Tame Your Anxiety: Rewiring Your Brain for Happiness

by Loretta Graziano Breuning

Anxiety is natural. Calm is learned. If you didn’t learn yesterday, you can learn today. It’s not easy, of course. Once your natural alarm system is triggered, it’s hard to find the off switch. Indeed, you don’t have an off switch until you build one. Tame Your Anxiety shows you how. Readers learn about the brain chemicals that make us feel threatened and the chemicals that make us feel safe. You’ll see how your brain turns on these chemicals with neural pathways built from past experience, and, most important, you discover your power to build new pathways, to enjoy more happy chemicals, and reduce threat chemicals. This book does not tell you to imagine yourself on a tropical beach. That’s the last thing you want when you feel like a lion is chasing you. Instead, you will learn to ask your inner mammal what it wants and how you can get it. Each time you step toward meeting a survival need, you build the neural pathways that expect your needs to be met. You don’t have to wait for a perfect world to feel good. You can feel good right now. The exercises in this book help you build a self-soothing circuit in steps so small that anyone can do it. Once you learn how it’s done, and how it can help ease your anxiety, you will learn how to handle situations in which you feel threatened or anxious. Understanding the underlying mechanisms will help you stop them before they get ahead of you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mental Health, Self Help, Brain, Psychology, Health

160 pages, Paperback

Published May 8, 2019

About the author

Loretta is the author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin and Endorphin Levels. She's Founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and Professor Emerita of Management at California State University, East Bay. Dr. Breuning's many books, videos and podcasts explain the brain chemistry we've inherited from earlier mammals. She shows that our "happy chemicals" are not designed to be on all the time. They evolved to do specific jobs, so we always have to do more to get more. Dr. Breuning's work explains the natural way to enhance our power over these chemicals. Her nine books have been translated into sixteen languages. Before teaching, Loretta worked for the United Nations in Africa. Today, she gives zoo tours on animals behavior, after serving as a Docent at the Oakland Zoo. She is a graduate of Cornell University and Tufts. The Inner Mammal Institute offers videos, podcasts, books, blogs, multimedia, a training program, and a free five-day happy-chemical jumpstart. Details are available at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Reviews

[January Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the attempt, but the format and style of writing made me more anxious. People with anxiety do not need this overly wordy help because it doesn't help.

[Anna-Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of only a few books I’ve read in my lifetime I’ve given 1 star — this one for coming across as incredibly and condescendingly simplistic, with chapters that were unclear, disorganized, and repetitive. The constant mammalian metaphors made it seem as though the author had little understanding of human anxiety or its management. The constant mention of chimpanzees ultimately made you lose focus from the main message. Further claims of relying on the underlying neurological basis for survival were hilarious among insinuations that seeking medical assistance to managed anxiety was not recommended or useful, and that anxiety could stem from academic or media control. Telling individuals with clinical anxiety that they can’t seek help is just despicable. I finished the book out of the spite of needing to rate it a single star — how the hell did this get published?

[Rachelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read that took me a long time!

This little book is full of practical suggestions I had not heard before.

Despite being somewhat outgoing, I have suffered with anxiety all of my life. After developing an arrhythmia in 2012 and then being diagnosed with melanoma in 2018, it has become much more prevalent. Then, earlier this year, I developed cardiotoxicity from topical chemotherapy treatments, and my anxiety became intolerable as I experienced A-Fib almost daily and couldn’t drive, exercise, sleep. . . . One trip to the ER at the start of COVID made me understand I was going to suffer with scary symptoms for the next while until I could see the cardiologist and get all the tests. They encouraged me to return the next time it happened as the risk of stroke is higher, and it is hard to differentiate between a cardiac event and an emergency even for them, but I knew I didn’t want to do that. I would wait it out and try to get a handle on the anxiety that came with these heart issues. Many scary hours/days followed, but I didn’t need to return to the ER.

Two and a half months after stopping the treatment, I am finally feeling much better and seem to be through the worst of it. And this book helped along the way.

There were so many good takeaways, but here are a few:
Our brains often reward bad behaviour with hits of dopamine, thereby reinforcing them.
Absorbing oneself in an enjoyable activity for twenty minutes greatly reduces cortisol.
The rubber ducky method. . . . Talking about a problem to an inanimate object can be just as useful as seeing a therapist (it works!).
Schedule hard tasks in the morning and follow them with a small reward. Both the completion of the task and the anticipation of the reward will trigger happy chemicals.

I highly recommend reading this book if you suffer with anxiety.

[Perri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A no-nonsense book for dealing with anxiety. Found lack of the author's background odd (is she a PhD? PsyD? LCSW? LMHT? ....any credentials whatsoever?) odd but appreciated the succinct format of the book and it truly had some helpful insights.

[Christi Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. However it was the second book I’ve read by Loretta, and I found it very repetitive, especially the analogies. While it was good, I don’t recommend reading it closely followed before or after habits of a happy brain!

[Courtney Rodgers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a difficult time with this book. There is so much talk about about animals and so many animal metaphors. The metaphors were distracting. There is very little talk about actually managing anxiety as a condition. The anxiety discussed in this book is stress-based anxiety as Breuning does not seem to believe in medically diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder. As an anxiety sufferer, I found this incredibly patronizing. There were a few helpful tips, but overall, this book was frustrating to read. The repetitive bullet points at the end of the chapters made this book seem like an educational pamphlet, which again, felt patronizing.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of this book drew me in. and made me expect lots of practical tips for taming anxiety. Unfortunately that is not the case. There is some interesting information about the science behind anxiety, but this quickly becomes redundant. As do the many examples about animals in the wild. Overall disappointing.

I received an ARC from NetGalley.

[Ilinca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. Offers logical theoretical explanations and practical exercises. I liked it a lot. Now I understand the roots of my anxiety disorder a lot better, and the exercise ideas are decreasing my panick attacks. Will continue to practice!

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unhelpful

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Anxiety is natural, calm is learned."

This book has some great takeaways and lots of good examples (many include a gazelle). I found it a bit dry but a helpful read.

Breuning discusses why our brains work the way they do and specifically discusses how anxiety is cortisol triggered by a perception of a threat.

Our body craves dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin and often times our brain rewards bad behavior with it therefore reinforcing the behavior.

"Cortisol has a half life of 20 minutes, half of it is eliminated from your system as long as you don't trigger it more." Busy self for 20 minutes and let cortisol levels drop.

Schedule hard tasks in the morning and follow them up with a small reward.

"Each of us is born with billions of neurons but very few connections between them. The connections we build shape the responses we have. You can build new connections by feeding your brain new experiences."

[Sabrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
This was an interesting take on anxiety. Breuning explores the disconnect between our verbal brain and our mammal brain. She compares it to a horse and rider scenario, the verbal brain is the rider and the mammal brain is the horse. She says there are things we are innately programmed to do (mammal brain) and then there is our ability to see choices, look at the different options, etc (verbal brain). Breuning's main guide is to get these to parts to communicate and be intend with one another to see when there is a real threat and when there is not. She has a three step process that she guides you through to do when you notice anxiety is hitting. It was a short book but had some good advice. I think it is worth it to pick it up and use the three steps that Breuning outlines in the book

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went into this with an open mind and was really hoping for something helpful and insightful. While the idea of “rewiring your brain” for happiness is appealing, the way it was presented didn’t quite connect with me. The writing felt a bit scattered, and the tone occasionally came across as dismissive or overly simplified, especially when addressing complex mental health topics.

There were a few interesting ideas sprinkled throughout, but overall it lacked the depth and compassion I was looking for in a book about anxiety. I appreciate the intention behind it—it’s clear the author wants to help—but it just wasn’t a great fit for me.

Some readers might still find value here, but I think it depends on what you’re looking for.

[Infrastructure Logistics · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social dominance secures every other need in a given territory, and consequently it is our natural impulse to want it with anyone we interact with unless we learn to control ourselves and calm down. Nor do we need to get overly excited about the resources social status grants, such as food and a mate. But until we see what we share in common with mammals, we may find it hard to consciously train ourselves to distinguish ourselves as human — we will be animalistic, without awareness. And this would let our anxiety go untamed.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Dr. Breuning's books and have read most of them. They are repetitive, so sometimes I find myself skipping over the sections that are too similar. The biggest "new" thing in this book is her 3-step process to remove cortisol from your body...asking yourself what you need, distracting yourself for 20 mins with something that consumes your mind/body, and then thinking of one step forward that you can accomplish that day to solve the problem.

[Dimitar Trifonov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Отново супер книга от Loretta Breuning на тема невронаука. Най-добрата й книга според мен е "Meet Your Happy Chemicals" (представя почти същата информация), но пък тази също е добра, защото представя информацията в контекста на тревогата, която вероятно всеки от нас изпитва понякога - ще разберете какво предизвиква тревогата и някои добри инструменти за справяне с нея. 😎

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

In more than 20 years, this is one of the best (if not the best) book I've read on this subject. It offers a clear explanation of the cause of anxiety. More importantly, if offers an understandable and easy to follow series of steps one can use to address it.

[AnnMarie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only thing I learned from this book is that I never want to see the word “gazelle” again.

[Lily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could barely get through this book, I was tired of the animal comparisons. Stick to human anxieties.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible outline of how the nervous system is wired, how emotions are learned, and how they interact with our behavior. Simple and helpful suggestions for anxiety management.

[Sofie Haller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last two sections were the only ones that really resonated with me. The rest just didn’t have much impact. Great effort but it just wasn’t for me.

[Daniele G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

MAH. Tante aspettative per nulla. Di pratico c'è poco o nulla, 99% del libro concentrato più su un aspetto naturale/evoluzionistico.

[Ken Ooi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for just about anybody. Really great insights and practical tips on how to navigate life. Highly recommended.

[Faur Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book twice and absolutely loved it. It helped me understand that everything we perceive as happiness or stress is driven by the neurochemicals produced by our mammal brain. It also made me see much more clearly why we use our phones and social media so often — we crave something that makes us feel better in the moment.

What I appreciate most is that the book teaches you how to feel better in the moment without paying a long-term price for it, and that is essential for a well-lived life. The analogies with the mammal brain are incredible and make it so much easier to understand how we actually function. A truly great book!

[Julie sims and books · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very informative. I liked knowing about the different ways of brain neurons.

[Lotus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tame Your Anxiety gives both a scientific view of anxiety and personal stories. This book is both informative and interesting to read.