“Anxiety can be managed”

The clinical psychologist’s book, Anxiety: Overcome It and Live Without Fear shows how the condition plays out in India

1

Your book describes anxiety as a mental health crisis that has gripped over 30 million Indians. How would you break down the reasons behind this?

Over the last five or six years, I’ve felt that anxiety has topped the list of concerns -- followed by relationships and loneliness -- when it comes to therapy sessions with my clients. One of the reasons to write this book was to talk about how anxiety plays out from an Indian perspective and unique factors like the pressure to marry, and our relationship with parents that contributes to our anxiety. Also, in India, often anxiety has been normalized; as a result, people don’t end up reaching out for help. The book talks about how an environment of uncertainty and flux and also how our cognitive distortions like catastrophizing and irrational beliefs all contribute to anxiety. The silver lining is that anxiety can be managed.

2 What are the most common sources of anxiety?

Some of the most common sources are burnout, workplace stress, and the consistent shaming and pressure that Millennials and GenZ have to deal with. Often, people’s relationship with social media and technology contributes to anxiety and then to concerns about dating, intimacy and relationships.

3 Please talk about some of the concepts you introduce in the book in relation to our digital lives -- email anxiety, dopamine loops, and the fear of missing out.

Some of these terms are applicable to each of us, and more so in the context of the pandemic. Given our busy lives, where we constantly have access to technology, people fall for social comparison. There is pressure to be available, and an itch to continually be on this ‘doing mode’. Our email anxiety, a desire to be constantly productive, checking updates on social media consistently to deal with our fear of missing out contributes to our anxiety as it doesn’t allow us to rest and pause.

4 How can therapy help people deal with anxiety around illness, hospitalization, and the loss of loved ones?

The pandemic has triggered a sense of anticipatory grief for a lot of people. Often, therapy helps people recognize when they are thinking of worst-case scenarios. It helps them acknowledge unrealistic fears, and also recognize what is in their control.