'It is a familiar feeling for some of us. Your body just feels tense or restless. Maybe your mind starts racing or you have trouble sleeping. For some, it is a low humming in the back of your mind that simply won't quit its anxiety. About 40 million people in the United States have some sort of anxiety disorder. That's according to the Cleveland Clinic. That's roughly one out of ten people. And that doesn't even account for the non-clinical, lower grade anxiety that almost all of us experience at some point in our lives.

Anxiety is this simple definition of that feeling of fear or worry that comes in situations of uncertainty. That's my simplistic definition of everyday anxiety.

That's Wendy Suzuki. She's a professor of neuroscience at New York University, and she's also author of the book Good Anxiety. On the one hand, Professor Suzuki points out that it makes sense that so many of us feel anxious every once in a while. There's a lot in the news and sometimes in our lives to be anxious about. But at the same time, Suzuki also thinks anxiety gets a bad name. In fact, she calls anxiety the most misunderstood emotion.

The general feeling is I just want to get rid of it. And the misunderstanding is that it is valuable. It's a warning system that we all need. It is a tool that helps us figure out what we hold dear. If we don't have that, I think something important will be taken away from our lives.

Is it possible that our anxiety could actually serve a positive purpose? If you're skeptical about this, stay with us. Because today we're going to talk about harnessing the power of anxiety for good. I'm Doctor Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent. And this is Chasing Life. How are you, Professor?

I am doing great. How are you doing?

I'm doing fine. I am not feeling anxious, I don't think.

I'm feeling a little anxious. As the dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University. There are many, many things going on right now that that are causing lots of people anxiety.

When I sat down to talk to Professor Suzuki, it was right around college graduation season, and it was also when protests were popping up on campuses all across the country had. As someone with the kid in college myself, this is something that's been on my mind as well. And Professor Suzuki had some advice for me. She says the first step is to simply recognize we are anxious, and then we can start to better understand where it's coming from.

At its core, it's warning you about the things in your life that you should pay attention to. But on the flip side. Those warnings also tell you about what you hold dear. Maybe you hold connection with people dear. So that person that you had a big fight with coming in is disrupting that because you know you can't get close to this person. I was just listening to a podcast myself about, if you're a people pleaser, what does that say about what you value? It means that you value that connection. I was like, yes, I have people pleasing characteristics in me and it's true. My connection with friends and family is so very important to me. It really disturbs me when I can't have good relationships with people. Is that good or bad? I think that makes me feel so much better about my anxiety around those kinds of difficult interactions.

When I hear you describe anxiety and define it, it sounds a lot like stress. What are the distinguishes between stress and anxiety? Are they part and parcel of the same thing or are they different?

Yeah, I mean I think stress is a broader term that can be applied to lots of different emotions. Anxiety is an uncomfortable emotion that includes typically feelings of stress as well. It is a little bit hard to pull those things apart. I think fear can also have stress associated with it. Just to give an example, you know, what I really wanted to do is step back for a moment to put a finer point on this idea of how exactly anxiety is protective. And it's hard to imagine that in this day and age. But remember, anxiety evolved in our ancestors where they had physical things that could eat them and kill them. I think of a 2.5 million years ago, an ancestor with a little baby walking around trying to find food, and there's a crack of a twig. And that could either be, you know, a bear or a big animal coming to eat her, or it could be the crack of a twig. She might not be ready, or we're not going to have any ancestors after her. So what did that crack of the twig? Oh, she heard it. Now I'm anxious. I'm not sure I myself, am I not? And then her body is the fight or flight response and is being generated. And she gets ready to save herself. Save her baby. And that is protective. Everybody can say, oh, yeah, she's she's great, but I see how it works in her. The bad news is that that same response, including all of the fight or flight, gets activated when we look at the news, when we look at social media, at what's going on today, that's not the direct threat of the bear, but it still has the same response. Our heart rates are going up, our respiration rates are going off. That is not good physiologically for us. And so that is why that is your number one reason to learn how to modulate that, that stress response, you know, either not read the news or read the news and try and calm yourself down, or only read it enough so that you're not really getting stressed out about it.

Has our evolutionary biology just not caught up with the modern world? Because again, as you're I think you're alluding to professor, if a bear is potentially going to attack you, then all the anxiety responses that you are describing that blood flow to your limbs, your ability to run or fight or not fight a bear, but whatever it might be is activated. But watching the news is not a direct threat. And yet your body could have that same sort of physiological response as if you just saw a bear. That's that seems like a glitch. Or at least.

It is a glitch.

It's a glitch.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say it's a glitch that wasn't predicted by our evolution. We don't have a fine tuned enough. Oh, that's just the news. I'll just have a mini stress or mini anxiety response. The news has gotten so bad that it becomes at the level of a bear attacking us. And it's not just the news, it's so many things that have built up. We still have fear of Covid, still see people wearing masks, there's global warming, there's political unrest, there's war in our country. There's wars in other countries that we're deeply involved in. These are serious things. When you start adding all them up, you think, oh, maybe, maybe it is similar to a bear. I'm not sure. How do you equate that both things can be true. We have an evolved, but there's also serious, nonphysical, threatening things that are affecting all of us today.

That idea that you feel this feeling. And I think most people understand what it what it's like to feel anxious, but also that your body is working exactly the way that it should. Because I think sometimes when you have these feelings, you think something has gone haywire. I do like something wrong with me, but it's not. And I think it's an important message. That's your body. It's not a necessarily good feeling. A warning signal in your car is not a good feeling, but it's doing what it's supposed to be doing right. And now you can act upon it.

Exactly, exactly.

I have three teenage girls, and they're all very different. It's such. It's a whole nother podcast sometime. It's so interesting how, you know, genetically, they're obviously very similar and they grew up in the same household. But one of my daughters is super anxious. And, you know, there's a test coming up. The whole house is going to know that there's a test coming up, and it's a lot. But the flip side, professor, is that she does really, really well in school. So, you know, it's and my wife and I struggle with this because on one hand, you know, we obviously don't want her to have that level of anxiety. Just it's not it's not good. On the other hand, she seems to be one of these kids who really, in her own way, thrives on it. She almost she almost gives herself anxiety because then it forces her, I think, to study even harder to to make sure she's not missing things. What about that?

Yeah, I think that's not uncommon. I like to contrast that level of high anxiety to really make you do and perform better with, you know, if she had that Sunday let's watch Netflix all afternoon kind of attitude, she probably wouldn't get the grades that she has, but she would be more relaxed. And so if she can appreciate that that Sunday Netflix kind of relaxation, ask her whether it's possible to modulate. It's a kind of a challenge for personal control. It sounds like she's really good at getting to One Direction. If you can teach you to modulate the feeling. I know it's it's easier for us older people who have gone through it all to say, oh, well, maybe modulation is a good thing.

And by the way, I love this podcast because I'm I'm taking advantage of getting free advice from you. So thank you for that.

Absolutely.

After the break, I'll get some more of Professor Suzuki's advice for reducing anxiety. Stay with us. As you're listening to this, I know that some of you may be skeptical that anxiety can be good. It's definitely something tough to wrap your head around, especially when the symptoms of anxiety can sometimes feel so debilitating. But Professor Zuki also deeply understands the toll difficult emotions can take. In fact, this work is really personal to her.

I, tragically, I lost both my father, who was in his 80s, and he had dementia. But also my 50 year old brother, died of a heart attack in the middle of writing my book. Oh, my good anxiety.

I'm so sorry.

And I thank you. It was, of course, I stop writing the book. It's. I can't think of anxiety. I have good anxiety right now. I was mourning it was. It was the worst time I've ever gone through in my whole life. And I realized in going through that, that that difficult time and all of that grief and the waves of grief that came over that. The grief was so bad because the love was so strong. And if I didn't have the love that was so strong, I would never have this grief. And there's tragedy, too, because my brother was only 50 years old, and it was just. He was my younger brother. He's not supposed to die before me, but I had this realization. That's how the flip side that I talk about anxiety. That's where it came from. Understanding that the deep grief that I felt that most of us will feel. Everybody's going to lose. Sadly, I'm sorry to say we'll lose somebody that we hold so dear. But that grief is really the representation of the love that that was with those people. And that brought me so much comfort. And in a sense, I said, okay, if I could get to the flip side, the good side of grief, what is the good side of anxiety? And I almost needed to find the good side of anxiety. And that's how the book became good anxiety.

Wow. Well, gosh, professor, I'm so sorry. That was it. Sounds like a really tragic time in your life. Yeah. Is it tough to talk about?

Was it getting easier to to talk about. But, you know, it definitely comes back. And I think about both my father, my brother very regularly now. No, it is easier. It's easier to go through.

You clearly have the wherewithal and the knowledge to be able to say to yourself that I'm feeling this profound grief because it's reflective of the profound love that I felt for from these family members. And you're equating that to the anxiety, like I'm feeling this level of anxiety because of x, y, z.

Yeah.

It seems like it's hard to recognize that in the moment, though, maybe when you reflect on it. But in the moment it's hard.

It is. But the thing is, when I, you know, I, I explored my own anxiety very, very deeply for this book. There's not that much unexpected anxiety. I have anxiety that I could predict. Oh, you know, here's the situation coming up again. Do I have x? I yeah, have anxiety I've always had anxiety. And you start to realize and also talking to people about their anxiety. There's this feeling of almost shames like, oh, I'm the only one that has anxiety about this. I don't like to speak up in my faculty meeting. Guess what? Every single person, every single faculty member, using my own personal examples, has anxiety about speaking up in that faculty meeting. So I realize that when you start talking to lots and lots of people about their anxiety, and when you start to really explore your own anxiety, which I did for this book.

Again, you heard it here on the podcast, right? Even even Professor Suzuki sort of saying, like, everyone is going to feel that level of anxiety because I think the idea that you think, hey, I'm the only one feeling this way actually just creates even more anxiety, like, why does everyone else seem so relaxed? Why am I the only one? Yeah, it's it's really it's it's interesting. Do you wake up anxious ever?

My anxiety comes up right before I'm going to try and go to sleep. So, you know, it's like, oh, sleep is going to come. It's going to feel so good. And I think of all the five things that I, I didn't do or I didn't do well today or I forgot to do, but I don't often I don't wake up anxious.

Sometimes I wake up anxious and I think I and I think maybe this is where my daughter gets it from. I think I impose it on myself to just jerk myself out of bed. I got to do these things, you know, I'm already behind. You know, when you when you're feeling this way before you go to bed, what do you do to sort of address your anxiety?

I like to say that there are gifts that come with your anxiety. And so this is a perfect example, this gift of my anxiety that happens right before I'm going to go to sleep. The gift that comes is a gift of productivity. So how does that work? I have this worry list that hits me right before I'm going to go to sleep. And so what do I do? I turn that what if list, into a to do list. So I know I just say, okay, I'm going to remember these things. So when do you can go to sleep? Now. But the next morning I go and take all those things that made me not sleep the night before, and I go do something about them. I write the email, I get some advice, I do something towards them. And in that way I make myself more productive and I use my anxiety as the tool that it's supposed to. Oh, it's it's pointy towards these things that you're worried about for some reason. And so I love this one. It's easy to understand. It's easy to do. Everybody can do it today. Turn your what if list into a to do list.

I love that now it's making more sense why I get certain emails like 10:30 at 11:00 at night. I've just gone into someone's to do list.

That's right.

That's right. You mentioned that you think for sure anxiety has increased. Just sort of societally. Is there a component? And do you worry at all that we may be over medicalising anxiety?

'Yes I do from, you know, my work at the university and the number of drugs being described for anxiety. I think there are many, many non-medical tools that one can use. They may not work as fast as a pill that you might be able to get prescribed.

A breathing technique's really fast.

'That's true, that's true. But but they will provide you life long skills that will help in modulation their relaxation techniques, their techniques that you will find that that make you happier, which is always a good thing. So, yes, I wish, that there was more emphasis on these non-medical approaches to address everyday anxiety, everyday depression. Again, I'm not talking about clinical anxiety.

Okay. Just putting this together. We live in a probabilistic world. Uncertainty can be a source of anxiety. And and you're going to face more of that the more you're out in the world. How important is it to just avoid things that you think could make you anxious rather than embracing them.

I'm going to quote a beautiful thing that I heard from Deepak Chopra, which is this desire to embrace uncertainty. That's what makes life interesting to live. What if you thought about that for a second? In my life, the uncertainty can be something that brings excitement can bring joy. Not all the time, but maybe you can take part of that and embrace it as something useful. If the same thing happened every single time I went on vacation. That that would not be a fun vacation. I like the newness. I like learning new things and being exposed to new things, and I can control that by definition. Does that mean I dive into the most uncertain situation that I can? No, of course not. There's choices that you could make, but there's also mindset shifts around uncertainty. Just like anxiety is not always bad. I think uncertainty can also not always be bad and can be, you know, one of the most beautiful things in, in, in our life.

I mean, I feel like it can bring you great joy. I mean, if you already know everything that's going to happen, you're not learning anything new. You're sort of experiencing the same things over and over again. With uncertainty comes this newness as well, I guess. And also to your earlier point, I think being out there with people and this has been a recent sort of thing for me as well, because I'm not I've never really been a particularly social person. I don't know, maybe it's seven years of neurosurgery training and just sort of being locked in, you know, a hospital for most of my life. But nevertheless, I think when I'm with people, even people that I are not Nisei friends, but just even in a social gathering. I don't know, there's an energy there and and I the, there's another thing that I think is important and that is that people that you may think you don't like or make you anxious. It is hard to hate close up when you actually spend time with people. It's very hard to hate someone close up, and I say that in a very benevolent way, meaning that that you can hate from far away. And that's anxiety producing.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I think you might have put your finger right on part of the issue with social media and those short sound bites that does not represent the full person. Try and say hateful things to a person sitting right across the table for you and your your speech is going to be modulated by, you know, automatically. And that is such a powerful tool that I think all our schools and universities are trying to use. We're not virtual anymore. We are in person, face to face, and that is beneficial.

Embracing uncertainty and newness. It can be scary, but in my experience it can be really worthwhile. As we wrapped up, I asked Professor Suzuki for her top tips.

The first step of getting to good anxiety is learning how for you to lower that level of everyday anxiety. This is where you start to explore what are those things that make you feel good?

If you're looking for somewhere to start, here's one idea. Simply move your body.

Did you know that just ten minutes of walking can significantly reduce anxiety and depression levels in people? You don't even have to change your clothes to get that. What that is doing is stimulating the release of neurotransmitters that don't necessarily decrease your anxiety, but they increase your feelings of reward and happiness. Those neurotransmitters that go up include dopamine and serotonin and noradrenaline and endorphins. Every single time you move your body, it's like giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals. And it works immediately. Everybody has the feeling, oh, I was so I just couldn't handle it at work. And I went out for a walk and I felt better. That is because you just gave your brain a little bubble bath.

Professor Suzuki's final tip is simple and it's free.

Breath meditation is the oldest form of meditation and can be so effective in really calming ourselves down immediately. That's my number one go to for people who say, I just need something right now, what should I do right now if I'm just starting to feel anxious?

I know this may sound silly, but can you talk me through that a little bit? Because I think, yeah, people hear a lot about breathwork. And to take a deep breath in, I imagine something you do quite a bit. This is your area of study kit. Let's just try it. Talk me through some breathwork.

The simplest form is just to take a few deep, slow breaths in and out. However you define that. So let's do that. Three deep breaths in and out. Let's inhale. And exhale. Inhale. If you listen to the sound, it's better. Exhale. All the way out. Last one. Inhale. And deep exhale with sound. Just that conscious slowing I. I'm usually leading it, but even when I'm leading it, I can't do it fully myself. It always calms me down. I'll also tell everybody it's easier if you have somebody to do it for you, to lead for you. But I start with this one because it's so, so easy. Everybody can just slowly inhale and exhale. And it's going to be so much slower than your breathing usually, especially if there's a little anxiety in your life right now.

These tips may sound simple, but honestly I think that is the beauty of them. So often I think when we feel uncomfortable, the urge is to reach for something like food, or mindlessly scrolling on your phone or zoning out in front of the TV or TikTok. The thing is, that doesn't actually help with our anxiety in the long term. Now, there was something else. The professor said to me that I've been thinking a lot about. When you start to feel anxious. You know, you get that heart racing and that jittery feeling instead of letting it overwhelm you. Reset by reminding yourself this is exactly how your body is supposed to react. It actually means things are working normally in your body and in your mind, and you are being primed for success. In fact, if you didn't have that feeling, it might mean something was wrong. That is why it's called good anxiety. So next time you're feeling a little anxious, I hope you'll think about it and it helps you. And speaking of good advice, this week on the podcast, we are continuing to ask folks how they chase life. And here's a touching story from a listener named Anna Marie, who worked in admissions and the food pantry at a local community college.

And there was one student that I still hold near and dear to my heart. I'll call him Henry, and I could tell he struggled. And one day he sat down and he put his face in his hands, and he said, in case you haven't wondered, I'm a little different than others. And I looked at him and I said, we're all a little different. That's what makes the world go round. And that's a beautiful thing. So I learned kindness and patience and empathy from him. I will carry that throughout my life.

Anna Marie, thank you so much for calling and sharing. And please keep all those calls and messages coming in. I really love learning and hearing from all of you. Coming up next week, we're going to explore the role of therapy in the pursuit of happiness. How do you know if therapy is right for you?

'Part of it has to do with readiness. So is the person ready to self-reflect? Is the person ready to make some changes? How willing are you to consider another perspective?

That's coming up Tuesday. Chasing life is a production of CNN audio. Our podcast is produced by Eryn Mathewson, Jennifer Lee, and Grace Walker. Our senior producer and showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Andrea Kane as our medical writer, and Dan Dzula is our technical director. And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig, with support from James Andress, John D and Nora Haley Thomas, Alex Maniserri, Robert Mathers, Lainie Steinhart, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy, and Nadia Kounang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.