A Review of the Book "Unwinding Anxiety" by Judson Brewer

Title: Unwinding Anxiety

Author: Judson Brewer

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Year: 2021

264 pages

I am a very anxious person. I have a lot of negative inner dialogue, am scared of new situations, and panic at the thought of talking to people. And yet, I am a priest who deals with new situations and talking to people on the regular.

Anxiety is something I deal with everyday and wish on every star that it would go away. Of course, it doesn't work like that and so here I am, trying to deal with this anxiety.

One day, I saw "Unwinding Anxiety" on the bookstore shelf and decided it was time to try and work through these issues.

The headline of "how to break cycles of worry and fear" is what got me to pick up this particular book. I was hoping for some tricks on how to get past this block of anxiety that has built up in my mind over the years.

It was a fairly easy read, which perhaps surprised me a little. I think I was expecting a whole bunch of medical and psychology lingo.

The book starts out with a great conversation around what anxiety is, what it does to our mind and body, and the various manifestations anxiety can take on. And then you get into the meat of the book.

Dr Brewer defines anxiety as a habit loop and then talks about how to identify and break said habit loop. At least he is honest and says that this is not an instant fix, but as you read through his process, it really does start to make sense.

While I read the book from cover to cover, it is actually meant to be read in parts while to doing some practical work throughout. If I had done that, instead of simply reading the book, I may have gotten even more out of it than I did.

I would recommend this book, even to myself again, with the advice of doing the practical work suggested within the pages.