PART
1

Exploring Anxiety

“I’m nervous about that test coming up next week. That phone call sent me into a panic.”

For better or worse, we use anxiety-related words on a regular basis. On the plus side, all of us know what it feels like to have excessive worries, knots in our stomach, or a strong desire to avoid a scary or tense situation. On the downside, it can be hard to know how much anxiety is too much or pinpoint when our fears take control of our lives.

That’s what this part is about: illustrating the difference between normal anxiety and an anxiety disorder, becoming familiar with the different faces anxiety wears, shedding light on anxiety’s causes, and predicting what the road to anxiety recovery looks like—and why we should travel down it.