Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast

Follow @owningitpodcast for more anxiety related content and resources. I'm joined here by the wonderful Dr Julie Smith, number 1 bestselling author and clinical psychologist, social media superstar and very lovely person. We talk about her book, she breaks down anxiety, the difference between anxiety and stress and she answers some listener questions too! Check out her book, Why Has Nobody Told M...

Join me on Instagram for more resources, tips, clips and more: @ owningitpodcast . This week I am joined by someone who gives me actual LIFE on social media: @ mamastillgotit's Louise Boyce. Louise has amassed a huge audience for normalising life with toddlers, she is a tonic for any parent fed up with the more sanitised portrayal of parenthood that pervades social media. Here she shares her exper...

Here's another psycho-educational episode to help you understand what you're working with. We've heard of the fight or flight response, even the freeze response but what about the fourth response - fawn? Here psychotherapist Katie McKenna breaks down the fawn response, which includes a lot of the behaviours, triggering anxiety, that you'll be familiar with, including people pleasing. Order yoursel...

Front man of global music sensation Kodaline - Steve Garrigan. - shares his personal story with me. When you're the lead singer of a band performing in front of thousands of people, and feeling so at ease while doing so, it might sound odd that that same person would be gripped with panic attacks and anxiety behind the scenes. After years of suffering in silence, Steve has shared his experience of...

Therapist, coach and number 1 bestselling author Jack Williamson joins me to talk about The Shitty Committee, his incredible book which has been given the stamp of approval by Oprah herself and is number 1 book on Amazon throughout the whole of the UK at the moment. The Shitty Committee includes 3 things that impact our anxiety - internals, externals and consumables. Jack explains all here. He als...

One of the main characteristics of anxiety is that when you feel it, you believe that you will always feel it, that it will always be there. You can't accept that a day would come where it wouldn't dominate, when it's become chronic for you. I had these fears and worries too, I thought I would never be okay, and that there's so much in life I'd never get to experience from travel to love to having...

Body positive influencer, model and activist Jessica Megan joins me on Owning It this week to talk through the anxiety that so many of us grapple with - women in particular - that centres around our image. What we see in the mirror, how we talk to ourselves about how we look, what we think we 'should' look like. Jessica shares her story, detailing her turbulent teenage years where she was surround...

For this episode I am joined by a friend, Simone Gannon (also known as Simone Scribes on Instagram). She's big on social media for her skincare expertise and has amassed a huge following. Simone recently took to Instagram to share something she wouldn't normally: chats about her experience of crippling anxiety that saw her in and out of hospital with symptoms of a suspected stroke. Here she shares...

This week, and as we are at the very beginning of the new year, I'm tackling the subject of anxiety and change. I've covered this subject before but this time I am joined by Dr Harry Barry, author of Embracing Change, and one of my most listened to guests on the podcast thus far (he was on a previous episode where we unpacked anxiety at a more basic level). The change that requires you to take act...

Word of warning: My guest's audio wasn't ideal for this episode, there was very little I could do about the feedback issue on Dr Clare's side of the audio, so I hope you can forgive this. Hopefully next time I record with Clare we can be in person in studio. For this episode of Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast, clinical psychologist Dr Clare Kambamettu joins me to discuss the impact that consuming n...

Christmas can be a time of high anxiety. In this solo episode I talk through my approach to this time of year and how Covid has given us an opportunity to practise setting boundaries and putting our needs first. Episode includes my coping mechanism and mindset swaps that makes Christmas a far more enjoyable experience. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd K...

For this bonus episode I was so thrilled to sit down with (virtually) Millie Mackintosh. I have long been a fan of Millie's, particularly since becoming pregnant and seeing how open and honest she is about the experience. She keeps it real. Millie has had her fair share of anxiety down through the years and here she shares her story with me. We talk everything from the Made in Chelsea days when pa...

For this final episode of season 6, I am joined by the very lovely Cressida Bonas - actor, writer and more recently podcaster. Her podcast Fear Itself is earning rave reviews and features guests such as Ellie Goulding, Sir Richard Branson, Dr Pippa Grange and many more. Her focus is on fear and how fear might actually be at the root of all of our main emotions. Joining me here she tells me her exp...

For this episode I am explaining a few key tools that I use again and again when feeling anxious about an upcoming event or a change of some kind. Fear hacking - using catastrophic thinking to work in your favour - followed by positive visualisation which involves a tool in itself called 'anchoring' and much more. This episode is just me and the content I'm discussing is based on what you'll find...

For this episode I am going back to where it all started for me: with gut issues. Diagnosed and plagued with IBS for most of my teenage years, I had no awareness that a lot of what I was experiencing was anxiety manifesting in this way. My tummy issues made me anxious, my anxiety made me have tummy issues. I am joined here by the world renowned author of The Mind Gut Connection, Dr Emeran Mayer. (...

Sometimes in life, things change or thing go drastically downhill, without any forewarning. For Jane Enright, author of Butter Side Up, big, negative life changes occurred to her 3 times within the space of one year. 3 changes that would leave almost anyone in the throes of anxiety, negativity and hopelessness. But Jane realised she already had a lot of the skills necessary to get through this, if...

Happiness anxiety sounds oxymoronic but it's a real thing: it's known as Cherophobia which sounds sinister but really it's just the anxiety that can arise intermittently (or it can also be quite all consuming) when you fear that if things are going well, something has to go wrong. For me it manifests as feeling so grateful for what I do have in life that I think it will be taken away from me or th...

For this episode I am joined by Katy Milkman, award winning behavioural scientist and Wharton University Professor to talk about anxiety and more specifically how to change, and how labelling will impact your behaviour in a way that exacerbates your anxiety. Katy is a legend and explains everything so well. Her new book, How To Change is out now. My books are NAKED: Ten Truths To Change Your Life,...

For this episode I am joined by the founder of Happy Not Perfect the app plus the new book of the same name, Poppy Jamie. She has an incredibly illustrious career behind her with a refreshingly honest story. As much as I know about anxiety today, Poppy said many things that really gave me an a-ha moment, making me think twice bout things. She offers in this podcast, a step-by-step approach to diss...

I am joined by Dr Soph for this episode, she is absolutely fantastic, I have adored following her for years now. She is a clinical psychologist and now author of A Manual For Being Human. She breaks down anxiety in way that make it so easy to understand and move forward with. Here we talk through her approach for understanding why you're here (feeling anxious), what's keeping you here and how to m...

Johann Hari is a really interesting if somewhat controversial character. He is a prolific journalist, an NYTimes bestselling author and his Ted Talks on the reasons why we might be anxious/depressed has been viewed a staggering number of times. He too also struggled significantly with anxiety and depression. He has some really hard-to-argue-with insights on the various reasons why we collectively...

I asked my followers on Instagram where in their life anxiety was most likely to pop up, the most common response was at work. Dealing with a difficult boss, a confrontation colleague that you don't get along with, anxiety about proving your worth in your role and so much more. Lynda Barry - communications expert and career consultant - has been on the series before when we discussed career relate...

For this episode I am joined by life coach and all round straight shooter Mark Fennell. We unpack the whole idea of mindset, which is a word that gets thrown around a lot. What is it? Does it influence anxiety and vice versa? Is it a fixed thing? Can we change it? What would a good mindset be? Buy my anxiety journal here . Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I...

Welcome back to season 6! Dr Judson Brewer is legit amazing; he has his own neuroscience lab in which he and his team carry out lots of research to back up everything you'll find in his latest book Unwinding Anxiety, which is probably one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. In it, and in our conversation here, Jud puts forward the idea that maybe anxiety is simply a habit loop we've g...

In this bonus episode of Owning It, brought to you in partnership with NIVEA, I am joined by Claudia Hammond. Claudia is an award-winning broadcaster, she is visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex and the author of four books, most recently The Art of Rest.  We talk about the significance of human touch - something we've been seriously mi...