Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

This book is great, it gives really good pointers on what to do with anxiety and how to manage it. Also helps you understand it. It’s also a quick read.

Anxiety comes in many forms, and this book has practical, easy-to-use strategies for handling them all. I was fascinated to learn about the different triggers for anxiety and why some strategies work well, and others don't, depending on where in your brain the anxiety is coming from. It is full of research, yet written in a very approachable and easy-to-understand way. My copy is marked up with notes, and I'm buying extras to share with people I know. I highly recommend this book!

Though somewhat repetitive, this book is easy to read and clearly explains the basic neurobiology of fear, worry, anxiety, panic, and related conditions such as PTSD and OCD. Drawing on research by Joseph Ledoux and others, the book highlights the central role of the amygdala (the brain's primitive and subconscious 'fear center'), which receives surprisingly scant attention in many other books on this topic. In my opinion, understanding the underlying biology is very helpful, if not essential. The book also provides helpful evidence-based guidance on techniques to prevent or reduce the intensity of anxiety and related conditions. The key techniques are: - Get good sleep, aerobically exercise daily, and eat a healthy diet. - Breathe from the diaphragm/belly, which apparently activates the parasympathetic nervous system and thus counters activation of the sympathetic nervous system resulting from fear. - Remind yourself that thoughts and images are not reality and may be mistaken. - Disrupt problematic thoughts and images via distractions, play, music, and positive thoughts and images. - Mindfully 'defuse' from problematic thoughts, images, and sensations, and instead just 'be' in the present moment, calmly observing all that is happening without any need to interpret or respond in any way. - Meditate, including mindful meditation. - Deliberately and repeatedly expose yourself to the situations which generate unwarranted fear, in order to rewire the amygdala to no longer subconsciously associate those situations with fear. This can be an uncomfortable experience, but accept the discomfort and know that it will pass, and absolutely do not flee from the situations, because doing so will strengthen the fear. I highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with excessive worry, fear, anxiety, and related conditions.

Great book and I am just in the first chapter. I hope to finish it by tommorow. I have had anxiety most of my life and never realized that is what it was- and that was causing a OCD. I now understand the source. I hope this book will help me overcome. I took a star away because of the binding. A clump of pages came out. Granted, I folded the book over, but I do that with all my books and this has never happened. The book is good otherwise.

This book was exactly what I didn’t know I needed. It explained anxiety in such a clear, almost comforting way—like walking into a messy room and suddenly knowing where everything goes. The breakdown between the emotional “fear center” and the logical “overthinking part” of the brain made so much sense, and once I saw how they both play a role, I felt less stuck. The science stuff didn’t go over my head at all, and the techniques actually feel doable, not just theory. I’ve started catching myself mid-spiral and being like, “Ah, this is cortex nonsense,” and it weirdly helps. Definitely one of the most useful, brain-calming things I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended.

The book arrived in absolutely pristine condition! Honestly, just like new! The cover and pages were flawless, with no marks, bends, or wear at all. I was very impressed with the care taken in packaging and shipping. Exceeded my expectations and I couldn’t be happier with this purchase. Highly recommend!

Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle offers an enlightening exploration into the neuropsychology behind anxiety. If you've ever wondered why you feel anxious, panicked, or overwhelmed without understanding why, this book provides the answers through a science-backed, approachable explanation. What sets this book apart is how it explains the roles of two key brain areas: the amygdala, responsible for primal fear responses, and the cortex, which fuels worry and overthinking. By understanding how these pathways contribute to anxiety, the authors empower you to take control of your emotional responses with practical, easy-to-apply strategies. I found the examples and exercises particularly helpful in offering real-world solutions to manage anxiety. This book doesn’t just offer theory; it gives you actionable steps to rewire how your brain reacts to fear and stress, promoting long-term resilience. If you're looking for a deeper understanding of anxiety from a scientific perspective and want practical tools to help manage it, this is a must-read.

There are books that go into much more detail on specific strategies for dealing with anxiety and panic attacks or avoiding them altogether. They would be a great supplement to this book. What this book does is lay out clearly, in layperson terms, the neuroscience behind anxiety and panic attacks. Once you understand better what's happening biologically, you can find better strategies for dealing with it. They give you a good place to start by covering the basics of exercise, sleep, mindfulness, and CBT strategies, and they include in the resources section other books that go deeper into those topics which is very helpful. This book helped give me perspective and some goals, and I thought it was pretty unique. I cannot recommend enough.

Great read

Sufrí ansiedad, ataques de pánico y agorafobia durante años, en los cuales leí muchos libros sobre la ansiedad, pero ninguno me ayudó tanto como éste. Gracias a este libro aprendí a ver la ansiedad por lo que era y comencé a perderle el miedo al identificar en cada momento lo que me estaba pasando. Cuando notaba signos de ansiedad como mareos, taquicardias, etc, gracias a este libro en lugar de entrar en pánico como hacía antes empecé a pensar "mi amígdala se está activando, eso significa que esto es una oportunidad para "recablear" mi cerebro y crear una ruta alternativa a la ansiedad". Esto hizo que pudiera ir exponiéndome poco a poco a situaciones que me causaban ansiedad hasta que ésta desapareció prácticamente por completo (salvo en situaciones o épocas especialmente estresantes, lo cual es normal). Lo recomiendo al 100% para personas que quieran entender cómo funciona la ansiedad y qué hacer para superarla.

I cannot believe there is only one other review for this book as it is superb. One of the key reasons for its excellence is that it details the importance of the amygdala in causing untold upset to so many of us, and includes numerous strategies for taming this unruly part of the brain. It is so clearly set out and, unlike so many other books on the subject, succinct - no four hundred pages of verbosity and repetition here. I have searched high and low for just such a book which uses the most up to date neurological research with techniques, both ancient and modern, to give you the chance of achieving a state of resilience and equilibrium amid life's trials and upsets. I have bought a fair number of titles along the way but this is the one which, for me, stands out from the others. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

A very good book that explains in simple language how anxiety occurs and how to fight it.

great book in great condition.