Modern Wisdom
#951 - Dr Russell Kennedy - How To Fix Your Brain’s Addiction To Anxiety & Worry
07 Jun 2025
Dr. Russell Kennedy is a neuroscientist specializing in anxiety treatment, physician, and an author. Why is anxiety so common now? It once helped us survive, like when we were being chased by lions. But today, we feel it even when there's no real threat. So what's going on? What does science say about this ancient emotion, and how can we manage it in the modern world? Expect to learn why anxiety is so common nowadays, the neuroscience of why we worry, the big differences between anxiety and worry, the biggest triggers of anxiety and how to manage them better, how to undo-chronic anxiety and how anxiety shows up differently for men and women, if it is it a blessing or a curse to feel things deeply, where people pleasing come from neurologically and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 15% off any Saily data plan at https://saily.com/modernwisdom Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get 15% off any Saily data plan at https://saily.com/modernwisdom Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Why is anxiety so common in the modern world? Of all of the different emotions, even all of the negative ones, why does this seem to be the one that people are zeroing in on?
I think it's uncertainty. Our species has grown in uncertainty, but now we're so distracted by our phones. The wherewithal we would have used to be able to deal with the uncertainty in the past is All our cash is full. We don't have a whole lot of extra room.
So when uncertainty comes up, and anxiety can sometimes be described as uncertainty intolerance, because so many of us as children, if you had trauma, if you had wounding, if you had stuff that was unrepaired, that uncertainty becomes unbearable. So rather than just sort of sit in uncertainty, we worry about it.
Talk to me about why uncertainty is a fuel, a potent fuel for anxiety.
Well, I think there is a lot of uncertainty in our childhoods, especially with my dad. I grew up with a dad who had schizophrenia and bipolar, and he was never abusive or violent, but he would lose his mind. And for a young boy, and a young teenager, seeing your father lose his mind. And my dad was the one of the two of us that was really kind of loving and connected when he wasn't psychotic.
You know, my little joke is my mother was neurotic and my father was psychotic, so my own psyche didn't stand much of a chance, right? So I think it's just understanding that, you know, uncertainty is something that we don't tolerate well as people, especially if you had a lot of uncertainty in your childhood.
Hmm. I'm trying to draw the link between what anxiety is, what its function is, and uncertainty. Can you try and sort of fold these things together for me?
Yeah, sure. Well, I think anxiety isn't one thing. It's actually two things. And I talk about this in my book. It's basically the state of alarm that's held in your body and this worrisome, the warnings, what ifs, worst case scenario your mind comes up with. So each one energizes the other in something I call the alarm anxiety cycle.
So the short version is you had a trauma that's too much for you to bear as a child. It got pushed into your unconscious mind. And because the body is a representation of the unconscious mind, the body keeps the score and that trauma gets stored in your body. And it sort of has this nature of it. And through this process called interoception, the brain is always reading the body.
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