The Anxiety Conversation We Need to Rethink
- Alison Friedman
- Jun 26
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 23
A couple of years ago, I visited a new primary care doctor in Florida about a racing heartbeat. I later learned it’s a common perimenopause symptom called vasomotor symptoms.
Without much dialogue, he quickly labeled it as anxiety and reached for a prescription.
But I knew it wasn’t anxiety. I’ve experienced real anxiety... this wasn’t it. And had I not trusted myself, I could’ve ended up medicated for something totally unrelated.
That moment came back to me recently when I listened to an incredible episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast featuring Dr. David Rosmarin. Dr. Rosmarin is a Harvard professor, founder of the Center for Anxiety, and author of Thriving with Anxiety.
One of the first things he said struck a nerve:
“We are over-pathologizing a normal human emotion. There’s a huge difference between clinical anxiety and the kind of emotional discomfort that comes with living a full life.”
He explained that physicians are now being encouraged to screen all patients at their annual check-ups using just two questions about stress and worry over the past two weeks.
Who wouldn’t say yes to that in today’s world?
That kind of broad screening, while well-intentioned, is fueling a rise in anxiety diagnoses and prescriptions. But it’s also blurring the line between what’s clinical and what’s just part of being human... especially in midlife, when change is constant.
What helped me during my more stressful seasons... moving, downsizing, parenting grown kids, navigating hormone shifts... wasn’t medication, but the tools I’ve gathered over the years:
🧘♀️ Meditation (thank you, Chopra training)
🧠 Mindset work (Jay Shetty coaching helped here)
Pausing, breathing, becoming aware... and not judging the feelings
Finding a routine that I can stick to that starts my day and gets me on track. You can literally start with making your bed and brushing your teeth.
That said... there are absolutely times when medication is the right call. Dr. Rosmarin makes that clear too. Clinical anxiety can be debilitating and deserves real care. But many people are being handed a diagnosis and a prescription for what are actually normal emotional responses to life.
“We’ve never had a patient die from anxiety. No one has gone crazy from anxiety. But the moment you label it a problem, your body thinks it’s in danger... and adrenaline spikes.”
What if we stopped trying to get rid of anxiety, and instead got better at living with it?
Dr. Rosmarin suggests that everyone should have access to something like an “emotional agility gym,” where we build resilience by safely leaning into discomfort, rather than running from it.
And this quote might be my favorite:
“I think all human beings would benefit from acknowledging the limits of what we can control and leaning into that and letting go. There's a difference between losing control, where it's taken away from us involuntarily, versus giving up control, like you do on a roller coaster.”
This is world-class, research-backed advice... and it’s worth sharing.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast with Dr. David Rosmarin here:
Comments