Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast

This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Blindboy - of the very successful The Blindboy Podcast - and author of his latest book Boulevard Wren and other stories. Blindboy tells me about his experience with anxiety as a young adult, the origins of that anxiety, how he looks after himself these days and everything he learned from his psychotherapy studies. We also talk about anxiety among m...

www.patreon.com/carolineforan - please sign up as a patron to support the podcast if you're finding it helpful! This week I am joined by Anette Kelly of Little Penny Thoughts (a huge online platform for positive self-talk and wellness from within workshops around Ireland and the UK) to talk about her experience of anxiety, how it was generated in the first place by poor self talk and how she turne...

People pleasing is a big driver of anxiety. For this episode of Owning It I am thrilled to be joined by New York Times Bestselling author Sarah Knight. She wrote the Lifechanging Magic of Not Giving A Fuck and has gone on to write a whole series of No Fucks Given Guides, the latest of which is Fuck No: How To Stop Saying Yes When You Can't, You Shouldn't Or You Just Don't Want To. Sarah shares her...

In this episode of Owning It I am diving into the subject of sleep with sleep expert Tom Coleman. We talk about the importance of sleep for regulating emotions, how a sleep deficit affects anxiety and how anxiety affects our sleep. Crucially, Tom offers his best advice on how to improve our sleep, our ability to fall asleep and to stay asleep. We talk generally a lot about what's happening at a bi...

In this episode of Owning It I am joined by comedian Des Bishop who's about to go on tour with his new show Mia Mamma. We sat down to talk about his experience of anxiety, what it was like for him growing up in NYC and then leaving for Ireland alone at the age of 14. Now in his 40s, Des is keen to gain a better understanding of his anxiety so that he can own it too. From catastrophising to persona...

Is your neurochemical landscape vulnerable? In this expert episode I'm joined by Stephen Travers, of stravershypnosis.com who helps me to gain a further understanding of what's happening in our brain when we experience anxiety. At points we get very technical but I strongly believe that knowledge is power in the face of anxiety. Specifically, Stephen is a Havening practitioner, so we look at exact...

For this episode of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast I am joined by Irish radio's most loved duo, Dermot Whelan and Dave Moore (more commonly referred to as Dermot & Dave, of Today FM fame). Both of the lads share their respective experience of anxiety along with how they look after their mental health today. We talked about everything from anxiety when you're a parent (which is something I've ye...

This week I talk to rugby star Ian Madigan about how he manages his anxiety, what he's learned in training as a professional athlete that he can take off the pitch and apply to his personal life, how we can become more resilient, the importance of positive self affirmations and lots more. You'll enjoy it if you're a rugby fan but being into rugby is in no way essential to get something from this p...

For this episode of Owning it I sit down with Sex Education actor Tanya Reynolds. She's British, she's one of the soundest people I've interviewed and she was so honest and forthcoming with her anxiety story. It's something she's still very much dealing with, particularly her social anxiety. We talk about learning to accept our anxious nature, why the world needs us anxious people, how to cope whe...

In this episode of Owning It I explore one of the big triggers of anxiety: travel. It's something I've really struggled with but have worked very hard to get on top of to the point that I now enjoy several big trips a year (assuming I've saved up enough money that is!) From addressing the worst case scenarios to stocking up on what will make you feel more at ease, I hope to cover it all in this br...

In this episode I am joined by Hannah O'Connell, an incredibly acupuncturist and the one woman who honestly brought me back from the brink of feeling like I would be forever stuck this way. She reassured me that there was a way through anxiety and with acupuncture I could get some massive relief of the physical symptoms that were ruling my days. We talk about what acupuncture is, how to understand...

Welcome back to season 2 of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast. I will be joined again by lots of wonderful guests who kindly share their experience along with a series of experts who will help to shed more light on our experience of anxiety. First up, Ryan Tubridy sits down with me to talk about everything from men and mental health, performance anxiety, caring less about what people think of you, how...

In this episode of Owning It I am joined by Sile Seoige to talk about the power of breathing as a tool for anxiety and how to implement it daily. You already breathe, all day long, so this is a tool that's there for the taking but one we rarely appreciate. Sile walks me through a gorgeous guided meditation as well as dispelling some of the myths about deep breathing and meditation. This will be th...

This week I am joined by one of my favourite actors - Charlene McKenna. You will know her from Peaky Blinders but it was a little show at home called Raw where I first discovered her. I met Charlene in NYC to talk about anxiety and straight away we realised we were two anxious Annies cut from the same cloth. We talk about fear conditioning, dealing with the anxious child inside of us, the habit of...

I'm back with another mini episode, this time it's just me and I'm talking about the science behind self-compassion and why it's such an incredibly important tool for owning your anxiety. I talk what it is, why it works and how to implement more of it into your life, especially during periods of anxiety. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxi...

For this episode I am joined by bestselling author and entrepreneur behind Natural Born Feeder, Roz Purcell to talk about her experience of anxiety. Roz has some incredible insights into how and why we might be feeling more anxiety these days and how we need to get of the numbers game: numbers on the weighing scales, numbers of followers, numbers of books sold - the lot. She believes that if we in...

In this brief episode, I talk about the helicopter approach to anxiety - figuring out why you are here dealing with anxiety. I go through my own recent mini flare up with anxiety and track the steps I take, all of which fall under the assess and address approach, to bring myself back to feeling good. No guests, just me. Buy Owning It here . Buy The Confidence Kit here . Order yourself (or for a fr...

In this week's episode I'm joined by author Louise O'Neill (she's written four books so far, the last being The Surface Breaks, a feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid) to talk all things anxiety, with a particular focus on her experience of anxiety and social media, and how her anxiety has improved after a year away from the apps along with other measures she takes on a daily basis to keep her...

On this week's episode of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast, I'm joined by author Holly White who talks about her sensitive nature and the fact that denying this, along with her anxiety, has always been the problem. When she accepted the way she was, and stopped trying to be like everybody else - which involved embracing a vegan lifestyle - things improved dramatically. She shares how she owns her anx...

As mentioned in the podcast intro, here is the link to my upcoming event in The Alex hotel. It's a publishing masterclass for anyone who's ever dreamed of writing a book. There will be more events coming soon specifically themed around anxiety so stay tuned for those. https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/so-you-want-to-write-a-book-publishing-masterclass-with-louise-oneill-holly-white-and-caroline-foran-ti...

CBT is something that's naturally woven into each and every podcast, you probably use CBT tools yourself without realising it, so I wanted to give this hero therapy some time to shine and discuss what it is, how it works, why it worked for me and how incredibly helpful it is when you're on the road to owning your anxiety. I hope you find this helpful. See mindtools.org psychologytools.com and more...

In this episode, author and YouTuber Melanie Murphy shares her experience of anxiety along with her smart coping strategies from writing, to breathing techniques to something she calls 'hyper-focusing' during moments of panic. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Yourself here Follow me on Inst...

In the latest episode of Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast, Claire Balding - who I know as Claire Fullam from school - joins me to talk about her experience with hair loss and the reasons why that happened - stress - the anxiety that went along with this turbulent time in her life, coming out the other side and having a keen awareness of her mental health. Her pearls of wisdom are incredible and I ca...

If you have ever been diagnosed with IBS, or had any gut issues relating to anxiety - whether your gut flares up when you're anxious or whether you're anxiety flares up when your tummy is irritated - this is the episode for you. Orla Walsh is a bullshit free dietician who talks endless amounts of sense. Full disclosure: we talk a lot about poo and farting in this episode so buckle up and and get r...

For this episode I am joined by James Kavanagh, TV presenter, broadcaster, social media superstar and co-founder and co-author of the award winning and bestselling Currabinny book and brand. James shares his experience of anxiety in recent years - manifested in midnight panic attacks - at a time in his life when everything is - on paper - very good. So why now? We trace back over his experience of...