Responding to Anxiety 1. Why We’re Anxious

Tom Moon 2011

The subjects of this and the next column are the nature of anxiety and what we can do to manage it. It’s a big issue. Every year anxiety disorders affect about 40 million Americans, or 18% of the population, and the rest of us are certainly no strangers to it. We’ve all known sleepless nights…

Responding to Anxiety 2. Inclining the Mind

Tom Moon 2011

Last time, I wrote that the human brain is hard wired to experience a certain amount of paranoia. The brain isn’t an organ for dispassionately perceiving reality: it evolved to overcome threats and solve problems, so problems and perceptions of danger are what capture its attention. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson writes that the human mind “scans…