How Anxiety Is Different For Men 

"To stop anxiety, sugondese." - Dr. Gay

My anxiety as a man is the fear that I'll be abandoned and cast aside as soon as I can no longer provide value and work for others. No one genuinely cares about me as a person. The respect and love I receive from others is intrinsically tied to my output.

My 28yo little brother took his own life 3 weeks ago and this is opening my eyes to why he did it. My heart is so broken but I must find out as much as I can about what his experience might have been like, so that I can honour his memory properly. Thank you for discussing these important topics. Our men need to know these things and women need to know them too so that we can all look after one another ❤

That “loss of appetite” symptom is so real. My stomach is always upset when I’m anxious, and it makes consuming anything besides water miserable.

I'm in therapy now but they never bother to explain stuff like this to me. I have a practical mind and need stuff explained this way. Keep this stuff coming bro.

"Stop trying to fix things just listen!" "Not fixing things is literally killing me. "

it becomes stupid when you're just traumatized and your amygdala is hyper active 24h/7

I use to feel anxiety a lot, but for me the solution was understanding that the anxiety was a cover up for anger and fear, once I started confronting my emotions and accepting them, things got way better

I man I simple I feel anxious I try to forget anxiety

We stepping out the apartment door with less anxiety with this one 🔥

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1">00:01</a> Anxiety is a gendered concept with differences in experience for men and women. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="132">02:12</a> Anxiety creates perceptions of unsolvable events <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="254">04:14</a> Men's anxiety is often characterized by physical symptoms and low perceived control. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="394">06:34</a> Men's anxiety is influenced by societal norms and restrictive emotionality. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="530">08:50</a> Low perceived control shapes behaviors and creates unfixable situations <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="667">11:07</a> Perceived low control leads to blind anxiety in men <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="801">13:21</a> Amygdala amplifies perceived risks, leading to elevated anxiety levels <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="934">15:34</a> Anxiety increases stress levels in men when faced with unsolvable problems <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1070">17:50</a> Unacknowledged anxiety exacerbates problems in men's lives <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1181">19:41</a> Reducing anxiety leads to better problem-solving and lower stress. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1289">21:29</a> Male type anxiety can make you feel out of control and trigger physical symptoms. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1390">23:10</a> Addressing anxiety can lead to improvements in life. Anxiety is a gendered concept with differences in experience for men and women. - Male-type anxiety is characterized by low perceived control and physical symptoms. - Men may feel surrounded by unfixable problems, leading to a sense of lack of control over their lives. Anxiety creates perceptions of unsolvable events - Stealth anxiety leads to a perception of low control - Low perceived control then manifests as unsolvable life events Men's anxiety is often characterized by physical symptoms and low perceived control. - Men experiencing anxiety tend to report physical symptoms like headaches, loss of appetite, body tremors, and sensations of losing control. - Compared to women, men with anxiety are more likely to exhibit symptoms of social disruptions, tearing, and interpersonal distress. Men's anxiety is influenced by societal norms and restrictive emotionality. - Higher endorsement of masculine norms leads to increased anxiety in men. - Heterosexual preferences are associated with higher levels of anxiety due to restrictive emotionality, not genital preference. Low perceived control shapes behaviors and creates unfixable situations - Research shows low perceived control leads to greater dependent interpersonal stress - Perceived control predicts and creates anxiety and stress, not the other way around Perceived low control leads to blind anxiety in men - Men's restricted emotionality and societal norms prevent them from subjectively experiencing anxiety, despite it being active in the amygdala. - The amplification of perception by anxiety can lead to exaggerated difficulty in dealing with problems, impacting decision-making and actions. Amygdala amplifies perceived risks, leading to elevated anxiety levels - Emotional restriction can lead to misperception of difficulty, exacerbating anxiety - Masculine individuals tend to employ problem-based coping, impacting anxiety levels Anxiety increases stress levels in men when faced with unsolvable problems - Anxiety adds difficulty to fixing problems, leading to perception of higher stress levels. - Perception of control decreases, creating actual stressors in life. Unacknowledged anxiety exacerbates problems in men's lives - Unrecognized anxiety triggers a stress response and leads to interpersonal stressors - Targeting the underlying occult anxiety can help break the cycle and address the root cause Reducing anxiety leads to better problem-solving and lower stress. - By targeting anxiety, the cascade of overwhelming problems falls apart. - Reducing stress increases perception of control and leads to proactive problem-solving. Male type anxiety can make you feel out of control and trigger physical symptoms. - Recognize emotional awareness and uncover anxiety distortions to regain control. - Target anxiety through physical exercise and mind-body practices to calm amygdala and reduce emotional energy. Addressing anxiety can lead to improvements in life. - Seek professional help and work on managing anxiety seriously. - Heterosexual norms may contribute to increased anxiety levels.

Thankyou. That resonated with me. I'm 48, an underground miner, have a small farm. My life feels out of control, and things feel overwhelming. The only thing that crosses the mind is work harder on the problem, but your exhausted. What you have said makes a lot of sense and gives me a new problem to work on... In a healthy way of course. 😎

When i get really anxious I have physical symptoms, like an uncontrollable body shaking , my gut "shuts down", i lose appetite, my mouth gets dry af. After i calm down i feel so tired... It's really awful. Great video dr. k, it matches my experience.

Something that helped me was noticing two things: ● My attitudes affect me ● My attitudes can create me anxiety

So cool that Dr. K is improving in his handwriting. I could read most everything with only a few difficulties, truly a remarkable achievement for a doctor!

I love that more men are talking about things like things. I hate when people say things like “you’re just weak” etc. No those people just aren’t dealing with their issues but I promise they’re coming out somewhere.

My husband used to have this type of anxiety. The HARDEST PART is getting a man who doesnt FEEL ANXIOUS to understand that constantly feeling a lack to control and therefore motivation IS ANXIETY. To me this was always very obvious, but he couldnt see it until he saw an extreme version in it in a close family friend.

This video is literally for me today. I lost my job, its my tenth job, Im 38, I live alone, I go to therapy and Im diagnosed with CPTSD. After losing my job I got into this mental state where I just hate the idea of working for anyone else anymore. Its my tenth job! I feel trapped in an eternal rat race where I can't grow, I can't find stability, I feel trapped, like Im not in control. Ive done some investments to sell and all I need is to do it but I feel so scared about doing it, scared to even go outside. Im glad I got an appointment on thursday. I feel jitterry none stop

As someone with ADHD, I started countering stress from anxiety with apathy, and I started doing this in my late 20s. Whenever I understand that "failure is inevitable", I stop giving a sh*t. Sometimes this has actually helped me find a solution to a problem instead, and if not, "oh well". This attitude has not eliminated my anxiety, but it has helped me reduce the felt effects of it.

As soon as i have the money, I'll go to therapy.

Living with this for over 5 years now. Therapy, meditation, fitness... still haven't managed to solve it. Meanwhile, life flies by and the ever-changing symptoms continue to bring suffering. Thanks for creating and sharing this content. Every bit helps. I hope you can dive more into the practicalities of 'what can we do about it' at some future point, even though I understand most of that happens inside ourselves, making it hard to communicate.

I keep having conflict between my wife and my girlfriend

as a woman who experiences anxiety like this too in some ways, this is really helpful

With the way you talk about psychology and mention straight facts and statistics from papers really resonates with me and helps so much. Recently I started having health problems for the first time in my life and I've developed massive crippling health anxiety from being out of control.

The concept of occult anxiety is interesting. I had and have overcome a severe panic disorder and no one ever explained that concept to me. It could have saved me so much time.

Dang that’s definitely why i have so many panic/anxiety attacks. I’m wrapped in all the things i can “control” and that I’m not doing, but I just have to prioritize what’s important/write it down in a list. I can’t do it all I’m not Johnny Sins. Journaling has helped me greatly from Dr. K’s vid. It’s helped me with processing emotions, organize what I want to do, and making a schedule.

I think a lot of women with this pattern of anxiety also tend to be misdiagnosed with BPD. Much like how a lot of autism in women is misdiagnosed as bipolar, borderline, or schizotypal.

Thank you for this video! I' m a woman so I when I saw the title I skipped this video but youtube autoplay decided to play it anyway. I was doing somthing else so I let it play. The definition of "male-anxiety" at the beginning made me stay because I recognized myself alot. Once you addressed the role of education and emphasis during childhood on "problem solving" rather than "emotional feeling" I understood why I identified with this pattern so much. This one may not have been initially intended for me but it helped me alot. Cheers 🎉

yet again a video of a male problem that somehow is so so relatable for me, a female. thank you for bringing rhis up, it helps to broaden my view on my inner problems.

I recognize the patterns described in this video. I don’t always know how to fix my problems but I do recognize when I suffer from anxiety. To calm myself down I take a warm shower which increases oxytocin. This is the “cuddle” hormone. I then follow up with a 30-60 seconds (max) cold shower. This increases endorphins and dopamine. They help to decrease stress levels. The shower tactic might not fix the problems but it helps to get a calm mind again.

Thank you for all that you do

So thankful for this content. Don’t feel these sort of discussions are being had anywhere else!

I've been with my current therapist for three months. What has been working for me is being conscious of the symptoms of an anxiety attack (for me the big one is chest tightness), identifying the specific thought/action is causing it, and using techniques to short circuit it. So far that has involved establishing control for the rapid onset type of anxiety, and physical exercise as a maintenance piece to treat the slow build type.

This actually answers alot for me, i've just been sitting here for 20mins unpacking my past and making connections I never realised. I'm glad I watched this.

oh my god, years and years of therapy and none of them had any real understanding of where my anxieties/panic attacks stemmed from. This makes so much sense, every time I feel like I lose control of my life or a small problem is unsolvable it absolutely eats away at me. Thank you yet again for the incredibly easy to understand and in depth videos. I think this one more than any other is going to be a big help with helping keeping everything at a reasonable level.

I found the best therapist. I can say that I am EXTREMELY thankful to have known most of this from him. Took years before I found him. Nobody else explained things like THIS, and only made me feel worse. Keep looking people! Those people that give a shit about you, are out there! I promise!

Very informative video, especially when speaking about men not feeling the anxiety but men are more inclined to feel the physical symptoms, which is what I’m going through right now! The physical symptoms has landed me in the ER for sensations of perceived chest pains that has me freaked out. They found nothing fortunately but has me in a stressed out state of thinking there is wrong with me medically. I have a cardiologist appointment coming up to see if there is anything, but chances are there really won’t be anything. The symptoms can be overwhelming but I’ve got to work with a therapist to figure out what’s causing me to stress out.

This is so super super helpful Cause like, while this is labelled here as 'man anxiety', i see it with my mum, whos a single parent taking this role of being a father and such. She often comments she feels like a guy more than female in regards in feeling like she cant relate to how female, or i guess for me, how i express anxiety. And in turn is also me not having understanding of what is truly feels like in her position. I thought us being of similar sex would make it more relatable, but now seeing this laid down, it really makes me accept that those times my mum saying that "she literally cannot feel anxiety", yet now showing symptoms of physical illness rings so true Im glad im able to understand what people who feels this way get to experience, and will be kinder and sympathetic!

This is such a needed video right now; this isn't necessarily a confirmation of 'self fulfilling prophecy' bias, but there's a definite component when you combine 'things aren't getting better' and then you do actions as if it already has come to pass, so things get worse cycle is so ingrained in a lot of ways, and having it laid out like this really helps as always.

Legit the most relatable, accessible and BS-free description of anxiety I've heard. Eye-opening stuff.

Hey thanks for this doctor K! Lost my job out of nowhere back in November, and I've been experiencing some of those physical symptoms and a few other difficulties ever since. Couldn't quite pin things on a traditional understanding of anxiety, but this hits a bit closer to home. I truly had no idea wtf was going on, and that just made it even worse. This feels like a great starting point, and I really appreciate it =)

This feels like "Just calm down bro" with extra steps, but oddly it works for me. Just noticing that my perception of having low control is making that feeling of unsolvable problems I experience just sort of melt. I feel more in control when I notice my perception of having low control.

I wasn't ready for this one, but I needed this one. Thank you.

The physical symptoms you mention are such a recognition for me, I struggled with extreme anxiety, depression, panic attacks and low self perception for years, but no one around me seemed to notice, (I didn't ask for help because I am a guy and being vulnerable didn't seem manly). I started reading 2 years ago, watching videos like yours, and last year even started running. my life changed for the better and I can even go to parties and walk through crowds without my vision narrowing or feeling like i'm in a garbage compactor. I guess what I'm trying to say to you is THANK YOU, and to myself : keep it up.

Thank you for this video, oh my god. I never even thought anxiety would bave been a problem until you started listing the examles at the beginning.

I love when Dr. K videos come out and they're talking about a problem I'm currently going through. It's been a while since the last one feeling like this (partially thanks to Dr. K videos that helped me target other problems in the past), but this one hits hard. Thanks a lot for doing this, it helps so much ❤

Anxiety - worrying about the possible unknown future outcomes, often derived from historical events. Depression - looking at historical events and realizing how different choices may have produced better outcomes. That was the cycle for me at least until I learned to quit living in the past and stop imprinting it onto the future.

I have had anxiety and panic disorder since my early 20s and I’ve never hear it more perfectly, accurately articulated than this.

thank you for everything Dr K

Not weird to me. All through your presentation I kept getting frissons of recognition. This really helps me understand my life experience with anxiety & MDD, and my problems with conventional psychotherapy & medications, I'm quite comfortable with my ambigendered sexuality, but I definitely absorbed the Fixit attitude as a kid, along with Stiff Upper Lip, Rugged Self-Reliance, and Perfectionism. It also explains a couple of near-breakdowns recently, from watching too much RU-vid news, and which I did successfully cope with in the end by using self-hypnosis & meditation--no doubt to calm my amygdala. I suspect occult anxiety also has a lot to do with my history of addictions, both chemical and behavioural. I apologize for posting such a long comment; I didn't have time to write a short one. 😉

This falls so much in line with my experiences of the last decade, some dreadful event happened that made me lose control over all aspects of my life and I became extremely despondent. My main point of suffering in life was that I had no control over anything, I'd lost most of my friends, I was forced to drop out of school, I was poor, I couldn't hope for a better job and there was no way that I could ever attract someone when I felt that low. There were so many things pressing down on me that the hopelessness turned into suicidality a couple of times. And then I finally got back into training, I gained experience, I accessed better jobs and only the fact of having more income lowered my anxiety levels so much that I don't even qualify for clinical depression anymore.

This explanation of anxiety resonates alot with me. Personally, I've found Stoicism pretty helpful with refocusing on the things I can control and accepting what is out of my control.

I see my anxiety come from very real things - not making my own money, feeling like I'm on borrowed time at home with the parents, getting older and not having the relationships I thought I'd have by now at 36, etc. It's more responsive to the external world around me, which if it changed I would change. If I won 10 million dollars I would feel relieved because financially there's no pressure to find a job, and I can work on vibing. And when your vibe is good, you're going to attract more people naturally, because in my case there is no overarching threat anymore. Any OCD or whatever I had would disappear as well because once the problems causing it are solved, it would fade.

Basically some problems can be fixed and some can't and the mindset that everything is one way leads to distress and hopelessness. Before you jump to fixing a problem more emotional than putting dishes away or some menial thing, think about how you feel first and then judge whether you can actually fix it, and you'll be right reliably more often than just "I can do it" or "I can't do it"

Great presentation. I was diagnosed with anxiety years back after getting hit with a load of physical symptoms, but I have always been 'sucking it up'. Recently I have been trying to understand and overcome it, as it's really becoming a bother day to day. This idea of lack of control to solve problems is pretty much my main source of stress, and I already feel better hearing you break it down like this. Always feeling there is nothing I can do is a real problem, so I need to get better as seeing the truth and getting real with it. So thanks for your work, keep it up!

Dude, you're amazing. I love you're modern informed speaking approach to these topics, and that you also don't baby your audience, you speak to us as if we are intelligent people trying to learn and not idiots with an agenda.

This is a good video!! Ah so it acts as a sort of unnoticed self fulfilling prophecy (probably influenced by the individual's desire to conserve energy with something they perceive as being unable to change)(also thank you for being clear on the fact that one can't just get over it easily!). As for it being less diagnosed it makes sense if something is more difficult to be internally sensed then individuals will be less likely to get it analyzed by a professional unless they have overwhelming physical effects. That in combination with female anxiety having long history of being conflated with 'hysteria' lead to men being less diagnosed. I'm glad you're making these videos! They are very well thought out and helpful.

The therapist I visited just once(cuz no money lul) still helped me alot. He told me to write down what bothers me exactly, and to give it a score of how much it bothers me 1-10. And it really helped, cuz after some time most of the worries were actually quite silly. And the actually serious ones I could start focusing on and try to fix them. I no longer suffer from anxiety, it took me a lot of time. It wasn't easy and took me years. But since the visit, it became easier the longer I practiced it. (I haven't written down anything after a month, rather I calculated it in my head dealing with it as I should).

It’s been a long journey, but now I’m kinda at this phase of unpacking stuff. For a long time, I felt I had no control - my job, my relationship, my town. Then, I got some advice to stop saying “I don’t know” because I do know how I feel. I do know I don’t like certain things. I do know what I want - I was just ignoring it. Once I started moving towards things that I actually liked and away from the things causing me problems (people who are constantly mean to me, my job that didn’t seem to value me, etc.), it got better and better. It manifested differently than social anxiety - I would just be so angry and miffed when upsetting conversations would come up. After a while, I took a step back and I was like, “wait. I’m making this conversation worse because I gave up before it started.” Now, I take breaks, reflect, breathe, and come back to talk with a clearer head and an intention to understand instead of fight.

This is the best video on anxiety I've seen ever. It's the kind of thing that really helps me connect the dots on what I experience and why.

I present with the “feminine” presentations of anxiety at home and in relationship, but the “masculine” presentation he’s describing at work.

The lack of control can be many things.

This video provided a missing piece i've been hunting for. I've been hunting it for 10 years knowing my future depended on it, so that is a pretty big deal. Thank you.

I’m glad I stumbled across this video and actually decided to listen, as a person still in highschool and as a class president I realize that I have been slightly aware of these differences in men’s mental and been able to somewhat address in some of my peers. Im gonna use this information to not only address future problems for myself and for the future of my peers should it ever come.

Keep on trucking

So male anxiety essentially works like the reverse of Pygmalion effect (self-fulfilling prophecy), and may eventually leads to physical symptoms and shorter lifespan.

This video is beautiful Dr. K. Very down to earth and understandable for everyone. Cheers

I've watched around 6 of your videos and it's been a great week! I've been kind of an awkward person who would socialize if initiated by someone, and this type of anxiety is the main reason it affected most of my social life--your videos are quite the gold and I really wish I've seen them sooner! It's helped me gain confidence with myself lately to move around a bit from my comfort zone and it also helped me consider the thought that something might not be as bad as it could be. I may have only been applying them online at the moment, but I've also resolved myself to apply them IRL in few months after gaining a bit more experience on communication.

Dr. K delivers the best package 📦

I've been struggling with social anxiety for the past 15 years now at a young age i was extremely social loved being outside i played sports had many friends had a great social life until later on in life i experienced some trauma i made a fool of myself, a bunch of people started to pay attention to me would laugh at me everytime i would go outside that's where i developed this social anxiety it's taken control of my life and i haven't really been able to get my life back it gets emotionally exhausting depression kicks in i sometimes wonder if I'll ever get back to where i used to be i miss myself but even though i struggle with this i still try my best to workout eat healthy walk my dog.

This video came out at the perfect time. I’ve been having a lot of anxiety lately and watching it made perfect sense.

Wow, thank you! Im often struggling with the same feelings and anxiety feels like the wrong word because im not hysterical or acting anxious at all. The cognitive distortions can be so strong that everybody else looks like theyre "huffing copium" and you wonder why they even bother. I'm still deconstructing that negative outlooks are NOT automatically more 'objective', and how much that mindset causes even more problems. Great vid.

This resonates big time for me. I am looking to unpack what he means by “dependent stressors” and that general concept. Can anyone shed light on this? Thanks.

I was just diagnosed with severe anxiety, dr k’s timing is scary

Yes, this actually applies to me very much and it explains very well how my anxiety related to life crises works. I was always told to fix my issues and learned to deal with most stressors by simply confronting them and finding a solution. But over last years I got into too many situations when there were simply too many severe issues at the same time and I could not resolve all of them at once. And that got very overwhelming because I did not know what to do about it and it lead to me getting stressed to the level of being sick. Nowadays I am better at handling stressful situations without making the issues bigger than what they actually are. But I am definitely not perfect and many situations still overwhelm me. Just not as much.

As someone who struggles with anxiety for my entire life this video really helped open my eyes, I was in a psych ward when you released this and it genuinely helped me realize some of the problems I cause for myself, I would and still do lose my appetite, and shake uncontrollably like chattering my teeth like i was shivering even though I'm sweating. I have also how i like to say "broke my brain" on drugs and caused so many issues trying to get over one, I still struggle to this day and feel like everything is collapsing around me and there's nothing I can do but I think I can finally start working towards pushing past my, also didn't know what black pilled was until today and that added up very quickly lol. Thank you Dr. K, I don't know what brought you to my feed but I'm happy it did.

I experienced anxiety as described recently. My gut is not keeping my shit together (literally) and the trains here don't have toilets or they may not work, while stations may not have them either or I have to pay. So, I was stressing out a few times already about this because I don't want to shit myself with so many people around. Over time, I have improved my gut and I know that there should be no issue, yet the mind is still taking control. One day, I travelled for one stop, only a few minutes of travel time and as soon as the train got into motion, I felt a warmth around my body, which was caused by the anxiety. During that moment, there's no way I can get out of the train and to a toilet, which is the exact description of having no control anymore. Currently, I have the goal to find a remote therapist to get my mind to trust my gut for longer travels on a train, since riding a bike for an hour doesn't cause a similar issue. It's really manifesting about this lack of control of the situation, although I am actually able to control my body (at least better than in the past).

I am 1 minute in and before I watched I tried to predict what he would say. My thought was that every time when am anxious which can even last for days, as soon as I come up with a solution, which may not even be best one (it just has to tell me that there is something I can do about it) I calm down in 10 minutes. And then he says "Low perceived control" which is on spot and "physical symptoms". I dont think this is confirmation bias this time because iv been saying this a lot that I cant usually tell the difference between being cold and being anxious because those two things are too similar for me.

You have changed my life healthygamer. Thank you so much

I just wanna say that I wish I was in therapy so bad right now but it’s just not accessible to me where I live and my current situation. Your channel has helped me make great strides on my own mental health journey and I couldn’t accept that without thanking you. Thank you HG

really like your t-shirt it just really fits on you

Having lived through a few stressful months and more than a week of body tremors, I once again laid in bed unable to fall asleep again.. I couldn't shut down the stressing feelings and sometimes thoughts. So I decided to dive below.. I just felt the emotion, very little at first, then becoming stronger and more real. And once I got there the body tremors let down some, the stressing feelings and thoughts let down a little.. and I could finally fall back to sleep. I did not fix anything. I did not find any solution to any problem. I did not find (or try to find) a reframe to cultivate a better attitude about what was going on. I just listened.. or to be more specific: I allowed myself to feel what wasn't felt before. Nothing but pure allowing myself to feel what was keeping me busy (and so tired!) anyhow. And that was already a help. Why hasn't anyone before told me? ffs. But I'm ready for more. P.S: Dr K videos are as timely as ever. Thanks!

I have been diagnosed with anxiety as a man it was linked to my perception of my health after I was told I only had 1 kidney. I made a lot of the problems in my head along with symptoms that was similar to kidney failure. Men doesn't break down crying but instead we just feel like we can't change our situation and we feel stuck in a crap situation.

Very interesting. Thank’s alot Dr K, your importance cannot be understated

Neat. As a data scientist I specialize in predictive analytics for a living. When I was a kid I had anxiety, much like the kind mentioned in the video. (Female, male, it doesn't matter.) What I ended up doing is the techniques I learned to predict the future to cure my anxiety disorder. I haven't had unnecessary anxiety in decades. How it works is I kept a journal of my stressful predictions. I didn't write long paragraphs just quick bullets. Quick and simple. Then after the stressful event passed I'd circle back usually once every two weeks and look over it. I'd then document what actually happened vs my predictions. Quick bullets here as well. What I found wasn't just that my predictions of the future were wrong when I was stressed out but how they were wrong, how I was over amplifying certain challenges, just like how it's talked about in this video. Seeing first hand how I was doing that I learned balance. I learned how to not underestimate challenge, but in a way that accurately predicted the future. It took me time as I continued to make predictions for up to a year where I had nearly 100% perfect predictions about the future. The better I predicted the future the less anxiety I had. What's cool is when there is real danger I need to take notice in, now it stands out like a sore thumb. I see it accurately and I address it. This helps keep me safe in dangerous situations. (edit: Oh also, I was cautious of self fulfilling prophecy. I get I could make a negative prediction real by procrastinating, which defeated the point, so I had to give it my all even when I didn't think it would succeed. This part is important. Without giving it your all you don't have the same learning opportunities. Learning is required for growth. Growth removes anxiety and depression. You have to give it your all. I'm ADHD so sometimes that would make it hard, but regardless I always tried my best.) I highly recommend journaling. Write down your predictions. If you suffer from depression write down small things you're grateful for every day, like a good tasting meal. It helps. I found journaling the happy parts of social situations helped me, so if I went to a party or a club and I didn't enjoy myself much I'd still try to find the parts I did enjoy and write it down. This helped me see more positivity in the world which reduced my social depression and social anxiety. That and vitamin D3 got rid of the rest of depression for me.

As someone who has been to the ER 5 times the last 2 years because of issues I couldn’t identify I was finally told it might be anxiety. These videos really help me understand this stuff, thank you so much.

I had to put my life on pause for several years due to an anxiety disorder. Without medication, my brain permanently sits in a state which I describe as “that feeling when you are certain you forgot something of urgent importance”. The feeling is/was always present but was greatly amplified when I engaged in any social/complex situation. This experience taught me how our massively flawed our society is at responding to the anxiety of others, and I feel, in part, the problem stems from how broad the spectrum of anxiety-related issues are and how we have only one word for all of them - anxiety. Even the phrase “panic attack” has become hyperbolic to an extent, and it’s a problem that we can now SEE some of the lines separating anxiety’s parts but can’t be bothered to categorize them.

What a great video, Dr. K crushing it once again!

is a good analogy a maze? from the perspective of the person INSIDE the maze all they can see is the high walls imediately surrounding them, but the coach outside, looking down at the maze can see the path you must take to escape. ?

When I was about eleven years old, I had a cousin, 6 months older than me, pinning me to the ground, with his knee over my head. I, naturally, was crying. After my release, I went to tell my parents, and my father told me to hit him with a brick or a rock. He could not understand how on Earth there wasn't any rock or boulder or anything for me to use a weapon, and my cousin was simply sronger than me. When my sister was about the same age, every time she came home crying, my father would ran out of the house to confront (or hit, as he intended to do) whatever made my sister cry. He wouldn't stand up for me, but he did for her. I think he would understand why I didn't shed a single tear when he died, while my sister did shed a few.

This video blew my mind. I have battling stress and anxiety for most of my life, a lot of probably related to trauma but I never went to therapy. I have always just been trying to "solve" everything myself, and now I see that when that doesn't work it's essentially just making things worse.

For the longest time, I thought that I was dissociating from my anxiety, this video has total reframed my perception of this!! This is so helpful.

Take the headphones out of your head at the gym and you'll realize that everyone else is suffering in the same boat you are so chill and take it easy

Just in: fixing your problems doesnt work if you cant fix your problems

I’m 32 and have been struggling with mental health problems my entire life. I’ve been having the hardest time understanding why and where all of this stress comes from and how to properly view it until I just watched this video. It is crystal clear now and I’m honestly so very grateful for this information, I feel like a kid that just learned how to tie his shoes or something. Now to do something with this new found information is the real challenge, time to fix some shiz I can control and learn how to cope with that which is out of my control. Cheers

The most interesting reflection for me personally is how before 2020 I had anxiety but it was very obvious in its symptoms in hindsight, but then during the pandemic the lack of control (!) i felt caused my anxiety to change and hide in an emotional blindspot. I'm always weighing how much I want to do things versus the often inflated discomfort I have and of course the discomfort typically wins. I got very close to understanding this between myself and my therapist but having it spelled out for me makes it clear.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="995">16:35</a> I actually got up and washed my hands here because I thought it'd be cool if someone in this world actually followed him up on this lol.

I need to know what anxiety is like for women as comparison now. Cause all of this sounds like it applies to women too. What's the difference between them?

You‘re the best. Its almost smiply funny when its broken down. I used to struggle so bad but this is gold

Great stuff as usual. Everytime i think i can predict what you might say, you continue to surprise me