How To Stop Feeling Anxious All The Time with Neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuki
episodePreviously titled “The Anxiety Scientist: Feeling Overwhelmed? Rewire Your Brain With This Science-Backed Method” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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What causes anxiety and how does it manifest in our brain?
Well, a few years ago, I was on the air and I had a moment I will never forget. Mid-sentence, my brain literally left me. I couldn't find the word I needed. My thoughts were spinning. It felt like everything was just moving too fast inside my head at once. And let me tell you, if you have ever been there where your chest starts getting tight after that, your mind starts racing and you're thinking, what is happening to me right now? You know how scary it feels. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learn to treat anxiety like a problem, like something to shut down or just deal with later. But what if that is actually information? What if your brain is trying to tell you something, not break you? That question is why I really wanted this conversation to take place.
Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist, professor of neuroscience and psychology, and Dean of the College of Arts and Science at NYU and the author of the book, Good Anxiety. Her work changed how I think about what's happening in my brain when I start to feel overwhelmed or I start to feel that anxious feeling or on edge. She studies how the brain changes, and more importantly, how we can work with it instead of fighting it, which I found out I've been doing for a long time. So if you've been feeling more anxious than you used to feel, more distracted, or like your brain is not cooperating lately, this conversation is for you. I think it's going to help you in so many ways.
Dr. Wendy Suzuki, welcome to The Tamsen Show. Thank you so much for having me.
It's so nice to see you. You too. It's been a bit since we saw each other, but I follow you avidly and always looking at what you're doing next. So we're going to bring out something shortly, which is going to surprise everybody. But first, I want to ask you, what pulled you into this line of work in particular?
What pulled me into neuroscience was an amazing mentor. I like to call her the Beyonce of neuroscience, who was a professor that I had. And I took her for my very first class of my freshman year. And she was a neuroscientist, the very first female PhD ever given by UC Berkeley in neuroanatomy. I didn't know. I just chose the class by the title, which was called
How does chronic stress affect our focus and memory?
the brain and its potential. But she was a pioneering neuroscientist and she was an extraordinary instructor, made us all want to understand every little cell in our brain. That's what she did for me. And ever since that first day, I wanted to become a neuroscientist.
That's incredible. So fast forward to today, where you're going around teaching about it, overseeing thousands of students, making sure people understand And I think there's so much curiosity these days into what our brains are doing, where they're working for us, and where we sometimes maybe feel they're working against us. Is there something that you're seeing nowadays, or is there some kind of trend? We know social media is a big thing out there. We know AI has a lot going on. Is there some kind of trend you're seeing nowadays in how we are thinking and how anxiety plays a role into all of this in society?
Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the most interesting trends terrible interesting trend is we know how much social media is contributing to the higher levels of anxiety. And then the pandemic happened and that made everything worse. We came out of that, but then came AI. And AI is an incredible tool. It can be very, very valuable. But in the way that it's been used by particularly young people for social companionship, for every time anxiety might come up or a worry might come up, what am I going to say? And ask AI and create that script, which could be a little bit of a crutch. But if that's all you do, then your AI is creating your own life for you. And that is kind of doubling down on the anxiety caused by social media.
And it is making anxiety overall worse. That's what we're starting to see.
And I can imagine that's something that's pretty new on the horizon. We've seen social media for a while, but how quickly AI has become part of our lives in all of this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What causes anxiety and how does it manifest in our brain?
0:00–2:20
2
How does chronic stress affect our focus and memory?
2:20–4:29
3
What role does movement play in calming the brain?
4:29–6:23
4
How can sleep impact our emotional regulation and anxiety levels?
6:23–8:29
5
What are some practical tools to manage anxiety in daily life?
8:29–10:14
6
How does social media contribute to increased anxiety?
10:14–12:04
7
What is the significance of brain plasticity in managing anxiety?
12:04–14:23
8
How can community and social connections alleviate feelings of loneliness?
14:23–46:01
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Tamsen Show
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