The Mel Robbins PodcastThe Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From Renowned Psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Anxiety, ADHD, And Rewiring Your Brain: Practical Tools To Cope
- Mel Robbins and psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks unpack the modern surge in anxiety, its physical and mental symptoms, and how it intertwines with ADHD and executive function challenges.
- Dr. Marks explains how the brain’s threat system (amygdala) and braking system (vagus nerve, prefrontal cortex) work, emphasizing that you can’t stop anxiety from arising but you can learn to stop accelerating it.
- They cover specific tools—like interoceptive exposure, breathing and vagal techniques, grounding, habit reversal, and graded exposure—as well as lifestyle levers such as sleep, diet, and exercise that biologically reduce anxiety.
- The conversation also explores overlooked signs like body picking, tics, procrastination, and perfectionism, reframing conditions like anxiety and ADHD from “defects” to differences you can understand and manage effectively.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasYou can’t prevent anxiety from arising, but you can stop accelerating it.
Dr. Marks frames anxiety like pressing the gas pedal: your brain will sometimes automatically ‘hit the gas’ in response to perceived threat, but your real power is in how quickly you decelerate—using tools that calm your body and redirect your thoughts instead of letting fear spiral.
Separate physical sensations from catastrophic interpretations to break the anxiety loop.
Many people, like Mel’s son Oakley, experience a bodily sensation (nausea, dizziness, dissociation) that then triggers fear about the sensation itself; recognizing these as anxiety-related and not inherently dangerous is the first step to reducing their power.
Use interoceptive exposure to retrain your brain not to fear bodily sensations.
By intentionally inducing mild versions of feared sensations (e.g., spinning in a chair to mimic dizziness, doing jumping jacks to increase heart rate) in safe settings and seeing that nothing catastrophic happens, you weaken the association between those sensations and panic.
Tap your body’s braking system with breathwork and vagal maneuvers in anxious moments.
Techniques like box breathing, 4–7–8 breathing, slow deep exhales, humming, and even cold-water splashes stimulate the parasympathetic (vagal) system, slowing heart rate and reducing the physiological intensity of anxiety so your thoughts are easier to manage.
Avoidance makes phobias and social anxiety worse; graded exposure makes them smaller.
Whether it’s emetophobia (fear of vomiting), fear of flying, or social situations, reorganizing your life to avoid triggers enlarges the problem; instead, building a stepwise exposure ladder (show up, walk in, speak to one person, etc.) slowly restores confidence and shrinks the fear.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesYour brain is changeable, and regardless of what condition you may have, you can improve the quality of your life with simple behaviors and habits.
— Dr. Tracey Marks
You cannot stop the initial response. What you can stop is the propagation of the response.
— Dr. Tracey Marks
The avoidance behaviors become the bigger problem than the thing that you fear.
— Dr. Tracey Marks
We’ve got to change the focus from trying to prevent the reaction to controlling the reaction.
— Dr. Tracey Marks
If you have struggles, you’re not defective, you’re just different—and that’s okay.
— Dr. Tracey Marks
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