then there's also like very cool sci-fi sounding stuff, like FMRI neurofeedback, which is you lie in a MRI scanner

and you actually see physical representations of your brain activity. Like sometimes it looks like that. You're not doing anxious to get in this, yeah. Well, that's the case for me. I can't believe it. I mean, that is a, you know, so there was one study that I looked at where, you know, it's people with a spider phobia.

So you'd really kind of do, so you're in the scanner and you're kind of doing exposure with, you know, you're seeing pictures of spiders and you're seeing representations of your brain activity and you're basically told to alter it and given some kind of cognitive strategies to do that. And what they found is that actually can be quite, quite helpful. And you actually are able to tinker with your own brain activity and that can alleviate symptoms. It's pretty wild. And it's often said that we're in, and I don't know if this is true, but I feel like I've heard it said that we're in something of an epidemic of anxiety among young people.

Yes, I mean, there is evidence that rates of anxiety are increasing among young people, particularly college students. The latest data I've seen found that 17% of college students have been diagnosed with or treated for an anxiety disorder in the last year and that's up from about 10% in 2008. Wow. And is that just because more people are reporting it because the stigma is going down? That's definitely part of it. Because I actually went back to my alma mater.

I went back to Michigan to try to address this very question. What is going on here? Is this really an actual, are we more anxious now than before? And particularly are young people more anxious? Or is this just a reflection of stigma? No one knows the answer for sure. It could be that there's certainly a lot of people point everything from the impact of social media to the rising cost of college and the huge loans that a lot of students have

to take out now, just economic insecurity in general as potential reasons why people might be anxious now, more anxious now. But also, there's definitely, it's definitely true. I mean, when I went back to Michigan, I was thinking in my back of my mind like how different things were than when I was there. I mean, I didn't even know account, there was a counseling center.

I mean, there was, it was just people sort of in their office doing their thing, but there was no presence on campus. Now, you go on a campus, the counseling center is so visible. I mean, I was actually at a first story. I was at Ohio State, and they had this, the counseling center had this party on one of the grassy areas in town with therapy dogs, and one of the psychiatrists was actually, it was also a Kung Fu master and was like breaking boards with students.

I mean, you know, they're really trying to make themselves accessible and approachable. And then also with, you know, with these advocacy groups, like active minds and Jed Foundation that are, that are, you know, have kind of support groups on campus as well as social media. I mean, you have this whole generation of especially young celebrities who are much more open about their mental health issues than you did before. So. Although you made a brief reference to the sort of

pernicious impact of social media as it pertains to mental health of young people, can you say more about that? Right. I mean, there is some research that has found that is particularly certain kinds of social media consumption, actually kind of passively scrolling through, you know, a Facebook, your Facebook feed, seems to increase feelings of loneliness and sadness, whereas more active, like if you're posting things all the time, actually, that seems to be less damaging

for your mental health. But I was actually talking to a lot of sort of young mental health, student mental health advocates at Michigan. And they were saying that this, everyone kind of knows that your Instagram or your Facebook feed, whatever is kind of a highlight real of your life.

But even so, especially if you're someone who is struggling with anxiety or depression, to see photos of the party that you weren't invited to, or your friend bragging about, or just, you know, crowing about their latest internship, or, you know, where they got into graduate school, and you're, you know, you're scooping ice cream for the summer, or whatever, you just, you know, you feel like what you're for the summer or whatever, you know, you feel like what you're doing is not as cool or as important as what your friends are doing. So yeah, that definitely seems to play a role too.

So now let me give you a hard time. You say, talk about what your experiences are with meditation that you get at in the book. So in the book, I definitely delved into the research, looking at, first of all, one of the, another kind of competitor to cognitive behavioral therapy is something called acceptance and commitment therapy, which is another kind of talk therapy that's very effective for anxiety.

And it incorporates a lot, incorporates a lot of mindfulness and meditation practices, along with exposure. Also, just, you know, there's a lot of research looking at meditation and mindfulness in general. Yeah, and there's also in the CBT, which is mindfulness-based CBT. Right. Right. So there's a bunch of different ones that are really, and you can understand why this makes sense. I mean, anxiety is a future oriented state. It's all about the terrible things that could happen, you know, the catastrophe that's

around the corner. So if you're able to stay in the president movement moment, it's almost like the antithesis of anxiety. So yeah, so I have tried to meditate many times and I suck at it. Same more about what do you mean when you say suck at it? Well, I just, you know, I've tried to sit and I've talked about traditional medicine, you know, sitting and focusing my breath, focusing on a mantra, and my mind just jumps all over the place, which I know is, you can't, I know you actually can't suck at meditation.

I mean, I know it's all about the practice. I know this intellectually, but I have not been able to sort of get over the hump of the sort of how uncomfortable that feeling is of sitting there and feeling like you're doing it wrong. So for me, what I've done, it's not like I've given that whole area up. For me, yoga has actually been incredibly helpful. And some people call that a moving meditation. And for me, I do feel like that grounds me in the present moment.

And especially doing a difficult yoga class. I mean, I feel like, yes, my mind has to be in the here and now because otherwise I'm going to fall over. So that is kind of the, the, the meditative practice that I use. But also I do find, I think that any, you know, I actually kind of feel like mindfulness can be seen more broadly. And that one of the practices that really grounds me in the here and now is actually baking. If I am really anxious, you will usually find me in the kitchen making chocolate chip cookies. There's something about the physicality of it, the slight mindlessness of baking, chocolate chip cookies.

It's not meditation. What? If there's slight mindlessness, it's not meditation. It may be salutary, it may be a good move, but it's not meditation. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I'm not a purist, but we should call things what they are. So I think the baking is a good sounds like a good idea and you you wear it well. It's not like you know it's become it's some sort of well I give it away. See that's even the

better part of it because well first of all I find that it's it's you know it's a sure thing like I know if I put flour and butter and sugar together, and I'm gonna end up with chocolate cookies. So in some ways, it's like the uncertainty, that sort of fuels anxiety, when I bake those cookies, I don't have that kind of uncertainty. And there's the kind of accolades you get from people when you bake something.

Well, I will always helpful. I will say that the giving away, that is a practice actually, a form of meditation. The first thing the Buddha taught people was generosity. And so there's a lot to all of the things you're doing. And I'm not here to poo poo it. But let me also say, I have a lot to say based on everything you just said, although I've one question before, I say anything. But before I do any of that, let me just issue the caveat.

I am not a meditation teacher, I am not a doctor. So anything I say to you, you should, and I give this warning to people all the time, view as in like, remember those TV ads where there's a guy performing surgery, and he says, I slept at a holiday in last night. you know, like, because therefore I can do this surgery and he's not a doctor. That's the spirit in which you should take anything I say to you.

But I will say a lot of stuff anyway. Before I say the stuff, you talked about your attempts at meditation. Were you being guided in those moments? Were you listening to an app or had you read a book with the basic instructions and were it was just you were just freelancing? I think I was just trying to do it on my own. It's good to know I think that's fine. I was excited to time around my phone. Yeah, yeah.

And you know, I... And you tried to pay attention to your breath and when you got lost, you started getting them again. Right. That's how I started and I think it's completely fine. It's not the cliche about meditation, it's simple but not easy. So the instructions are pretty really basic, but it's doing it as hard. So you're right when you say that you understand intellectually, I'm glad you said that, because a lot of people don't understand intellectually that the point of the practice is not to achieve some special thoughtless state, thought-free state. That's basically impossible.

Sometimes in deep end of the bull meditation that does happen, but from most of us, even for people who are meditating for decades, it's just a process of surfing what comes up. And when they, you know, the, there are basically three parts of the instruction and basic meditation. One is to sit comfortably, often you close your eyes. The second is to bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And the third, which most people ignore, is just when you, when you get distracted, start again.

That is not a throwaway line, because the moment you wake up from distraction is the win. That is proof that you are not doing it wrong, because why is it important? Because when you see how nuts you are, when the voice in your head offers you a terrible suggestion, some point later in the day,

usually in your case, probably something anxious, like you should be freaking out about the next deadline or whatever. You can see, oh, that is just a thought. I'm nuts, like everybody else on this planet, because evolution bequeathed us this brain that was designed for threat detection. I don't need to obey the thought. It's incredibly important to keep in mind. Now, I will say I'm a huge hypocrite.

I'm really hard on myself when I get lost in meditation and over it's only over time have I learned how to take it easy, but it is just the the most important thing to know especially for type people when you go into meditation getting lost and starting again isn't failing. That is actually succeeding. That moment of waking up needs to be reframed as the win. Oh, I'm seeing this. I'm seeing what a zoo it is in my head right now. And that is not like a theoretical exercise. This is a win of gigantic consequence, which is when you see the memental machinery,

it doesn't govern you as much. That is a form of liberation that you need to practice over and over and over again. I guess the piece where I get caught is the judgment that can happen. Of course, and then what you have to do is to make a mental note that's judgment. Right. Right. Or a very powerful mental note is doubt. I'm in this spiral of, is this worth it?

Am I wasting my time? Could I be doing something better? Am I doing it wrong? Am I hopeless? Doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, doubt, over and over. You just got a five, just went on a long meditation retreat where I was suffering from an enormous amount of doubt and I brought it to my teacher.

He's like, dude, that's just doubt. And so you just have to have a machine gun in your mind, a non-violent machine gun, that is filled with bullets that are the one syllable word doubt. And every time it comes up, it's boomed out, stop, don't need to play with this. It's just doubt. And you have to, it's like, space invaders. And again, it is incredibly valuable because your mind is pervaded by doubt all the time. And to know when it's just crippling, stifling, becoming force that just stops you from getting

done what you need to get done, the fruit of meditation, I believe, for especially for one of the main fruits of meditation for people like us, just at the beginning stages, is visibility. It's like having an intermediologist that is telling you within the storms about to make landfall and that get out of the way, let it pass, or whatever it is you need to do, don't fight it, but just let it pass. And then you're not owned by the thing. And this is so useful. That's why people with anxiety and depression, speaking as one of them, get so much out

of this thing. As for yoga or baking, I would say both great activities, not for me because I'm an addict and I can't have cookies because if I have one, I will have 75. And I talk about this in the book. I just wrote that people, one of the many excuses people give me for not meditating. And by the way, I don't care if you're meditating. I think you should meditate, but I'm not here to wag my finger until recently I lived with a woman who didn't meditate. And she started meditating not because of me. So I am not a, I don't get into proselytizing, but one of the excuses that people give me all the time,

but now I'm meditating is what I call blank is not, is my meditation. So fill in the blank. So yoga, baking, these things are my meditation. And my answer to that is maybe meditation, one definition for meditation is paying close attention to whatever's happening right now. Your yoga practice to me, again, as a guy who slept at a holiday in last night, is actually

pretty damn close. Although, because you are paying, you're doing tough move, whatever a bachak, a kastana crow pose, or whatever it is that I can't do. It takes all of your attention, and if you stop paying attention, you fall over, as you said. That is a form of meditation. I think for a lot of people, yoga though, is just like exercise that they do.

And the corpse pose at the end, we're supposed to be meditating, you're just planning what you're gonna wear that knife or dinner or what you're gonna eat. So my answer is maybe yoga is your meditation and maybe it isn't. Baking, I think is pretty patently obvious to me based on what you said is a good thing to do

and I love the bit about certainty. I think that is really important. Well, also, I mean, I feel like it is the tactile nature, like actually having, it actually grounds me in my body at that moment. Well, that sounds meditative. having, it does, it actually grounds me in my body at that moment. Well, that sounds meditative. So, it's not like my mind is actually just whirling around to other things, but I really

feel like I'm just present there as I'm needing the dough. Yeah. There's something very physical and the sort of the alchemy of it the the you know the transformation I feel like I'm speaking very loftily about that. I think I think I think I was cookies. I like it I think it sounds beautiful and I really do I mean I'm not being sarcastic at all and I'm prone to sarcasm That tactile nature watching it transform all of that just seems like you know yourself, you know it works for you and this is something that works for you. That to me sounds great and actually your most recent descriptions of the activity, do

it make it sound closer to meditation. The only thing I would say is, and I'm a big fan of what I call a sort of free range mindfulness, you know, mindfulness in action throughout your day or whatever your, you know, whatever activity you're engaged in, is that a formal practice, even if it's just one minute and I do think one minute is enough, can supercharge all of that. Because doing a formal practice really gives you a sense of what it's like in its purest form and then that allows you to really check in with, am I actually being mindful now? Yeah, I think that's one way I did trip myself up

as a lot I started, I think I tried to, like I think initially like 20 minutes, which I think is probably way too ambitious. You know that'd be, I think so, but TM, I'm not a, I, I'm a practitioner of what's called mindfulness meditation, which is derived from Buddhism, transcendental meditation, which is derived from Buddhism Transcendental meditation which is drawn from Hindu meditation TM the way they teach it is they tell people to do 20 minutes twice a day and they from what I can tell

I haven't seen their numbers but based anecdotally off of the people I know who do the thing a lot of people skip the second 20 minutes, but people who do TM they like they will do second 20 minutes, but people do TM. They will do those 20 minutes. And I find that really impressive. So I think it's just, I guess my- I might have to start small. I come back to it being really individual, and I think starting small makes a lot of sense. On the, I have an app, 10% happier app, and we do a lot of one minute meditations on there.

And we kind of tell beginners, especially people who are worried about the time issue, is do one-minute daily-ish. Just set the bar there. And then you, sounds like you need to be armed, again, with the aforementioned machine gun of doubt. Because that one. That's entanglement.

Yeah, entanglement, same kind of area. Yes. But it's just so, it actually is really empowering to see it Because that's what I'm talking about. Because I'm judgment. Yeah, judgment. Same kind of area. Yes. But it's just so, it actually is really empowering to see it. Because you know when you see it, you really see it. And it's right there for you. It's easy for you to see now that you kind of are tuned to it. That is that sentiment, that kind of filter that's being placed over your eyes in terms of your view of the world over your mind really in terms of view of the world is happening all the time you're unaware of it.

And so the more you see judgment on the cushion so to speak, you'll see it in the world. And it may free you from some really unconstructive mental habits. You've convinced me. I'm going to give it a go. You have to say that you're on my phone. I know. Let's go into what I call the plug zone. Where can people get your book, I assume, everywhere.

And follow you on social media, read your articles and journal, just give us everything. So the book gets scanned. It's on edge, a journey through anxiety, and it's available everywhere, books are sold, bookstores, Amazon, you name it. My social media, you can follow me on Twitter at Andrea A. Peterson, and that's all E's, P-E-T-E-R-S-E-N. And you can see my stories in the Wall Street Journal,

WSJ.com, and I the website by Andrea Peterson.com too, and I have my appearances and stuff like that there. Awesome. Well, you did a great job with this. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% happier podcast.

If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also, if you want to suggest topics topics you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in hit me up on Twitter at Dan B Harris importantly I want to thank the people who produced this podcast Lauren Efron Josh Tohan and the rest of the folks here at ABC who helped make this thing possible we have tons of other podcasts you can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey prime members, you can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music.

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