Podcast Summary: The Psychology of your 20s

Episode 325 — 4 Ways I Deal with Anxiety in My 20s

Host: Jemma Sbeg
Date: August 26, 2025

Overview

In this episode, host Jemma Sbeg shares four specific, practical strategies she’s developed to cope with anxiety throughout her twenties. Grounded in both psychological science and her personal experiences, Jemma breaks down how anxiety functions, why it can feel overwhelming, and how to reframe it to serve rather than hinder your growth. The tone is candid, supportive, and empowering, offering reassurance, relatable anecdotes, and actionable advice.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Understanding the Purpose and Nature of Anxiety

[03:00–11:30]

• Jemma recounts her history with anxiety, dating back to her first panic attack at age 8.
• She explains that anxiety often feels irrational and never-ending, providing fleeting comfort by making us feel "prepared" for worst-case scenarios—despite those outcomes rarely occurring.
• Jemma describes a turning point: "I stopped letting my anxiety kind of be the loudest voice in the room." (09:00)
• She emphasizes that anxiety's job is explicitly not to be realistic, but to present exaggerated threats in an effort to protect us.
  • Notable Quote:

    "Anxiety's job is to be irrational. That is literally its job. It is to present us with the worst-case scenarios—not to be truthful." (10:45)

2. First Strategy: Relabel Anxiety as Excitement

[13:45–18:39]

• Jemma introduces reframing anxious sensations as excitement, leveraging how similar the physiological responses are.
• References Harvard Business School research: Anxiety and excitement are both high-arousal states, differing mainly by their emotional "valence" (anxiety = negative, excitement = positive).
  • Quote:

    "If my anxious mind wants to lie to me, well, I can lie right back." (14:45)

• She shares her fear of flying and how this reframing helped: "This is actually an excited feeling. I’m excited by this feeling. This is not anxiety. These are butterflies." (17:00)
• This shift is more attainable than trying to move directly from anxious to calm.

3. Second Strategy: Focus on What You Know (Fight Unknowns with Certainties)

[22:21–26:30]

• Identifies "What if?" spirals as a hallmark of anxiety.
  • Quote:

    "The easiest way to tell if something is an anxious thought is when it starts with 'what if'." (22:21)

• Suggests combating hypothetical worries with concrete truths—reminding yourself of your capabilities, past resilience, and the rarity of your worst fears coming true.
• Shares a personal visualization technique: Imagining certainties as "big golden orbs" thrown at shadowy fears, reducing their power.
• Reframing anxiety as evidence of your imaginative strength, not as a predictor of reality.

4. Third Strategy: Personify Your Anxiety

[26:30–30:00]

• Inspired by her mother's analogy: Fears as "smoke," no different from childhood monsters under the bed.
• Jemma suggests assigning your anxiety a harmless identity; hers is "Boo" from Monsters Inc., which transforms it into something playful and less threatening.
  • Quote:

    "Your anxiety is just like a little kid playing make believe. It can’t jump out and rip off your limbs... it is a feeling, and one that has originated from you, so it will not harm you." (28:00)

• Cites a friend who names her anxiety "Brian," making it easier to talk about and separate from her sense of self.
• Personification can reduce stigma and restore a sense of control over anxious episodes.

5. Fourth Strategy: Channel Anxiety Into Creativity

[30:00–34:30]

• Jemma reframes anxiety as raw energy that needs an outlet, advocating for creative expression instead of repression or forced productivity.
• She suggests activities like painting, clay modeling, writing, or any "creating for the sake of making something beautiful."
• Cites a 2021 study: After two weeks of daily creative tasks (even for 10 minutes), participants reported higher well-being and notably lower anxiety.
• Encourages channeling your creative mind—currently used making up scary hypotheticals—into something constructive.

Memorable Quotes

• On reframing anxiety:

  "You have to be as irrational in your belief that you’ll be OK as your anxiety is irrational in its belief that the world is falling apart." (12:50)

• On certainty over unknowns:

  "You do know that you've survived every situation you've been in before. You do know that this is just anxiety." (23:44)

• On personification:

  "Maybe in a way that kind of reduces some of the stigma... this separation makes you realize that you are, in fact, not your anxiety." (29:40)

• On creativity:

  "In my mind, anxiety is just energy. And energy doesn’t disappear. It needs a place to go." (33:20)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Jemma’s personal history with anxiety: 03:00–11:30
• What anxiety is and how it tricks us: 11:30–13:45
• Strategy 1: Excitement reframing: 13:45–18:39
• Strategy 2: Certainty over unknowns: 22:21–26:30
• Strategy 3: Personifying anxiety: 26:30–30:00
• Strategy 4: Creative channeling: 30:00–34:30
• Summary of all four strategies: 34:30–35:45
• Reassurance and closing remarks: 35:45–36:33

Recap: The Four Techniques

1. Reframe anxiety as excitement—“Lie right back” to your mind and reinterpret danger signals as anticipation.
2. Fight unknowns with knowns—Make a literal or mental list of what you know when you get stuck in “what if” loops.
3. Personify your anxiety—Give it a name and identity separate from your core self to reduce its power.
4. Channel the energy into creativity—Use the energy to build or make something positive, no matter how small.

Final Thoughts

Jemma closes the episode urging listeners to remember they are not alone in their struggle:

"I can say, hand on my chest, that I am feeling it pretty intensely at the moment. So we're in the same boat, I promise you. And we’ll get through it. We definitely will get through it because your body cannot be in this state forever. It just can’t." (35:45)

She encourages everyone to try any or all of the shared techniques and to take pride in facing—rather than fleeing from—the anxious mind.