97: DIG IN: Understanding Anxiety with Owen O'Kane
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What insights does Owen O'Kane provide about anxiety?
Coming up on Dig It. When an anxious thought comes along, they are the most tantalising thoughts. I joked about it once and I said, it's kind of almost like porn for the brain.
I started to have panic attacks. I think it was from grief. Yeah. And then I started to have crippling anxiety to the point where I was struggling to work.
I would really, really welcome a conversation about how we help our children when they are having anxiety and it's genuinely stuff they've got to tackle that you have no control over. I honestly find myself lost for words quite often.
Let's be honest. Let's lay our cards on the table. If you're having a hard time at the moment, trust me, you are not on your own.
Honestly, Owen, I have to say, I actually feel quite emotional listening to you today. Honestly, I think that's going to be one of my favorite episodes. All of that right after this.
Hi, Diggers. We've got a very special guest joining us today, someone that Zoe and I are both really excited to talk to. He's a psychotherapist, former NHS mental health lead and a bestselling author. His most recent book is called Addicted to Anxiety, which explores whether there's a connection between anxiety and addiction. It offers a guide for how we can deal with anxiety in a healthier way. Please welcome Owen O'Kane. Morning, Owen. Owen, welcome to Dig It. Today you're speaking to Generation Anxious. There are many, many, many of us in that club and it's a term that you've coined yourself. Is this as bad as it's ever been, do you think, this generation?
I think there is a generational problems right across the board with anxiety. I've talked a lot about the addicted component to it. You know, people getting addicted to the process of anxiety, which was the whole premise of the last book. I do believe that's true. I mean, certainly in clinical work, I'll see it everywhere. I'll see it a lot with younger people, but I'm seeing it with, you know, university students. I'm seeing it with people in middle age, men and post-ages, men going through kind of transitional phases and interestingly older population groups. So I think definitely over the last five years, it's problematic right across the board.
Can you just explain why that is for us then? Why, for people who are not familiar with your work, what the hell is going on? I think there's a whole load of things going on behind that.
I think that we know more about it now and I think because more people are talking about anxiety and they have the language to talk about it, it means that there's just a lot more awareness than we would have had, say, 10 years ago. Now, there's an upside to that because it means that the conversations are useful and they're helpful. The flip side of the coin is that we start to kind of pin anxiety clinical language on stuff that's maybe not clinical. You know, having a bad day is not the same as having an anxiety disorder or being worried about something doesn't mean that that's abnormal or it's a problem. So there is a lot of stuff going on. But I think the healthy thing is there are more conversations, but it's also remembering life's tricky at the moment.
There is a lot going on and we have way more exposure than we did, say, 10 years ago. I mean, you would have got the news every day or listened to the radio, whereas now our phones will constantly give us information about what's happening in the world. So I think it's just a whole mixed bag of life, really, that means that we're just kind of primarily more hardwired for threat than for worry.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? It's sort of like phones. I think COVID had a huge effect on everybody. I know that, you know, as we look at the news, the situation of war, the worry about fuel, there's so much, you know, the state of the planet, there's so much. It does feel like sometimes we are functioning at a very high level of anxiety. I've definitely seen it in, like you say, in younger people and older people. And I thought it was just mental. menopausal me. But it really, really has massively affected everybody.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What insights does Owen O'Kane provide about anxiety?
0:00–6:00
2
How can we change our relationship with anxiety?
6:00–7:07
3
What are common triggers for anxiety in different age groups?
7:07–14:07
4
How has the pandemic affected our mental health?
14:07–15:45
5
What practical steps can we take to manage anxiety?
15:45–30:52
6
How can we support children dealing with anxiety?
30:52–33:32
7
What role does uncertainty play in anxiety?
33:32–35:04
Speakers
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