Anxiety Is Unavoidable: Suffering Is Optional

On February 8, 2013, I was a highly anxious and burned-out fifty-two-year-old physician. That night, as I left my clinic in my usual chronic state of anxiety, I wondered if life was worth living. But I had to be onstage as a stand-up comedian an hour later, so killing myself would have to wait. However, I never got to the comedy club. I suffered an injury that night that would end my medical career.

I've dealt with anxiety since I was a teenager. My father was schizophrenic and bipolar, and the chaos and pain of his illness created tremendous alarm in my system. My mother did her best to love and take care of my brother and me, but she had her own issue with chronic anxiety. I often say my mother was neurotic and my father was psychotic, so my psyche didn't stand much of a chance!

I wrote this book to make my father's suicide and the suffering of my family mean something: to help others who experienced chronic worry to understand and fix the pain that is sucking the life out of them. I have degrees and advanced training in medicine, neuroscience, and developmental psychology, but much of what I'll share came out of my experiences in very unscientific places. This book is a unique blend of hard neuroscience and soft spirit.

For over thirty years, I searched for relief from anxiety and saw practitioners ranging from Indian shamanic energy healers to highly accomplished psychiatrists. (I was lucky I was a doctor so I could afford to be a patient.) Have you, too, gone to extraordinary lengths to resolve your chronic compulsion to worry and are still suffering? Read on.

What makes this book different is a relentless focus on calming anxiety at its true source, which I will share with you in detail. That source is in a place most doctors and psychologists fail to explore, and that oversight is why the positive effects of most anxiety therapies tend to wear off over time.

Although I'll talk about my patients' experiences with anxiety as well as my own, everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life. The ideas and practices are unique, novel, and effective. This is my life's work and the ultimate book of high-impact solutions for escaping the trap of chronic worry. I truly do not want you to suffer as I have!

People with anxiety are confused and don't know what is happening to them. I've gone from being a hapless victim of my anxiety, never knowing when it would end, to having a path that helps me every single time anxiety comes up. In this book, I'll show you exactly what is going on in your mind and your body and what you can do about it.

What is in this book has changed my life for the better, and it will do the same for you.