One Less Thing to Worry About : Uncommon Wisdom for Coping with Common Anxieties

When it comes to having anxiety, women outnumber men two to one. Fluctuations in levels of estrogen and other hormones, as well as physiological factors unique to women, seem to cause us not only to experience anxiety differently at different times in our lives, but also to worry about different things in different ways. Now a pioneer in the field presents a new perspective on the way women worry, showing that anxiety isn’t something that just happens to us, but rather something that involves action and reaction–something with which we have a relationship–and that we can learn to manage.

Anxiety can be friend or foe: it can keep us out of trouble or keep us chronically on edge. Normal, healthy worry reminds us to pay our taxes, see a doctor when we’re feeling sick, and lock the doors at night. But when worry escalates into chronic anxiety, keeping us from fully living our lives, it’s time to assess the kind of relationship we have with our anxiety and take action to change it. In this practical and lively guide, Jerilyn Ross presents stories of women who did just that and introduces the Ross Prescription–a set of innovative tools and techniques that you can use to do it, too. It includes

• questionnaires to help you determine whether what you’re experiencing is normal, everyday worry or if it is perhaps symptomatic of an anxiety disorder
• strategies for identifying how you relate to your anxiety: Do you act impulsively to ease it? Adhere to regimens of obsessive behavior to control it? Or avoid and run away from it?
• tips for locating your position on the anxiety spectrum: Is your worry healthy and helpful, or is it toxic?
• cutting-edge research into the ways hormones affect when and how a woman experiences and deals with anxiety
• the Eight Points, a set of reliable techniques to help you control anxiety, worry, and stress in the moment and liberate you from their grip

With this book in hand and the Ross Prescription in mind, you will learn to identify, modify, and redefine your relationship with worry and anxiety and master simple, effective ways to regain control of your life.

Jerilyn Ross, M.A., is one of the nation’s leading experts on anxiety disorders. An active psychotherapist, patient advocate, and author, Ross is director of The Ross Center for Anxiety & Related Disorders in Washington, D.C., and president and CEO of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. Ross received the 2004 Patient Advocacy Award from the American Psychiatric Association, the 2001 Anxiety Disorder Initiative Award from the World Council on Anxiety and the World Psychiatric Association, a 2000 Telly Award, and a 1994 Distinguished Humanitarian Award from the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. She lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband.

Robin Cantor-Cooke is co-author of Satisfaction (with Anita H. Clayton, M.D.), Thriving with Heart Disease (with Wayne M. Sotile, Ph.D.) and is a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter. She has worked as a writer, editor, scriptwriter, and producer on more than forty books and tape programs and is an adjunct faculty member at the College of William & Mary. She lives with her husband and two sons in Williamsburg, Virginia.