This episode of The Anxious Truth dives into the messy intersection of neuroscience and psychotherapy. I’m joined by Ana Lund, a UK-based psychotherapist specializing in the link between brain science and clinical practice, to discuss how we actually use research to help you recover.

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https://disordered.fm/community

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We often hear about "evidence-based practice," but translating a laboratory study into a therapy session is a significant challenge. Ana and I discuss the reality of staying current with research, the limitations of single studies, and why "neuro-nonsense" often takes the place of actual science in social media mental health content.

Key Topics Covered:

• The Challenge of Staying Current: Why it is nearly impossible for any single practitioner to keep up with the massive volume of new neuroscience research.
• Research vs. Practice: The gap between understanding how the brain works and knowing how to "work" the brain in a practical, therapeutic way.
• The Role of Meta-Analyses: Why looking for trends and body-of-knowledge reviews is more reliable than hanging your hat on one exciting new study.
• Constructed Emotion: How modern theories like Lisa Feldman Barrett’s "Theory of Constructed Emotion" change the way we approach feelings in the therapy room.
• Affect Labeling: How describing what you feel (without needing a "perfect" word for it) helps regulate distress and prevents the jump to catastrophic predictions.
• The "Secret Sauce" of Mindfulness: How neuroscience helped validate and secularize eastern practices by stripping away unnecessary "bells and whistles" to find what actually works: slowing down.

Our goal is to demystify how science informs recovery. Understanding that your brain isn't "broken" but is instead following natural, albeit difficult, processes can empower you to take the small, practical steps necessary for long-term change.

Find Ana on her Substack:

https://neuroscienceandpsy.substack.com/

or on her website:

https://www.neuroscienceandpsychotherapy.com/

For full show notes on this episode:

https://theanxioustruth.com/343

Send in a question or comment via text.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

If you recognize the sound of a Velcro rip and your heart starts to pound the minute you hear that familiar hum, we need to talk. You likely bought a home blood pressure monitor to feel safer and healthier, but now you might feel like a slave to a rubber tube and a plastic screen.

In this episode, we are looking at how a responsible health habit turns into a psychological nightmare in the form of fixation and obsessive fear. We discuss why blood pressure anxiety happens, often in the complete absence of an actual medical issue. Let's talk about how you can start living your life again without being tethered to a machine.

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Want to talk about this episode?

I'm hanging out in the Disordered Community space:

https://disordered.fm/community

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What we covered in this episode:

• The Paradox of Stress and Vitals: How the act of worrying about your blood pressure is exactly what drives the numbers up.
• The Certainty Trap: Why checking for reassurance only leads to more uncertainty and more frequent checking loops.
• The ACT Lens: Learning to accept the reality of health uncertainty rather than trying to perform behaviors to make the fear go away.
• Metacognitive Beliefs: Examining why you think worrying about your vitals is protective and learning to treat these thoughts as mental events.
• Detached Mindfulness: Using tools like the Blue Tiger exercise to recognize when you are being hooked by a scary thought.
• Rebound Anxiety: Why it feels reckless and scary to stop checking, and why that feeling is a normal part of the recovery process.

Recovery from blood pressure anxiety is not about reaching a perfect, guaranteed number. It is about changing your relationship with your physiology so you can move your energy back toward the things that actually matter in your life.

For full show notes on this episode:

https://theanxioustruth.com/342

Send in a question or comment via text.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Want to talk about what you heard today? Interact with me and others that understand your experience on the Disordered Community app.

https://disordered.fm/community

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In this episode, we tackle a common trap: viewing every uncomfortable emotion through the lens of anxiety recovery. When you spend months practicing desensitization, acceptance, tolerance, and exposure, it is easy to mislabel normal human stress as a setback, a relapse, or a recovery problem.

Disordered vs. Non-Disordered Anxiety

• Disordered Anxiety: This is defined by a fear of the internal experience itself. You become afraid of your own symptoms, thoughts, and sensations.
• Non-Disordered Anxiety: This is a natural response to external stressors like grief, job loss, or relationship conflict. You cannot "float" or "mindfulness" your way out of a legitimate life crisis.

The Recovery Trap

Many people "hijack" normal human emotions and try to apply recovery techniques to them. Trying to use willful tolerance, acceptance, or principles of exposure on a situation that requires practical action or just feeling emotions only keeps you stuck. We often do this because the recovery framework feels more familiar and safe than facing complex life problems.

Moving Forward

• Check the Context: Before assuming you are having a "relapse," look at your life. Are you under actual pressure from work, finances, or family?
• Validate the Stress: It is expected and healthy to feel stressed by difficult circumstances. This is not a failure of your recovery.
• Take Action: If the problem is external, it requires a practical solution, not just a psychological one.
• Accept Your Humanity: There are no "hacks" for being human. Recovery means learning to live with a full range of emotions, not eliminating discomfort.

For full show notes on this episode:

https://theanxioustruth.com/341

Send in a question or comment via text.

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.