I am psyched to introduce you to AG's first full time contributor Valerie Murphy. I met Valerie over 3 years ago at my first internship. I always thought that Valerie was a blast to be around, but I later found out that she also happened to be an anxious person! I had so many questions. Over time we became friends and eventually I asked her to share her knowledge and experience with my audience here at AG. Over the past few months we have been working hard to develop new material and even plan to start a free webinar series to strengthen
Simple Is Better
Steve Jobs once said... You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." Ain't that the truth? The problem is that simplifying our thoughts is complicated. Our minds are in constant search of connections, patterns and meaning, setting the stage for a whole lot of thinking and not much else. We often get bogged down in details that don't matter and stay distracted enough to miss all the important stuff. I'm no different. Take my
5 Years of Failed Blogging?
Can you believe it? I've been blogging for 5 years. I guess the old saying about time moving faster as you age is true. I can remember writing my first blog post in 2008 like it was yesterday. To be honest I have mixed emotions about this blog now. At first I wanted to create something remarkable. I wanted to create an important anti-anxiety resource. I ended up with something very different. For years I wrote blog posts and produced podcasts hoping that Anxietyguru.net would grow and evolve and you know what? It didn't. I tried
How many blog articles do you want?
photo credit: Mykl Roventine You may or may not have noticed that some weeks I produce 2-3 articles, and most times less than that. So, I just decided to ask the people that actually read my articles what they would like in terms of frequency. Schedules and routines have their merits and this is me trying to establish one. Right now I simply write when I have something to say or when I find something of interest to send to you. However, I also know that some people get frustrated with too much or too little of anything. Let me know what
The Top 100 Things You Should Know About Anxiety Disorders
Over the course of a decade you can learn a lot about anything. You can become an expert at car repair, kitchen remodeling, hair styling, or in my case you can learn all about anxiety. Since 1999 I have been battling anxiety non-stop and as a result I've learned a thing or two about this topic (I've recovered since then). Many of my thoughts on this issue are short thoughts or blurbs that I've collected over the years and for no particular reason I wanted to jot them down. I can't possibly recall everything but here is a good chunk of
Rumination Exposed: “Pure OCD” (Podcast)
An essential component of anxiety disorder is rumination . That is the constant and intense brooding about problems or perceived problems. It is the extreme version of simple worry and there is a name for it - pure obsessional OCD or "Pure O." Now, there are several levels of worry. And I want to make clear that this is a very intense type of worry and anxiety tied to disturbing thoughts. In other words, if you ruminate about household chores this is not the same as having Pure O. Pure Obsession is unlike simple worry in that it
Anxietyguru.net Turns 1
In May 2008 I set out to create a blog that was different from the hundreds of websites that I'd seen on anxiety. Most of those websites were informative, helpful, and balanced but not all that interesting. In addition to that I had spent almost 5 years completely clueless about what was torturing me (between 1999 and 2004). After seeing a therapist I went on a mission to educate myself about my condition. And at the end of that journey I was almost certain that there were others like me. When I started this blog I had 5 people
DWA: Driving While Anxious (Podcast)
On today's podcast I discussed the finer points of driving while anxious. I recruited my younger brother to share with you his phobia - driving. I recently received a request from an Anxiety Guru reader who wanted this topic reviewed so we beat this issue to near death on our quest for driving nirvana. Driving as we all know can be a huge obstacle for many anxiety sufferers. This becomes extremely problematic because of the amount of driving we all have to do. This podcast is meant to detail some of the most common problems faced by anxious
New Forum
Not very long ago I added a small chat room to Anxiety Guru and let's just say that it didn't work out. My goal has always been to inform and educate people about anxiety disorders but I also aim to create an online community - a support network I guess you could say. Lofty goals aside, the chat room thing fell through because I think people visited the site at different times and more than likely missed each other or were turned off by the 'live' nature of chat. With the new forum readers will be able to post questions, answer questions,