If you’re a teenager, adult, parent, teacher, or just someone who
wants to better understand anxiety, this is a good place to start.
Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is a Lie is written by Dr
Toni Lindsay, a psychologist who has extensive experience working
with adults and young people, particularly those who’ve had a cancer
diagnosis.
Through her practice, Dr Lindsay has observed the growing
prevalence of anxiety and wanted to provide advice in an accessible
format for people who might never visit a psychologist.
Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is a Lie
explores what anxiety is, starting with the simple explanation of it meaning being fearful and letting it get in the way of life. Then how
it can appear in our lives in different ways and at different frequencies.
Anecdotes help explain concepts and their physiological response,
like fight or flight and survival of the fittest. Analogies help,
too. Anxiety is like chocolate. A bit of it is okay, but too much
isn’t. One of my favourite analogies is anxiety as being like a wave.
From gentle water which can build into the intensity of white waves,
then drop into broken waves with much less power.
There’s a lot covered in Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is
a Lie. Chapters are of varying lengths, but all are short. From
as little as a couple of pages, to no more than six pages, which
makes it easy to dip in and out of the book. You can read it straight
through,
use the index to find something specific, or just browse.
The chapter titles are clearly intended to grab your attention.
They include: The people in our brain (about the different ‘voices’
we hear), Who is this guy? (visualising and naming anxiety), Procrastinating (a ‘trick’ anxiety uses to control us), The
A Word (accepting our emotions), Nighty Night (the impact of anxiety
on sleep), and How to talk to your friend versus yourself (being kind
to yourself). And lots of more, too.
By the end of Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is a Lie you
will have learned plenty, and have practical tips and
strategies which you can apply to your life. Some are as simple as
closing your eyes, picturing something specific, or asking yourself
questions.
Anxiety is a subject we all need to understand and know how to manage, because we’ve all been affected by it in some form. I recommend Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is a Lie as a tool for doing that.
Teachers might also find the book useful as a classroom resource and can download teacher’s notes from the publisher’s website.
Title: Everything Anxiety Ever Told You Is a Lie
Author: Dr Toni Lindsay
Publisher: Exisle Publishing, $ 37.99
Publication Date: July 2024
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781922539991
For ages: 14+
Type: Young Adult Non-Fiction