Well, hello anxiety with Dr Jodi Richardson

Can you trust that you’ve done enough even when there’s more to do? If your answer to that question is no, my hope is that listening to this week’s guest will help you answer differently. We’re conditioned to be productive, to achieve more, to do more to tick more things off our list. There’s always more to do, there always will be. But what sort of a life are we living if we never stop to reflect...

Have you ever felt like you don't belong at the table? Or that one day soon, maybe even today, someone's going to question why you’re doing what you do or whether or not you’re even qualified? If you've had these thoughts and experienced anxiety around these ideas, you like me, and like today's guest, and like SO many others, have experienced what we know as ‘Imposter Syndrome’. In this incredible...

“Children grow into their anxiety like a puppy grows into it’s paws”. This week’s podcast guest Leslie Cohen-Rubury explains anxiety in children, and the powerful role parents play along the journey, with compassion and so much wisdom. Not only that, she generously shares practical strategies we can all use when our children are anxious or feeling upset or distressed for any reason, and how we can...

Meg Webb’s Generalised Anxiety Disorder started young and originally presented as constant worrying. It was incredibly difficult, but not a symptom others would notice. The anxiety she was struggling with eventually became more conspicuous during a high school presentation when her hands began to tremble uncontrollably. Later, in her first job, she experienced daily dread that she’d be asked to do...

Over 10 days of freezing, starving and being ‘hunted’, during brutal resistance to interrogation training with the British Royal Navy, helped inoculate this week’s podcast guest against the stresses of daily life. Events and situations that would have previously caused grief felt like ‘water off a duck’s back’; sparking an epiphany. Paul Taylor realised that psychological and emotional stress stim...

When Yael Schonbrun headed back to work after having her first child she thought to herself ‘I’ve got this in the bag’. The reality couldn’t have been any more different from the expectation, perhaps you can relate! Yael leveraged her experience as a parent, and an academic to firstly dive into the research, then begin to call out the myth of the work-life balance that was at the heart of so many...

One of my most memorable interactions with a stranger involved two random acts of kindness. That experience still gives me goosebumps when I think about it and will always stay with me. Little did I know at the time, that showing kindness reduces anxiety. The research around kindness is unequivocal; the giver, the receiver and even people lucky enough to witness an act of kindness all benefit from...

When Dr Helena Popovic found the courage to tell a surgeon that he’d never get the best out of her in the surgical theatre if he continued to speak to her in a derogatory way, it was the first day she didn’t go home and binge on food. In this episode Dr Helena Popovic shares her story of recovery from binge eating disorder, how our perception changes our physiology, how processed food is making ou...

It’s so hard being a teenager. Pressures and expectations from friends, peers, parents, and those that they put on themselves can weigh heavily. Add in academic pressures, bullying, body image issues, changing bodies, romantic relationships, the ‘always on’ nature of the digital age plus the impacts of the pandemic and it’s no surprise we’re seeing overwhelming rates of stress and anxiety among te...

Tapping. Have you heard of it? Have you tried it for anxiety, chronic pain, or something else? I was a total tapping skeptic to begin with, and had been for years before a listener reached out an asked me to record an episode on tapping for anxiety. My research revealed a mountain of evidence, including systematic reviews and meta analyses, data that lead me to the wonderful work of Dr Peta Staple...

Struggling with anxiety but not sure where to start? This is the episode for you. What one person finds helpful to manage their anxiety may not be quite the right ‘fit’ for another. In this episode you’ll learn 21 different ideas you can put into practice straight away, but, there is one caveat. Not all at once! You’re invited to choose just one thing. Something to start doing, something to stop d...

Brene Brown tells us that perfectionism is not the same as striving to be your best, healthy achievement and growth. Though some view it as a positive trait it’s actually debilitating in two main ways; an insatiable drive to meet unrealistic standards often spending way too long on unnecessary detail and prioritising the end product over the learning process, or feeling so pressured to achieve an...

At the risk of making you anxious I have something to tell you; if we’re not careful, we could spend as much as 17 years of our lives staring at our devices if we don’t do something about our digital habits. In this conversation Dr Kristy Goodwin shares the details of an accident with one of her boys that fuelled her determination to help us all to become the master of our devices rather than slav...

Why are we as women almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder over our lifetime than men? Why do only 1 in 10 French women experience PMT compared with 5 in 10 Australians and 9 in 10 Iranian women? Is baby brain a thing and how exactly do our hormones impact our mental and emotional health? Dr Sarah McKay answers all of these questions and more in this revealing episode of ‘...

Casey Ehrlich’s son Cooper stopped eating, walking, talking and when he wasn’t hidden inside himself, he would explode. His violent meltdowns were escalating leaving Casey and her husband scared of what he might do. Casey left her career, moved her family to a small town and became Cooper’s full-time carer, mother and researcher - eventually understanding Pathological Demand Avoidance or PDA to be...

Will it ever go away? Will it always be this bad? Will I ever feel myself again? These are just some of the questions we ask ourselves when we are in the thick of horrendous anxiety. These questions are common, and it’s in our nature to wonder whether or not debilitating anxiety will always be a part of our lives. In this episode I answer all of these questions and more; I talk about when and wher...

It’s time to think and talk about autistic children and adults differently. This week’s guest, the phenomenal autism academic and advocate Dr Luke Beardon, completely rejects the model of autism as a deficit, as a disorder, as individuals with impairments. He defines autism, shares his golden equation for understanding how the environment effects outcomes for autistic people, reveals how autistic...

I know how debilitating anxiety can feel, and how many people feel at a loss as to what can make a difference for their anxiety or that of someone they love. Knowing how incredibly difficult anxiety is to live with, you may be a little skeptical about today’s episode given the title but it is one of the most powerful conversations I’ve had when it comes to how we can harness anxiety, and exactly w...

Uncertainty is a fundamental driver of anxiety. We crave certainty, and yet, would you actually want to be certain about what's going to happen in every single aspect of your life? I wouldn't despite how anxiety provoking and awful living with uncertainty can be. In today's episode, Dr. Toni Lindsay, author of The Certainty Myth, reminds us that life isn't always easy, and it was never meant to be...

Ikigai is often misunderstood- this beautiful Japanese word isn’t easily defined given the spectrum on which we can experience ikigai, and the different ways we can cultivate it. Ultimately, it’s a feeling. It’s different from happiness and is strongly tied to our future. It's tied to meaning and purpose, having a strong sense of self and, crucially, is tied to our values. In this episode Japanolo...

This short and sweet episode is all about a game-changing strategy for anyone whose anxiety says "stop," "don't do it," "it feels too uncomfortable," or "let's put this off for later." This means that this episode is for all of us who live with anxiety! In this episode, I share a strategy called "Opposite Action." I explain what it is, why it's an essential tool in our toolkit, and a practical way...

What can you do to help when your child won’t talk? They might be a chatterbox at home, perhaps even confident and loud! But in settings that provoke anxiety, they won’t say a word. This describes selective mutism. It can look different for different children, but every single family that has a child who is a selective mute shares one thing in common; the anguish that comes with not knowing how to...

Today’s guest, Psychologist and renowned media commentator Dr Michael-Carr Gregg hasn’t seen anything like the rates of anxiety in children and teens in decades of clinical practice. Despite the incredible challenge of anxiety for young people and their families, he assures parents that it is treatable; and that parents play an important role in the process. In this conversation Michael explains a...

When was the last time you experienced awe? And what’s it got to do with anxiety? Hmmm, it can be a tricky one because we typically think awe comes from big moments, like seeing the Eiffel Tower, visiting the Grand Canyon, visiting Uluru or swimming with Whale Sharks. While each of those experiences is bound to elicit awe, we can actually experience awe in everyday moments, inside our homes or wor...

Friendship challenges and finding their place socially can bring about so much anxiety for young people. These are difficult times to navigate and are tricky because friendships mean a lot, and interaction with other people is unavoidable. In this episode, the wonderful Sheri McDonald, a psychologist who works closely with children and teenagers, shares thoughtful and compassionate insights and ad...