F**k Anxiety!. . .Word.

Raise your hand if you have struggled with anxiety. Okay granted I can't see any of you but I'm guessing if I could a lot of you would have raised your hands. I know I do, most days it's pretty low key and the worst that happens is that my right foot starts to twitch (always the right, I don't know why, the left one is lazy) and I don't usually even notice until someone near me says, why are you shaking. My usual response is "I didn't know I was", but once it's pointed out I realize that damn anxiety monster is acting up. On rougher days I have the full blown, upset stomach, tingly hands, fast breathing, racing heart, feeling hot and sweating. Not helpful in daily life, unless you are fleeing a woolly mammoth.  I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about and let's just agree it sucks and if we could take a pill and kill that monster for good we would.

Unfortunately that is not how it works with anxiety.  That jerk creeps up on you at the most inopportune times, even when you've been working hard to manage it, and robs you of sleep, time, or sometimes once in a life time experiences. One of the greatest opportunities anxiety took from me was the chance to go the top of the Eiffel Tower. They seemed to think letting someone on the elevator having a panic attack was bad idea. Weird how that works out. Clearly that experience (15 years ago) still bugs me some days, damn anxiety.

Through years of work and therapy (yes even therapists go to therapy) I have for the most part been able to get my anxiety under control. I also spend a fair portion of my professional life helping others get their anxiety monsters under control. And in both of those arenas I been on a constant quest for a better way to explain/cope with/understand anxiety that didn't feel so clinical. And then it happened, like a gift from heaven, I stumbled across a self help book that was everything I was looking for and even things I didn't know I was looking for.

Now before I lose half you because you hate self help books and your eyes are starting to glaze over, let me say I hate self help books too. I find most of them to be a little too sunshine and rainbows for me. More often then not I get to a chapter that seems to suggest if I just think happy thoughts every thing will be great (Unfortunately that gets a little hard to understand when your thoughts are full of sunshine and rainbows and life kicks you in gut anyway). At that point I close the book, resist the urge to throw it through a window, and instead throw it in a box to go to Goodwill. So if this book were like that, you wouldn't be reading this and I might be pricing a new window. :) But I digress.

The title is what first caught my eye. . .are you ready. . .cause this is pretty awesome.  The title of the book is Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety by Robert Duff, Ph.D.  Yep, I knew at that moment this book and I were going to be friends.  I immediately bought the audio version (after my non techie self figured out how to use audible, that was ridiculous) and started listening, because ain't nobody got time to wait for things to ship.  The introduction had me cracking up and by Chapter 1 I thought to myself "YES!!! FINALLY someone gets it!!! And he's talking to me like a friend, rather than a psychologist; using big words and jargon that real only proves he's super smart (which he is) but doesn't help me get my anxiety in check because I have no idea what he's talking about (okay, I do understand most psychologist jargon cause I spent a lot of years in school, but you know what I'm saying)!!!

Allow me to highlight the reasons I have fallen in love with this book:

• It's short, most days I have the attention span of a goldfish.
• The book is maybe 50 to 60 pages (I'm not sure it doesn't have page numbers) but I know the running time on the audio book is about 1 hr 15 min.  Everybody can find time to fit that in, you know it, I know it, so just get rid of that list of excuses right now.
  
• He GETS it. Few things in this world feel as good as being understood.
• I mean really, think about a time when you felt truly understood by someone else.  Like explaining how you were feeling or what you were going through wasn't hard and you didn't feel like you had to defend yourself, the other person just got it. Feels pretty damn good right? Nothing in this world is 100% but if I was a betting kind of gal I would put a lot of money on you feeling understood while reading this book.
  
• It's funny, laughter truly is the best medicine.
• This is one is pretty self explanatory, but let me paint you a picture with my imagination brush of a woman laughing so hard as he listened that had someone walked in the house they would have had some questions about what was happening.  Just imagine me walking around ear buds in, cleaning the house, laughing out loud, like really loud. There were a couple of times even the cats were looking at me like "What the hell is wrong with you?"
• Additionally, it is incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible, to feel anxious while you are laughing, so that's a win.
• The suggestions are practical, easy to follow, and easy to implement.
• Look, bottom line we are all busy and if we are presented with "12 steps to a new you" most of us aren't going to make it too far because it's just too much at once and can feel like a heavy duty over haul of your life, and good or bad change is hard and stressful.  Suggestions in this book are simple. 
• Breathing? We gotta do that anyway so it's no big deal to take a few minutes and add a little intention and structure to it so that maybe you can calm the hell down rather than hyperventilating.
• We are going to worry about a situation regardless right? So why not take that time, practice following a few easy steps, answer a few questions, and try to make that time productive rather than worrying in circles that do NOT bring about any resolution?  Everything in this book is SIMPLE to learn and EASY to start to implement but can make a HUGE difference in coping with anxiety.

I could go on for days, (some of you probably feel like I have if you follow me on twitter, @ajgus83) I can NOT possibly say enough good things about this book.  Absolutely 10 out of 10 recommend.  I ordered an obscene number of copies and officially have strongly recommended/made any client (and a handful of friends) I currently have that even kind of deal with anxiety read it.  They have all LOVED it.

The one DISCLAIMER I will give about this book is that Duff is not afraid to swear freely and often so if you are easily offended by that, swearing just isn't your jam, or you are a youngin maybe not the book for you.  But over all fantastic and if you are like me and swear like a sailor anyway the swearing in the book is no big deal.  You should definitely CLICK HERE or use any of the other links I've provided and get your hands on a copy TODAY.

I would also strongly recommend you check out Duff's website www.duffthepsych.com, he has a blog with some great ideas and information as well. He also periodically offers custom guided relaxations (last I checked there were still a few available), which are also fantastic but that's a whole different blog post. I have had the privilege of getting to know him a little bit via email and the internet.  He's a pretty awesome guy all the way around.  I know we will all be hearing more from him and about him in the future.

Unfortunately nothing is an immediate fix-all and even with this book anxiety can still be a pain in the ass but this book is certainly a good place to start in the journey towards getting the upper hand on that wench called anxiety. In less time than you think, you can have the tools to wake up every morning kick anxiety in the face and make it your bitch.