Mike Veny is a mental health speaker. Learn more about his programs here.
Disclosure: I am not a mental health professional. If you need medical help, please consult a doctor. If you are in an emergency, please call 911. Transparency is extremely important to me, so I am letting you know that I may receive a commission on some of the anxiety resources you click on from this site.
Therapy for Anxiety
- Good Therapy
Find the right therapist for you at the right price fast! Also, learn how to manage your relationship with your therapist so you can get the most out of it. - Online Therapy
An innovative online therapy service that provides affordable, confidential, and convenient therapy services through your computer or mobile device. - Talkspace
Get therapy on your mobile device with the opportunity to communicate with your therapist almost 24/7 via text, phone calls, or video calls. - Here are some tips on what to do when mental health professionals offer conflicting advice.
The Best Books for Anxiety
- The Anxiety and Worry Workbook: The Cognitive Behavioral Solution
This book may possibly be the most popular book on anxiety to date. Dr. Aaron T. Beck and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) expert David A. Clark give you the opportunity to use the tools and techniques of CBT in this detailed workbook. Since many people have found this workbook valuable over the past 25 years, there is now an option to download and print additional copies of the workbook pages as you need to. - Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life
Author Geert Verschaeve will introduce you to some innovative techniques designed to reduce your anxiety and control panic attacks. He suffered from generalized anxiety and panic attacks for 14 years. In addition to helping himself through these techniques, he’s helped many people who suffer with anxiety. WARNING: His techniques may contradict how you think you should address your anxiety, which is what makes this book incredible. - Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks Fast
People who seek anxiety treatment are often advised to just “manage” their anxiety or take medication. Barry McDonagh offers people who are a suffering a natural technique for anxiety relief that work fast. His technique is backed by science and 10 years of helping people who suffer from anxiety. - The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
On personal note, this book has the most profound impact on my mental health recovery period! In this book, author Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains the physical impact that trauma (all forms, like physical, sexual, and emotional abuse) has on our brain. Dr. van der Kolk explains that trauma can actually rewire the way our brain works. This makes an impact on our levels of control, engagement, trust, and pleasure. He also shares what we can do that will help us undo the damage including mindfulness, yoga, and other therapies. - Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness
In this book, author Daniel Amen goes into detail about how your brain works and what you can do to pinpoint your problems along with what you can do in order to address each area and improve functionality. It includes options like nutrition, medication, and cognitive exercises. If you are easily controlled by your emotions and experience anxiety and depression, this is a good read. It’s helped me add some helpful tools to my anxiety toolbox. - Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior
As a person who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, Dr. Jeffery M. Schwartz’s simple four-step system has provided some relief for me when my obsessing made it difficult for me to function and doesn’t involve medication. I am grateful that his system is now being used in academic treatment centers throughout the world. - Any book that was written by Brene Brown.
Anxiety Resources for Parents and Youth
- Anxiety Sucks! A Teen Survival Guide
This book by Natasha Daniels is a great read for teens and adults. It breaks down what anxiety looks and sounds like in our lives, providing practical examples that preteens and teens can relate to and easy-to-follow steps they can take in order to overcome it. - Turnaround: Help for Your Anxious Child
This is an award-winning audio program that will teach your child what anxiety is, how it works, and how to overcome it. This program is effective because it speaks directly to children in a way that they can understand and it’s similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). You can see results in as little as a few weeks and it’s backed by science.
Anxiety Resources for College Students
- Active Minds
A nonprofit organization committed to increase mental health awareness among college students. If there isn’t a chapter at your school, it’s fairly easy to launch one. - NAMI on Campus
A program that empowers students to form peer-run mental health groups to raise mental health awareness, support students who are struggling and educate your campus about mental health. Like Active Minds, it’s fairly easy to launch a chapter.
Yoga for Anxiety
everal years ago, I visited my friend and mentor, Wendy, at her home. I hadn’t seen her in years and it was great to talk with her and catch up.
Before we went our separate ways, I asked her a question that I had been waiting to ask her for a while. I said, “Wendy, I’m struggling to cry and I want your thoughts on it. What do I do”?
Here’s some background:
For years, I struggled to cry. I had emotions that wanted to come out, but for some reason, they couldn’t.
Please know that I’m okay with crying and doing in front of others. I’m comfortable with that, but couldn’t even cry alone.
I would secretly envy people who got to experience what Oprah Winfrey likes to call, “the ugly cry”, where it all comes out. I desperately wanted to because I had stored up emotions that needed to come out.
After I asked Wendy my question, she paused and thought about it. She then said to me, “Mike, you’re crying muscles are tight”.
That’s when the light bulb went off in my mind.
As I drove from her home to a nearby hotel, I couldn’t stop thinking about her answer to my question. It reminded me that I had a Yin Yoga app on my smartphone.
I had learned about Yin Yoga a few months before meeting with Wendy.
It’s a unique style of yoga that moves at a very slow pace. You hold the positions for longer periods of time, which can be anywhere from 45 seconds to 10 minutes.
It had been recommended to me for releasing emotions. Yoga experts often say that “we keep our issues in our tissues” because we store emotions in our muscles.
That night in my hotel room, I sat on the floor, looked at my smartphone and found the Yin Yoga app. I figured that I had nothing to lose so I began doing one of the routines.
Unfortunately, I didn’t finish the whole routine, but did enough for me because I began to feel tired. So I stopped doing Yin Yoga, got up off the floor and began to get ready for bed.
That night I cried myself to sleep.
Doing Yin Yoga freed up some stored emotions and relaxed my crying muscles and I finally got to cry. It was a powerful release.
This powerful experience led me on a journey to explore how my body stores emotions. After reading the book, The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which is considered by many to be the bible on trauma informed care, I was hooked.
Through reading this book, I learned that when you’re angry and you feel it in your chest, it’s really in your chest. When you get in touch with your emotions through your body first, it can help you start to focus on what’s going on in your mind much more quickly and effectively.
This may sound a little bit “woo woo”, but I promise you it’s real. I’ve had the opportunity now to attend Yin Yoga classes. In one class, a woman began crying randomly.
In one sense it felt a little odd, but in another sense, I understood what was happening. She was releasing stored up emotions.
I want you to start releasing the anxiety, sadness and anger that you have stored in your body. You’ve been holding on to it for way too long and it needs to go.
And remember, when you get in touch with your emotions through your body first, it can help you start to focus on what’s going on in your mind much more quickly and effectively.
Yin Yoga Videos
Yin Upper Body
Release Resistance
Clarity
Explore Expansion with YIN YOGA
Inner Strength: Yin Yoga for Self Trust with Caitlin Rose Kenney
Slow down the pace with YogaDownload’s Yin Yoga 9-class Series
Exhale to Inhale: Yin and Breath Work for Stress Relief with Caitlin Rose Kenney
