Hi, I'm Dr. Tracey Marks,
a psychiatrist, and I make mental health education videos.
Anxiety is everywhere.
We all experience it to some degree,
but there's anxiety symptoms, anxiety disorders,
and anxious personalities and temperaments.
Where do you fall on this spectrum?
I have the answer for you in my new book,
"Why Am I So Anxious,
Powerful Tools for Recognizing Anxiety
and Restoring Your Peace."
I can't hold back my excitement with this,
this book goes deep.
Let me show you what's in it.
There are 10 chapters.
The first four explain the origins of your anxiety.
What makes some people anxious and others not?
How do you recognize anxiety symptoms?
Sometimes it's not obvious.
Anxiety often starts in the childhood and teenage years.
I've had adults tell me that they struggled mentally
as a teen and didn't realize until they were older,
that what they experienced was anxiety.
In chapter two, I talk about the anxiety disorders.
What even constitutes an anxiety disorder
versus just having some situational angst?
I explain the official anxiety disorders.
And then in chapter three,
I talk about other anxious conditions,
like obsessive compulsive disorder,
body repetitive behaviors, like skin picking,
PTSD, and more.
I even have a section talking about existential anxiety.
You get to hear all about the midlife struggles that I had
as I finished my medical training,
and was still not married with no one in sight,
that got kind of crucial.
In chapter four,
I talk about anxious personalities and temperaments.
I also talk about what it means to be neurotic,
and explain the different psychological defenses.
You'll learn about what it means
to have unconscious conflicts,
and how those conflicts can stir up anxiety for you.
These four chapters give you a very robust understanding
of your anxiety, and where it lies on the spectrum
from normal to disordered.
Then comes some really good stuff,
in part two, I talk about
what you can do about your anxiety.
In chapter five,
you'll learn about prescription treatments.
How do you know if you should even take a medication?
I talk about the primary options that we use,
and the secondary ones.
I also talk in detail about the hazards of taking medication
like side effects and dependence.
Chapter six talks about complimentary
and alternative treatments, also called CAM.
You'll learn about different supplements
and I'll give you my take on whether each supplement
is worth taking or not.
I talk about other treatments like acupuncture,
hypnotherapy, and reiki.
I also have an in-depth section on aromatherapy,
which is something near and dear to me.
I love aromatherapy.
I explain the science behind it
and discuss my favorite relaxing essential oils.
In the appendix,
I give you some recipes, including my sleep oil
that I've been using on myself for years.
I also teach you how to make your own inhalers,
and how to properly dilute the oils
for use on your skin and in the bath.
I'll also give you some recommendations
on what oils blend well together,
and how to make your own blends.
In chapter seven,
you'll learn about several kinds of psychotherapies
and how they're used.
For example, there are three widely used trauma therapies.
To help you understand how they work,
I give you an example of a traumatic event,
and then I'll show you how each therapy works
to get to the same end point.
Of course, you can't do therapy on yourself,
but the intention of this chapter and the medication chapter
is to help you appreciate what these treatments aim to do,
and how they do it.
In the last three chapters, 8, 9, and 10,
I equip you with 25 different self-help tools
to address your anxiety.
They're divided into mind tools, body tools,
and behavioral tools.
That's a lot of tools,
and a downside of having so many options
is feeling overwhelmed with too many choices,
and not know how or when to apply them.
I get it.
And here's the work around,
I explain the tools in those three chapters.
Then I have an appendix called,
"What Tools Help What."
I give you scenarios, and then tell you
what tools that you can use for each scenario.
For example, let's say you have social
or performance anxiety.
You get anxious when you need to speak up in a group.
Some of the tools that can help with that problem
are graded exposure, affective labeling,
affirmation journaling, worry journaling,
and reframing negative thoughts.
I teach you how to do all of those things,
and then you can see what works best for you.
The last part of the book is the seven appendices.
Appendix A is called how to recognize target symptoms.
Target symptoms are the problems that you have
that are not normal for you.
Clinicians use target symptoms to measure your progress.
Patients sometimes ask me,
how do I know if the treatment is helping?
The answer is,
you look at how your target symptoms have changed.
Even with self-help tools, identifying your target symptoms
is how you can tell if your interventions are helping.
Appendix B is what tools help what.
Appendix C is the aromatherapy, recipes and tips.
Appendix D is an emotions chart
to help you with your affective labeling.
This chart will help expand your vocabulary
and enable you to get very specific
about how things make you feel.
Specificity is important.
In Appendix E, I give you 18 grounding exercises
to have at the ready.
Grounding exercises are great for disconnecting
from intense anxiety.
Appendix F is a worksheet for practicing
interoceptive exposure exercises.
Interoceptive means being aware of your body sensations.
Some people's anxiety is triggered or worsened
when they have physical symptoms.
If you have health anxiety or get panicked
and scared when you start having body sensations
that you think are anxiety,
this appendix should be super helpful.
The last appendix is a list of references
for each chapter for further study,
in case reading this book wasn't enough.
There are 250 references that I used to inform me
in writing this book.
But wait, I got one more thing for you.
This book is jam packed with information
and it publishes, August 16th
but you can pre-order the book now.
If you pre-order the book before August 16th,
you get this special bonus supplement
that perfectly compliments the book.
It's an illustrated guide that has three sections.
The first one shows you a way
to conceptualize managing your anxiety using your senses.
I talk about that in the chapter on body tools.
But here, you get a beautifully illustrated infographic
that you can use as a prompt.
Remember, you'll have 25 tools at your disposal,
but this guide gives you a bird's eye view
of some of the tools.
The second section is a visual aid
to help you get started journaling.
There are a lots of ways that you can journal.
In the book, I talk about five of them.
I also give you some general affirmations
that you can use to get started,
but this bonus turns those affirmations
into cards that you can print and keep handy
anytime you want a quick mental reset
or a self-esteem boost.
The last section of the bonus
gives you fear ladder templates.
In chapter 10, I talk about how to use exposure exercises
to diffuse the fear around your phobias.
One approach to exposure is creating a fear ladder,
where you gradually expose yourself
to the thing that you fear.
It's not that easy to create your own fear ladder.
And often, that's one of the things
that a therapist would help you with.
So in this last section, I give you 11 sample fear ladders
that you can use for various phobias.
These are templates that you can use as is,
or modify them to fit your specific situation.
These ladders are not in the appendix,
I created them after I finished writing the book
just for you, the early adopter.
You can only get these illustrated guides,
if you pre-order before August 16th.
After that date, they're gone.
So order your book today, don't wait,
go to GetYourPreorder.com.
You'll see instructions on how to get the bonus
when you order.
You'll receive the bonus when the book publishes.
I hope you enjoy reading this
as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Thanks for watching. See you next time.