Anxious, But Not Alone

By Cari Shane (USA Today/Modern Woman magazine 2026)

“I felt trapped in my head, overwhelmed with everything,” says Jen Lancaster of the anxiety that plagued her since she was a child. “I couldn’t control the racing thoughts, because I didn’t know racing thoughts were a thing.” While one-third of Americans will have an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, anxiety will affect nearly two times more women than men, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. One in three women will have an anxiety disorder “if they don’t have one already,” says Dr. Helen Blair Simpson, president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “If you were to dip a litmus strip into the waters of modern life, the measurement — the pH of these waters — is anxiety,” says Ellen Vora, author of The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response. With no regard for race, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status, “Anxiety is a great equalizer,” says Lynn Charles, a clinical social worker and psychologist in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE

While there are many different anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) — defined as excessive, uncontrollable worry about everyday events — an anxiety attack often leaves an individual breaking into a sweat while their heart races. Built into human DNA, anxiety can be an effective tool to keep us safe. Having a heightened sense of lurking danger likely helped our ancestors stay alive. But when anxiety creates an irrational threat that’s not connected to real life, it becomes problematic, Simpson says. “(When) you were threatened, but you’re no longer threatened, you’re safe, but you can’t let it go, your body is in overdrive and you can’t turn it off,” then anxiety is no longer effective but rather “disrupts and then distorts your life,” says Simpson, who is also the director of the Center for OCD and Related Disorders at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

MANAGING ANXIETY

Theresa Nguyen, chief research officer at Mental Health America, says there is strength in anxiety. “Identifying what you’re really afraid of provides clues about where to start solving your anxiety,” she says. And more, there is power in speaking it. “Say it out loud,” Charles suggests. “Throw it out onto an invisible whiteboard so you can see it, visually.“ "Usually, I can talk myself out of it,” says Lancaster, who is a novelist. “But if it’s just physically taking me over and I’m having a panic attack, I know that I have 1,000 friends who have my back and can fix my neurochemistry." There are medications that treat anxiety such as serotonin re-uptake inhibitors that “are often the first-line treatment,” Simpson says. “In combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which teaches people to challenge negative thought patterns, there can be great success in relieving anxiety symptoms.” Nguyen says that even though it sounds counterintuitive, “You actually learn to control your thoughts by leaning into them.”

But the most important step to tackling anxiety, Simpson says, is raising public awareness.

MENTAL HEALTH APPS

7 Cups: Through secure, anonymous bridging technology, the app connects people in need to a network of active listeners for one-on-one conversations. Browse by age, gender or topic; more than 500,000 trained volunteer listeners provide support in 140 languages.

Breathe2Relax: Teaches breathing techniques to manage stress and helps those with anxiety disorders, stress, and PTSD.

Calm: Helps to relieve stress, induce sleep, and promotes mindful living.

MindShift: Helps teens and young adults gain insight into and basic skills to manage anxiety, including GAD, social anxiety, specific phobias, and panic attacks. It’s also useful for managing worry, performance anxiety, test anxiety, and perfectionism.

Panic Relief: Helps people with panic disorder with easy-to-use, empirically supported coping tools to better manage and move through panic attacks. The free version includes access to progressive muscle relaxation skills