The Worst Thing You Can Do for Anxiety

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dr. Laura Podcast
Episode: The Worst Thing You Can Do for Anxiety
Host: Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Date: January 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Laura Schlessinger dives into the everyday habits and thought patterns that worsen, rather than relieve, anxiety. Drawing from her years in therapy and radio, she addresses common misconceptions, offers practical advice for managing anxiety, and introduces the "3-3-3" grounding rule. Dr. Laura’s characteristic wit and directness shine as she explains why anxiety often stems from avoidable lifestyle choices and mindset errors—empowering listeners to confront, not avoid, the root causes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Real Causes of Anxiety (01:01–04:55)

• No Single Cause:
  There isn’t one thing that is “the worst” for anxiety—rather, a range of habits and attitudes pile up to create and worsen anxiety.

• Avoidant Behavior & Procrastination:

  • “Procrastination, which is also known as avoidance. That’s what procrastinate. Why do I procrastinate? Because you’re trying to avoid what you need to do.” (01:20)
  • Avoiding tasks due to fear of failure or criticism magnifies anxiety, creating a cycle of dread and inaction.

• Sleep Deprivation:

  • “Lack of quality sleep makes it much harder to manage your emotional state and your stress.” (02:05)
  • Poor sleep both triggers anxiety and is worsened by anxiety itself.

• Caffeine & Stimulants:

  • Dr. Laura shares her sensitivity to caffeine as an example:
    • “Caffeine is a stimulant and it can over stimulate the nervous system, give you jitters, increase your heart rate, which makes you anxious.” (02:42)
  • The message: Stimulants can exacerbate an already anxious system.

• Diet & Skipping Meals:

  • “Poor diet, skipping meals, drop your blood sugar, jitters… eating a lot of processed foods, you know, a lot of junk, leads to blood sugar crashes. That makes you irritable, shaky, mood swings. It resembles anxiety.” (03:05)
  • Dr. Laura references her personal habit of snacking in the afternoon to maintain stable blood sugar.

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The Role of Negative Thinking & Digital Overload (07:08–08:00)

• Negative Self-Talk:

  • “I’m an idiot. I’m just so stupid. It’s never going to work out for me...” (07:08)
  • Dr. Laura emphasizes that repeated self-criticism—joking or not—affects the brain and mood, feeding anxious feelings.

• Screen Time & Social Media:

  • “Excessive screen time, constant notifications and social media keep your mind on high alert... comparisons between you and somebody else [cause] stress.” (07:41)
  • The brain needs downtime—digital overexposure prevents true relaxation and contributes to anxiety.

• Overscheduling:

  • “Being constantly busy, overcommitted increases the feeling of being overworked, overwhelmed, makes you anxious.” (08:20)
  • Overcommitment leads to a sense of loss of control and cycles back to procrastination and avoidance.

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Memorable Quotes

• On Anxiety’s Roots:

  • “Anxiety is not a virus that comes out of nowhere and gives you a sore throat. Come on.” (02:54)

• On Negative Self-Talk:

  • “Even if you say it in jest, some part of your brain goes, ‘Oh, really?’ That doesn’t bode well for trying to avoid mood swings, including anxiety.” (07:31)

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Practical Tools & Strategies

The “3-3-3 Rule” for Acute Anxiety (08:35–10:55)

• Description of the Technique:

  • Engage your senses and body to disrupt anxious thoughts.
  • “It’s called the 3-3-3 rule, and it pulls you out of anxious thoughts. How does it do that? It engages your mind in three different ways, uses your senses.” (08:35)

• How to Apply It:

  1. Name Three Things You See:
     • “A camera, a weird looking light fixture, a computer.” (09:00)
  2. Name Three Things You Hear:
     • Dr. Laura shares her examples: “I hear the owls… I hear the froggies… then I hear Lily breathing.” (09:25)
  3. Move Three Body Parts:
     • “I take one arm and just rotate it around … shoulders up, shoulders down … pick up a leg … By that time, I guarantee you the anxiety has diminished profoundly.” (09:40)

• Why It Works:

  • “It interrupts all your nutty thoughts … helps manage the acute anxiety, which means the anxiety you have at that moment.” (10:12)
  • “Anxiety is not being here in the now. It’s upset about yesterday or tomorrow.” (10:55)

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Memorable Moments & Dr. Laura’s Personal Anecdotes

• Surgical Scheduling Stress (11:00–13:40):
  • Dr. Laura relays a recent last-minute surgery schedule change and how she handled it directly, using the story as an object lesson in facing stressful situations rather than letting them fester.
  • “You confront things at the moment. You don’t wait. That just makes anxiety. I have no anxiety about this now that we either fix it tomorrow or some other time.” (12:30)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “Procrastination … you’re trying to avoid what you need to do.” (01:20)
• “Caffeine is a stimulant and it can over stimulate the nervous system...” (02:42)
• “Anxiety is not a virus that comes out of nowhere and gives you a sore throat. Come on.” (02:54)
• “Even if you say it in jest, some part of your brain goes, ‘Oh, really?’” (07:31)
• “Excessive screen time, constant notifications and social media keep your mind on high alert…” (07:41)
• “It’s called the 3-3-3 rule, and it pulls you out of anxious thoughts.” (08:35)
• “Anxiety is not being here in the now. It’s upset about yesterday or tomorrow.” (10:55)
• “You confront things at the moment. You don’t wait. That just makes anxiety.” (12:30)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [01:01–04:55] — Causes of anxiety: procrastination, lack of sleep, caffeine, poor diet
• [07:08–08:00] — Negative self-talk, screen time, and scheduling
• [08:35–10:55] — “3-3-3 Rule” grounding technique
• [11:00–13:40] — Dr. Laura’s surgery anecdote about addressing stress head-on

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Closing Thoughts

Dr. Laura reiterates that anxiety often stems from avoidable habits and unhelpful self-talk, not mysterious external forces. Facing situations directly, nourishing your body, limiting stimulants, practicing positive self-dialogue, and employing simple grounding strategies like the “3-3-3 rule” are all practical steps to manage and reduce anxiety.

If you enjoyed this episode, Dr. Laura encourages you to share it and connect via her website or social media.

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Transcript

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Negative self talk. I'm an idiot. I'm just so stupid. It's never going to work out for me. I hate myself when I sit in a corner and eat worms. Constant criticism.

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How that works? When you say nasty, rude things to yourself and you define what's happened by you're an idiot. Even if you say it in jest, some part of your brain goes, oh, really? Oh, that doesn't bode well for trying to avoid mood swings, including anxiety. So I tried my best. It didn't work. Let me try something else. Well, let me just go for a walk and forget it altogether and come back with a clear head or everybody hates me. I'm going to eat worms. Okay, don't do that. Excessive screen time, constant notifications and social media. Keep your mind on high alert. Talk about good vocal cords. I can do that. Leading to comparisons between you and something or somebody else. Stress, by the way, when you spend a lot of time with notifications and Instagram, a lot of time and Facebook and X and all of this stuff, you put the part of your brain that does need to relax on high alert without a break and you think you're not going to be anxious. The chemistry, and the neural chemistry in your brain is very important. Moods don't come out of nowhere. Sometimes you have to sit and say, well, this didn't come out of nowhere. So what do I think is contributing to this? Over scheduling. Being constantly busy, over committed increases. The feeling of being overworked, overwhelmed, Makes you anxious. Oh my God, I have this to do. I have that to do, I have that to do. I have that to do, that to do. Then, all right, I can't handle everything. And then we go back to the beginning where we procrastinate and avoid. So you see, I brought you around a full cycle. There's this cute thing. I mean, there are so many ways to do this. This is a cute way to do this. But it's one of dozens of ideas of how to curb the anxiety at any particular moment. It's called the 3 3, 3 rule, and it pulls you out of anxious thoughts. How does it do that? It engages your mind in three different ways, uses your senses. Three things you see, things you hear, and physical movement. So here's how it works. You're anxious, you look around and you name three things. A camera, a weird looking light fixture, a computer. So with my eyeballs I picked out three things and I named them. Then three sounds you hear. Got headphones on. So all I hear is me, me and me. But all right, otherwise last night I have a female owl and a male owl on my property. And I think last night they got together and we're going to have baby owls. Okay, so I'm hearing owls and I'm hearing interest. Not just woo hoo. I mean obviously there was communication. So owls. I also have a koi pond. Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I hear the froggies and then I hear Lily breathing. Because every now and then she has this mild little snore. Sort of like it's very cute. So that's three things I hear. And then I move three body parts. I take one arm and just rotate it around, rotate it around. And then I do shoulders up. Oh, that feels good. Shoulders down, shoulders up, shoulders down, shoulders up. And then I stand up and I pick up a leg. And then I pick up the other leg. And then I pick up the other leg. By that time, I guarantee you the anxiety has diminished profoundly because you've totally. It interrupts all your nutty thoughts. Interrupts that and helps manage the acute anxiety, which means the anxiety you have at that moment, okay, it's a temporary tool, but it's good each time you get slammed. So again, look at three things. Name three things you see. Name three things you hear. Move three body parts. You can wiggle toes, shrug your shoulders. All of this helps you connect with right now. Because what's funny, anxiety is not being here in the now. It's upset about yesterday or tomorrow. It's not in the moment. Okay, so I have more interesting things to tell you over the 50. We're going into 51st year now that I've been on the air. Can you believe that? I can't. It went. Did I do that right? That's the finger I'm supposed to have surgery on. Oh, by the way, I'm supposed to have surgery at 3:30 tomorrow. Talked to the lady, she said 3:30 a week and a half ago. Wrote it down on the schedule, already told everybody, get off the air. I have to go immediately. It's minor ish. It's delicate, but it's minor ish on A little tendon and the rude finger, you know what I mean? And then I get a note just before I go on the air, get a message from some anesthesiologists and I told them no general, you know, figure out a way to do this without knocking me out saying my name completely wrong, which I didn't appreciate. Didn't have a piece of paper come on where they changed it to 130 when I'm on the earth. So I call and yeah, the center has changed it to 130. When did that happen? So I called the woman in charge of the doctor's surgeries and I said what's going on? And she says to me we told you that we can make a last minute change the day before. I said no, you never told me that because then I would have changed it to a Friday when I'm off. No, you never told me that. Oh yes we did. No. So I asked, I said well, you're going to have to cancel it and I want to talk to the doctor personally. So he's calling me at 2:30. He's a great guy, he fixed my wrist and I'm going to tell him, you know, I'm sorry, she's probably very busy. You don't want to really criticize somebody's right hand woman. She's probably very busy and thought she said it to me, but no she didn't because I would have changed it to Friday. So what are we going to do now? Is there anything you can do about tomorrow? So I told you that because I want you to understand that you confront things at the moment. You don't wait. That just makes anxiety. You don't wait. I have no anxiety about this now that we either fix it tomorrow or some other time. It's fine, no pain, no pain. It's just that I can't use the middle finger properly. Don't ask what properly means. 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