Outsmart Your Anxious Brain: Ten Simple Ways to Beat the Worry Trick

It’s time to outsmart your worry and anxiety. Drawing on the same cutting-edge psychology presented in author David Carbonell’s The Worry Trick, this irreverent, on-the-go guide offers ten powerful "counter-intuitive" strategies to help you put worry in its place—anytime, anywhere.

Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question our decisions and ourselves, worry about the future, and it fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence. But what if we understood that anxiety is merely a trick of the mind, trying to convince us we’re in danger? Anxiety is like a magician behind the curtain, playing subtle tricks on us to convince us that we're in danger when we’re not. When we understand this, we can observe our anxious feelings with some distance.

Based on the author’s popular book, The Worry Trick, this helpful and humorous guide identifies the “trick” of chronic anxiety, and provides the ten most powerful techniques based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you respond differently to panic, anxiety, worry, and phobias. Once you learn to respond differently to the worry trick, you’ll be able to break the cycle of chronic anxiety for good.

Instead of trying to “manage” your anxiety or push anxious thoughts away—techniques that you’ve probably already discovered don’t work—the ten powerful strategies outlined in this guide will empower you to actually change how you respond to worry and anxiety, so you can get your life back!

David A. Carbonell, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety in all its forms. He is author of Panic Attacks Workbook, The Worry Trick, and Fear of Flying Workbook. He is “coach” of the popular self-help site www.anxietycoach.com, and has taught workshops on the treatment of anxiety disorders to more than 9,000 professional psychotherapists in the U.S. and abroad. He is a long-standing member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and a frequent presenter at their annual conferences. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from DePaul University in 1985, and has maintained a practice devoted to the treatment of anxiety disorders since 1990. He lives in Chicago, IL, with his wife and a pair of rescue dogs. In his spare time, he is founding member of The Therapy Players, an improvisational comedy troupe of professional psychotherapists which performs at clubs, theaters, and mental health conferences throughout the Chicago area.

Foreword writer Martin N. Seif, PhD, is cofounder of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and was a member of its board of directors from 1977 through 1991. He maintains a private practice in New York, NY; and Greenwich, CT; and is coauthor of What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Anxiety Disorders and OvercomingUnwanted Intrusive Thoughts.