Why You Feel So Anxious All The Time - Dr Russell Kennedy
Dr Russell Kennedy (guest), Chris Williamson (host)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Dr Russell Kennedy and Chris Williamson, Why You Feel So Anxious All The Time - Dr Russell Kennedy explores healing Anxiety: Reconnecting With Your Body, Childhood Self, And Alarm Dr. Russell Kennedy (“The Anxiety MD”) explains that what we call anxiety is often a persistent state of physiological “alarm” rooted in unresolved childhood experiences, especially separation, chaos, or trauma. He blends neuroscience and somatic psychology, arguing that chronic stress in childhood sensitizes subcortical fear and addiction circuits while weakening the prefrontal cortex’s ability to regulate stress. Modern approaches that focus only on changing thoughts (like CBT) help people cope but often hit a ceiling because they ignore the body and the younger self that still “lives” in those sensations. Kennedy advocates a combined approach: somatic work, parts/IFS-style inner-child repair, and cognitive tools, along with learning to tolerate uncertainty instead of compulsively worrying to escape it.
Healing Anxiety: Reconnecting With Your Body, Childhood Self, And Alarm
Dr. Russell Kennedy (“The Anxiety MD”) explains that what we call anxiety is often a persistent state of physiological “alarm” rooted in unresolved childhood experiences, especially separation, chaos, or trauma. He blends neuroscience and somatic psychology, arguing that chronic stress in childhood sensitizes subcortical fear and addiction circuits while weakening the prefrontal cortex’s ability to regulate stress. Modern approaches that focus only on changing thoughts (like CBT) help people cope but often hit a ceiling because they ignore the body and the younger self that still “lives” in those sensations. Kennedy advocates a combined approach: somatic work, parts/IFS-style inner-child repair, and cognitive tools, along with learning to tolerate uncertainty instead of compulsively worrying to escape it.
Key Takeaways
Reframe anxiety as ‘alarm’ rooted in earlier experiences, not just thoughts.
Kennedy suggests that chronic anxiety is better understood as a body-based state of alarm encoded during childhood stress or trauma; the mind’s anxious thoughts are secondary attempts to explain and escape that alarm, not its primary cause.
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Locate and befriend the bodily sensation of alarm instead of escaping into worry.
He recommends noticing where alarm lives in your body (solar plexus, throat, chest, shoulders, etc. ...
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Use somatic and parts work to connect with your younger self.
Approaches like somatic experiencing and internal family systems help you treat the alarm as a representation of a younger, wounded part; repeatedly ‘showing’ this child that they are now safe and not stuck in the past can gradually rewrite deep unconscious patterns.
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Combine body-based work with cognitive tools rather than relying on thoughts alone.
Kennedy argues that cognitive therapies (CBT, reframing, positive psychology) are far more effective after you’ve calmed the body and reconnected with yourself; trying to ‘think your way out’ of a feeling problem without somatic engagement is usually exhausting and limited.
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Practice tolerating and even embracing uncertainty to weaken anxiety’s grip.
Because the brain is wired to hate uncertainty, especially in those with early trauma, worry functions as a maladaptive strategy to create a false sense of certainty; intentionally recognizing situations as uncertain—and choosing not to catastrophize—can reduce compulsive worry over time.
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Interrupt panic and spirals with deliberate physiological regulation.
Tools like the intensified ‘physiological sigh’ (three strong nasal inhales, short hold, slow hissed exhale) and grounding in strong physical sensations (hands on face, crossing midline) recruit powerful brain circuits that calm the nervous system and pull you back into the present.
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Men often mislabel or displace anxiety as anger, stress, or numbness.
Due to cultural policing of male emotion and limited emotional vocabulary, men’s anxiety frequently shows up as irritability, aggression, substance use, or suicidal behavior; developing emotional language, safe male vulnerability, and permission to cry are crucial for genuine regulation and connection.
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Notable Quotes
“If you abuse, abandon, or neglect a child, the child doesn't stop loving the parent, they stop loving themselves.”
— Dr. Russell Kennedy
“You can't think your way out of a feeling problem.”
— Dr. Russell Kennedy
“All anxiety is separation anxiety, and it's mostly separation from yourself.”
— Dr. Russell Kennedy
“We worship the mind so much that we believe the mind can heal the mind, and it really hasn’t done much for emotional healing.”
— Dr. Russell Kennedy
“When you are alarmed, just allow it to be there in your body as opposed to compulsively going up into your head.”
— Dr. Russell Kennedy
Questions Answered in This Episode
How can someone with very little body awareness practically begin identifying where their ‘alarm’ lives without feeling overwhelmed or skeptical?
Dr. ...
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What indicators help distinguish normal, adaptive anxiety from the chronic ‘alarm’ state that likely requires somatic and parts-based work?
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For people wary of ‘woo,’ what kinds of empirical or experiential benchmarks would you propose to judge whether somatic and inner-child approaches are genuinely helping?
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How should men who lack emotional vocabulary start developing it in a way that feels authentic and doesn’t trigger the fear of appearing weak?
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In what order and dosage would you integrate CBT, somatic therapy, and (where legal) psychedelic-assisted therapy for someone with long-standing, treatment-resistant anxiety?
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Transcript Preview
There's this great saying that says if you abuse, abandon, or neglect a child, the child doesn't stop loving the parent, they stop loving themselves. And I think that's the start of the alarm situation because when we split from ourselves, when we start judging, abandoning, blaming and shaming ourselves as children, that model becomes the way we interact with life. (wind blows)
How did you get into studying anxiety?
Well, mostly 'cause I suffered from the damn condition myself for so long. You know, I, I grew up with a father with schizophrenia and bipolar illness, so my childhood was more than a bit chaotic. So it was really about trying to understand what was going on in my own mind because men typically don't understand what's going on. Women are so much better at explaining their emotions. I remember years ago there was this study that was done about, they put men and women in a functional MRI scanner and then they would flash words like compassion, love, that kind of... And in the women's brains, like 14 places would light up, and in the men's brain, only four places would light up. So we don't have the emotional language so much. So when I was younger, I didn't really know what anxiety was until I got into med school and then it was... then it hit me full force.
What was growing up with a bipolar schizophrenic father like?
Well, it was really... It was challenging in a lot of ways but for the first 10 years of my life, he was actually a great dad. You know, he would, you know, teach me how to ride a bike and hit a ball, and he was, uh, an award-winning baseball coach. But it... The problem was that every once in a while he would just lose it and go off and as a child, as a boy, with this guy as my hero, and then to see him up all night for four days and kind of ranting and raving, he was never abusive or violent or anything like that, but it was very destabilizing for me. And I think a lot of my anxiety stemmed from the fact that I've studied this since I've been about 16 years old, like mental illness and... because of my dad. And I saw that there was a heritable component to his schizophrenia and bipolar, so I got just completely freaked out. So what I would do is I would say, okay, if you make it to 25 and you don't show up with schizophrenia, you're probably fine. Then it was 30, then it was 35. So once I got to 35 it's like, okay, I think I miss the gene for that. But I think I developed anxiety because I saw him suffer so much and go to mental hospitals and, and just really, really be in, in bad, bad shape and I just thought, I don't want to be like that. Like I don't want to... I don't want that to be my life.
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