Anxious: The Modern Mind in the Age of Anxiety

Description

Anxiety is natural. It is useful. By anticipating harm, we are better equipped to deal with it. But when anxiety is persistent and excessive, and chronically interferes with daily life, then an anxiety disorder exists. These are the most common mental health problems in the UK today. Using cutting-edge research from his lab, neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explains both how fear and anxiety are natural, adaptive ways of dealing with challenges and opportunities, and how they become pathological states. Some people are cool cats, their feathers never seem to be ruffled, while others are nervous Nellies. Your disposition affects the way you approach the world; anxious people find threats where others don't, and their brains are different, as LeDoux shows. Anxiety is part of life, but we want to be able to use it rather than be used by it. In order to survive and thrive, the brain has to marshal its resources and energies. It is when these resources are unevenly allocated that problems arise. But there are methods each of us can learn for regulating this process. LeDoux outlines them and explains the science behind them that makes them work.

Joseph LeDoux is a professor of psychology at New York University, where he directs the Emotional Brain Institute. He is the author of The Emotional Brain and his research has been published in numerous journals, including Nature, Science, Current Biology, and Neuron. LeDoux has won a number of top awards and prizes in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. He is also the frontman for a rock band, The Amygdaloids

'Impressive...detailed and deep...a great book about what fear and anxiety are...LeDoux is not afraid to take sides and positions...and you will start to think differently about what it means to be afraid'. * Times Higher Education * 'Timely...fascinating' * Independent * 'Wonderfully erudite, informative, and splendidly well written.' -- Daniel J. Levitin, author of The Organized Mind and This Is Your Brain On Music 'This marvellous book is science at its best... an absolute must read for clinicians and basic scientists as well as for anyone else interested in anxiety and its disorders.' -- Eric R. Kandel, Senior Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 'An exquisite and unique attempt to truly relate how neural cells lead to felt conscious states in the human mind-the toughest problem in all of science. LeDoux has thrown down the gauntlet and set the standard. I wish all of us working on the problem luck trying to beat this analysis.' -- Michael Gazzaniga, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Tales from Both Sides of the Brain, Human, and The Social Brain 'Anxious is a profound, exciting and immensely useful work about one of our most troubling-and puzzling-emotions. Joseph LeDoux takes us behind the scenes of our own minds to show us not only how anxiety is constructed in the brain but how it can be deconstructed. This is neuroscience at its very best: helpful and hopeful without a hint of hyperbole.' -- Mark Epstein, M.D., author of Thoughts without a Thinker and The Trauma of Everyday Life 'In this tour de force, LeDoux artfully guides the reader from the unconscious defensive system, through attention and memory, to the conscious experience of fear and anxiety. His traverse from the unconscious to the conscious experience of emotion is rich in scientific detail and yet exquisitely readable. LeDoux completes his masterpiece with provocative discussions of therapies for anxiety. This book is a fascinating revelation of the evolution in LeDoux's own scientific thinking and in the field at large and is a must read for any student of learning, memory or emotion.' -- Michelle G. Craske, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director, Anxiety Disorders Research Center, UCLA 'LeDoux is a true leader in the field of cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, yet he also has an uncanny ability to write beautifully and clearly. . . . A must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of the mind and brain, and how an understanding of psychology and neuroscience can change ourselves and the world around us!' -- Kerry J. Ressler, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University; Scientific Council Chair, Anxiety and Depression Association of America; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Member, National Academy of Sciences