Anxiety is a normal human experience — we all feel anxious or afraid sometimes — but excessive or chronic anxiety can wear us down and be detrimental to our long-term happiness and health. Plus, many of us are anxious about things that we don’t actually need to be anxious about.

In this talk, I shared some ideas on how to prevent and release needless anxiety.

Some key points that I covered are:

• We can feel undisturbed, undefended, and uncontracted in the moment — which is what we meditated on.
• In order to receive the present moment without fear, we have to recognize that the brain is a prediction machine and can be stuck in predictions, especially regarding fear.
• The scientific understanding of how the brain generalizes fear, including the biological and neurological mechanisms involved.
• Strategies for preventing and managing overgeneralized fear, including mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-awareness practices.

You’re welcome to join me live each week for these talks — for free — by signing up at https://rickhanson.com/wednesday-meditations-with-dr-rick-hanson/. We always start with a guided meditation to set the tone for the evening. If you’d like to experience the meditation that accompanied this talk, you can listen to it at: https://rickhanson.com/meditation-talk-how-to-prevent-and-release-needless-anxiety/

And if you'd like to check out any of my online programs at https://rickhanson.com/online-courses/, you can receive 20% off by using coupon code PW20 during checkout.