Hack Your Anxiety: How to Make Anxiety Work for You in Life, Love, and All That You Do

by Alicia H. Clark

What if anxiety is not a monster to be tamed, but a resource to be tapped?

In this revolutionary book, Dr. Alicia Clark recognizes anxiety as the unsung hero in the path to success and happiness. It can become the motivating force that will lead to a better you, and The Anxiety Advantage aims to restore anxiety to its rightful place as a positive resource.

Weaving together modern neuroscience, case studies, interviews, and personal anecdotes, The Anxiety Advantage demonstrates how anxiety can be reclaimed as a powerful energy source, bringing you growth, success, and peace.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Mental Illness, Adult, Ebooks, Health

464 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2018

About the author

Alicia H. Clark is a Washington, DC based licensed psychologist who specializes in anxiety, relationships, and helping people face life with more confidence and joy. Clark has served as adjunct clinical faculty at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and her work has been featured in hundreds of online, print and video publications worldwide. For more information, see www.AliciaClarkPsyD.com

Reviews

[Ell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hack Your Anxiety is a seminal book written for all ages and various levels of anxiety. After all, in today’s busy, pressure-filled world it is easy to feel stressed at times, regardless of your stage in life. Whether your anxiety is situational or long term, you will find constructive, practical and valuable advice within these pages. What sets this book apart from other books is the author’s approach. Alicia H. Clark adeptly points out that anxiety can and does work for us. It is a signal, alerting us what to pay attention to. As an individual with a master’s degree in psychology, I couldn’t agree more. If you are looking for a deeper understanding of anxiety and its purpose as well as best practices for managing it positively, look no further than this book.

[Peter Von · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book as a Christmas present, and as a licensed psychiatrist, it saddens me that our profession allows individuals without full training to provide advice. While the author tries to provide real life solutions to a debilitating disease, this amateurish book fails to address the root causes of anxiety from an academic perspective. The solutions offered sufferers of anxiety are neither novel nor thoughtful, and appear to are consistent with the author’s apparent focus on making money rather than curing anxiety. Please don’t waste your time or money on this book. If you are suffering from anxiety, I’ve rated several other books on Goodreads that will truly help you.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so glad I read this book. It offers a comprehensive overview of the science of anxiety and then gives clear ideas about how to address varying levels of anxiety. These examples and stories made it clear for the first time that I am not alone. When suffering bouts of anxiety, I tend to feel it’s just me. This book opened my eyes to allow me to talk and think my way through my anxious times. And also gave me ideas to understand and help friends, loved ones, and co-workers better cope with their anxious moments.

[Rachel Leanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have moderate general anxiety. It’s untreated and unmedicated but it’s there and it’s real. I have been suffering from symptoms of Anxiety since I was around 16 but I’ve always been a worrier. It was only when I started 6th-Form that things got really bad though, to the point that I suffered from a panic attack in a local theatre and was afraid to make new friends or go to new places.

My anxiety was bad until my second year of university. I never visited a doctor because I didn’t even realise that what I was experiencing was anxiety until I met other sufferers of the condition. In my second year, I grew confident and familiar with my surroundings and situation to the point that I really found myself again. So I didn’t bother to visit a doctor about the symptoms I’d experienced in the past thinking it’s gone for good.

But then I passed through my last year and into my MA and symptoms of my anxiety are starting to surface again. I hate not having a plan and not knowing what to expect, and now I have no job, I have no idea what’s in store for my future and that scares me. To add to that I don’t really see anyone other than my family and spend a lot of time at home. I feel like every part of me that I’d build while at uni is being torn down again.

Because of that, I decided to request a book about Anxiety from Netgallery to see if I could learn some strategies to help deal with what I’m experiencing at the moment.

Hack Your Anxiety is very positive. It’s all about using your Anxiety to your advantage. Harnessing those feelings and instead of trying to suppress them, embracing them. It’s full of history, case studies and scientific explanations. But it was more like an academic textbook or techniques for group sessions than for helping yourself at home. It relied too much on positive thinking for my liking and not enough on actually dealing with the problem at hand. Positive thinking is easier said than done when your heart is thumping and the fears overtake you.

I believe that this book could help some people, especially long-term readers of the self-help genres and anyone wanting to know more about Anxiety. But personally, this book wasn’t right for me. I found the positive advice hard. I had the attitude that embracing anxiety is easier said than done and the book was way too long for me. I ended up skipping whole chapters just to try and get to the advice and even then, I DNFed before I even got to the heart of the advice I was looking for.

It’s over 460 pages of black and white text, and the E-edition I had didn’t have a working contents page so I could skip easily to the chapters that mattered more to me. I was looking for some quick fix tips, something I could put in place right away and start using. But instead, I got pages and pages of history, science and other people’s stories that I wasn’t interested in reading. Once again this is purely personal preference and I wish I could have kept reading to find some of the book’s tips that may have helped me. But I couldn’t force myself to keep reading any longer, and skipping through the chapters to try and find the pieces of advice hidden amongst all the exposition was impossible.

I can imagine that you either love this book or you hate it. For me, it really wasn’t my cup of tea and I’m going to have to search elsewhere to try and find some tips to deal with my anxiety. Hopefully in a format that will capture my interest more. But for others, this book’s positivity and optimism will be a great help, and the information is very intelligent and interesting for those who want to learn more about anxiety and its history.

But personally, I’m looking for something with more colour. Something bolder and something more clear-cut and exciting.

See the full review here: https://racheleanne.wordpress.com/201...

[Lilly Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful. Allows one to understand anxiety and how to cope with it. This self help book makes you realize you are not alone and there are ways to embrace anxiety in a positive manner instead of negative.

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very interested to read this book as I do have anxiety (GAD) which sometimes involves panic attacks. I have basically had this since I was around 14ish and have spent years trying to deal with and accept having this condition.
Hack Your Anxiety has a lot of case studies, history, and offers much motivation with the idea of harnessing it as a positive thing. I think this book would have helped me when I was struggling as a teen to identify what was going on but I really didn't find it helpful for me now. I think I need a more step by step technique worksheet to go along with the positive affirmation. That being said, I do think it will help some people suffering with anxiety as every person is different and the way to work with anxiety will also differ. It is definitely worth a read if only to understand the history and current knowledge about anxiety. It is very well written and you can feel the author's passion for this subject and wanting to help others.

[Anna]

dnf
it got too boring for me, sorry

[Lyssa deHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hack your anxiety by Alicia Clark, PsyD. is one of those books that can give you tools. I read a lot of books about how humans work and how we develop and learn. I also work with others and their anxiety as well as navigate my own anxiety at times. So, I was very curious about Hack Your Anxiety.

The book is very well written and accessible to the reader. And, while much of the information was a recap for me, it was a useful reminder about how anxiety works and the benefits of anxiety. And, that attempts to ”make it go away” are ultimately ineffective to sustainable shifts in how we use and manage our responses to the stress causing events that bombard us.

One piece of research that Clark shared was from the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett on how emotions are made. It makes perfect sense, now that I've heard it, that emotions are full brain constructions. And, that, ”Emotions only become what we think of as emotions when we consciously think about and name them.” which makes perfect sense given that two people can have wildly different ”emotional responses” to just about anything.

I could go on and on, but I'm going to stop here and just say that I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand their anxiety and wants to develop tools to navigate said anxiety. The tool kit at the end is especially useful.

I will be recommending this book to my clients. Thank you for a thoughtful and interesting read. Here is a book that shares tools to hack the anxiety monster, find a way to befriend it, and to move forward in life with more ease.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people suffer from some form of anxiety, and this book attempts to help them see the positive side, and to use the anxiety to an advantage.

It's relatively easy to read and full of case studies and ideas.

If you've struggled with anxiety, read many self-help books but not managed to control it, this may be a good book for you - it's less about controlling it and stopping it, but more about learning to live and cope with it

[butterbook · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for content; 2 for presentation. This book is way overwritten. It's long on history and theory and short on practical tips. But the underlying message is solid and one I agree with.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hack Your Anxiety has a unique perspective on anxiety. As a life-long anxiety sufferer, I'm not sure viewing it as a motivating factor is terribly helpful. The book is well-written and interesting but I can't honestly recommend it.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a person who suffers from anxiety, especially in public, I find this book quite useful and motivational.

[Arash Farzaneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a wonderful and an immensely resourceful book for anyone who is interested in psychology and / or who wants to gain some background knowledge about anxiety. Dr. Clark is certainly erudite and approaches the topic also with passion and curiosity.

It is a rather empowering book as it helps you put anxiety into perspective, while at the same time trying to challenge your notions about this so common and overly feared and shunned phenomenon. Her insights are tied and connected with cognitive-behavioral research as well as current findings in neuroscience.

Although her approach and advice are very useful, there are times she fails to fully address the topic of underlying anxiety. This is a general shortcoming of fields like CBT as well as the rather popular positive psychology movement.

The problem is that the latter approaches often cannot get to the root of the problem in a way depth psychology like psychoanalysis can address these issues. As a result, Dr. Clark manages to channel her own anxiety into creating this wonderful book, but in the end it is still lurking there; the anxiety may have turned into a beneficial enabler and agent, but in my view, the book does not entirely fulfill on its promise of helping the self. Nonetheless, it certainly propels us to get various steps closer in the process.

[Gene Desrochers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and inspiring

Thoroughly researched. Patiently written account of how one can tackle the perils of untreated anxiety. In fact the authors reveal that anxiety is a good thing, prompting action and change. Not only do they make a persuasive argument for it as a vital mechanism for growth, they provide guidelines for using it, recognizing what it’s trying to tell you and implementing the changes required to alleviate your anxiety...then repeating those steps each time it arises to keep your anxiety manageable. One story I particularly appreciated was, “The monkey doesn’t let go; it remains stuck, screaming and struggling to free its fisted paw. The monkey is trapped by a stubborn force of its own creation.” This stuck with me for days as I contemplated times in my own life when I’d been that monkey. How difficult even with an opposable thumb and frontal lobe executive function I still behaved like the trapped monkey instead of simply letting go of the banana. In fact in my teens I literally I’d the same thing on water skis but not releasing the line when I fell. Humans do it every day. We are in prisons of our own making. The anxiety is informing you of this fact and this book helps you reframe the negative connotation into positive recognition and potentially life changing action.

[Angela Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been dealing with anxiety since before I knew I was, and over the past 5 years, I have been trying to learn as much as I can about it. This book added an interesting perspective to my ongoing understanding of anxiety. The author focuses on trying to understand the role of anxiety, how it manifests, and the potential meanings behind it. She also gives a lot of examples of her patients and their experiences in regards to different areas.

She doesn't go too in-depth about a particular subject (anxiety in relationships, work, with children, etc.) I think this book is more about painting a picture about the potential of using anxiety as a barometer rather than fully understanding it. Honestly, at times it made me feel a bit wary that maybe my anxiety was an indicator of some health-related issue (or maybe that's my anxiety speaking!)

As one of the reviewers wrote, this book doesn't really provide solutions to manage overwhelming anxiety (the kind I have, where your muscles are tense and your heart beats faster without a particular stimulus). Nevertheless, I give it four stars because it's informative and a nice read, and gives a more positive look at the fight or flight response, instead of demonizing it or just thinking we have to do away with it.

[Eireanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started out with a lot of promise - I just substituted the word anxiety for trauma, as it presents the same in the body (much like you can trick your body to say you're excited instead of nervous?) so here I am, getting all this really great info that affirms all the research I've done for the past year is correct. But then the vignettes started to be too simplistic, and it seems everyone had really easy solutions, they just needed to use their anxiety as a guide to teach them how to be more confident and learn how to self-advocate, and suddenly everything in their life started coming together. I was feeling more disheartened, because while I understand now that my trauma response needs to be validated (which isn't the same as needing validation) and it NEEDS to be articulated so I can process it...discussing it in any way makes everyone uncomfortable and leads to me being misinterpreted, my experiences minimized and misunderstood and I continue to feel isolated and alone in this. The author mentioned trauma and PTSD briefly, but in a way that glosses over the complexity of relational trauma, by the end I was skimming and really just wanted the book to end.

[Diane Quintana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hack Your Anxiety: How to Make Anxiety Work for You in Life, Love and All that You Do by Dr. Alicia H. Clark offers a new way to consider anxiety. Dr. Clark deftly explains how anxiety works in the brain and body illustrating different levels of anxiety through client stories. Then she points out that if someone experiencing anxiety listens to what their anxiety is telling them they can put the nervous energy towards creating a solution rather than allowing the anxious feelings to fester. This way of looking at anxiety gives control back to the person which empowers them to move on. As a professional organizer many of my clients come to me because the disorganization in their homes or lives is making them anxious. I’ll be including Dr. Clark’s book in my list of resources for my clients. It’s fabulous!

[Lisa J Shultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I started, I wondered if reading a book about anxiety would elevate my anxiety as I would be reminded of all the ways I am anxious. Thankfully I did not have more anxiety by the end of it. Here are a few nuggets about anxiety that I resonated with: one can reframe it, harness it, use it as a tool or directional signal. I took notes and found some valuable quotes: "What if anxiety is there to jog us out of our complacency; offering us just enough help to fight and forge something new?" And, "Anxiety wakes us up from the reverie of autopilot...It is a vital part of how we grow new habits, and evolve." The book is very comprehensive; it has more information about anxiety in one book than I would have thought possible. And in that feature, it was almost too full and a bit long and became slightly overwhelming for me. Nonetheless, it is a great resource for those with anxiety. 

[Debra Smouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

How would you like to let your anxiety work for you rather than against you? Whether you have great tools in place to manage your stress and are wanting a refresher course. Or really need to bring your stress and anxiety something that feels manageable for the first time in your life, this is a great book for you.

Well researched with practical advice, Hack Your Anxiety invites you to allow your worries to work with you. Take your time reading the book so so that you can allow yourself to learn a new skill before moving on.

I had put this book aside when we were traveling over the holidays and realized that now was the perfect time to pick it back up and finish it.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another anxiety book that I picked up from my local library and I was so happy with it. It is a bit thick but Clark compiles so much information in the book, stories that go along with her topic/point, and ends with a summary of all the advice to address you anxiety in a place labeled "Anxiety Tool Kit". It was clear and easy to read, not overflowing with medical jargon..., she breaks it down where everyone can understand. I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to read about and practice tuning into anxiety and use it for good.

[Annah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for those with anxiety and have been attending talk therapy with little to good results. Most of the book is spent rethinking anxiety and its role in your life—and is very good for this reason. I think it would be beneficial to those interested in cognitive behavioral therapy or who have never heard of it. There aren’t many exercises, which would’ve been nice as a way of learning ‘hacking anxiety.’

[Vnunez-Ms_luv2read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good techniques that may possiblyhelp one with anxiety. Very useful and precise information. Various subjects are discussed in a easy to understand method. I really found this book to be useful as I know people that suffer from anxiety in various ways. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book. Although I received the book in this manner, it did not affect my opinion of this book nor my review

[Adriano · Rating 2 out of 5]

A ideia é boa, mas o livro é muito arrastado. Percebe-se claramente a "encheção de linguiça", com vários temas diferentes vindo à frente que nem sempre se relacionam com o tema da ansiedade. Nem tinha chegado à metade do livro e já estava fazendo skimming. No final tem um "kit" de como usar a ansiedade que é bem interessante.

O livro inteiro pode ser resumido a "ansiedade é um sinal" e "ansiedade pode ser excitação".

[Philip Winston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent message

The book advocates listening to your anxiety instead of fleeing from it, figuring out what action it is prodding you to take, and taking that step, even when it’s difficult.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenía mayores expectativas, me pareció un libro muy reiterativo. Tal vez porque soy Psícologa no lo encontré muy revelador; a mis ojos este libro está dirigido para alguien de otra carrera que quiera aprender de ansiedad.

[Christi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could be a really great book if you read it at the right time/in the right mood. It wasn't that for me. It felt simplistic and redundant. I liked some of the thoughts and the steps, but it was a lot of text for not very much information.

[Moffitt Cheyenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was very thorough and very helpful. The information this book has given me will not be in vain, it's very useful.

[Ruksana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anxiety is usually seen as a negative however in this book it uses anxiety as a positive way to action change that you need. A trigger for positive change. Great mindset shift.

[Katthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely helpful in integrating the information I've been seeing

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! Very insightful.

It gave me a inside look on anxiety and I look at it and approach anxiety differently. This book is such a blessing.