Summary: That was my aim in writing the book- was both to offer reassurance, and then practical strategies<br><br> for managing the stress and anxiety that will, invariably, come up.<br><br> -Lisa Damour<br> In episode 73, I’m chatting with Lisa Damour, the New York Times best-selling author of <a href="https://www.drlisadamour.com/untangled/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Untangled- Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.</a><br> <a href="https://www.drlisadamour.com/under-pressure/"></a>In this episode, we talk about Lisa’s new book, <a href="https://www.drlisadamour.com/under-pressure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Under Pressure- Confronting The Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls.</a><br> Lisa is a clinical psychologist, in private practice. She shares some really encouraging insights about reframing the way that we think about stress and anxiety in ourselves and in our daughters and she also discusses ways that we can help ease the anxiety levels of our girls at home, at school, and in their social lives.<br> Big ideas<br> <br> * Both stress and anxiety are normal and healthy functions that are actually beneficial to us.<br> * Anxiety is a normal system that keeps us safe. It’s an alarm that alerts us to pay attention and notice what’s going on around us, or inside of us.<br> * Stress builds capacity, so when we operate at our outer edge, that edge usually grows and we develop new abilities.<br> <br> Quotes<br> Audrey: “You have a great way of synthesizing the information and I think that’s why people find your books so helpful. You have taken all this deep, heavy stuff about what’s going on, and really put it down to the very simple to understand terms for those of us who work with girls, or have daughters.”<br> Audrey: “I think a lot of times parents are feeling stressed themselves about what to do and how to parent, and I think what your book provides is a sense of relief and encouragement that there are these things going on and yes, anxiety is a big issue, however, there are all these things that we can do, in different areas, to relieve some of that.”<br> Lisa: ” The bottom line is that psychologists understand, and have long understood, that stress and anxiety are both normal and healthy functions. They both can reach troublesome degrees, and even when they do, we’re really good at treating them. But, stress and anxiety are part of life, so stress is what happens when we operate at the edge of our capacities- any time that we take on something that requires us to adapt, to stretch, to grow, we will feel stressed by it.”<br> Lisa: “Anxiety is a normal system that keeps us safe. It’s an alarm that alerts us to pay attention, to notice what’s going on around us- or going on inside of us.”<br> Lisa: “Stress builds capacity. When we operate at our outer edge, usually our edge grows. We develop new abilities we didn’t know we had.”<br> Lisa: “The kinds of principles I’m putting forward in here- these are well-established, very long-standing, fully understood beliefs in psychology that somehow became divorced from where the popular culture is now, which is the sense that all anxiety is troublesome, and all stress is pathological and we need to get rid of both.”<br> Lisa: “We run the risk now of raising a generation that is stressed about being stressed, and anxious about being anxious.”<br> Audrey: “The message that I got is that one way to ease the anxiety is to normalize it and explain that, even as adults, we have it too.”<br> Lisa: “That was my aim in writing the book- was both to offer reassurance, and then practical strategies for managing the stress and anxiety that will, invariably, come up.”<br> Lisa: “Most feelings will run their course.”<br>
