Is Anxiety Your Secret Weapon
4/17/202635 min
What if anxiety isn't the enemy but the edge you've been missing?
Dr. Aliza Pressman sits down with clinical psychologist, professor, and author Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary to challenge one of the most widespread misconceptions in modern parenting: that anxiety is something to be eliminated. It isn't. And understanding why could change how you show up for yourself and your kids.
Dr. Dennis-Tiwary unpacks the surprising science and history behind anxiety, from its ancient roots to how modern psychiatry transformed a normal human emotion into a medical diagnosis, and why that shift has made things harder...
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First 90 secondsAliza Pressman· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to Raising Good Humans. I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman, and I know this episode is gonna be top of mind for so many of us. We're talking about why anxiety is good for you even though it feels bad with author, professor, and clinical psychologist Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary. She's pretty remarkable because her approach to how we think about anxiety is to shift our mindset to start to consider not just what's wrong with anxiety, but what are the benefits of anxiety, what is anxiety, what is the origin of all of this, and how we can best support our kids. Her book, Future Tense: Why Anxiety is Good for You Even Though It Feels Bad, is such a phenomenal reframe that really takes into account the science of anxiety, not the mainstream misunderstanding of anxiety, and all of this to help us be able to best support ourselves and our kids as they move through the inevitable feelings of anxiety and when we should worry and what we can do about it. Tracy has published over 100 scientific articles in top peer-reviewed journals and delivered more than 300 presentations at academic conferences, just to give you a sense of how