Generation Anxiety with Dr. Lauren Cook | Ep. 146

Hello and welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. I am Hadlee, and I'm here with

Dr. Nicole.

And we are talking today with Dr. Lauren Cook, who is the author of Generation Anxiety. And you guys, this was such a Fun, conversational podcast episode where we just all felt like best friends at the end. We were like, we just vibed. And so you're going to feel like you're just hanging out with the 3 of us, with your besties on the couch, but also talking about really important things. Dr. Lauren Cook, talks about how millennials and Gen Z, we are the generation of anxiety, and she's super relatable. So for those of you who are millennials or Gen Z, you're gonna relate to her a ton. And even if you're not, you're still probably gonna relate to her, everything that she talks about, a lot as well, because truly our whole society is dealing with a lot of the things that we talk about In today's podcast episode. So, Dr. Cain, do you want to, uh, give us a little bit of info about her?

Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Lauren Cook, she is a licensed clinical psychologist and she does consulting. She's an author, she's a speaker, an amazing speaker, by the way. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology. Her master's is in marriage and family therapy. And she's all about integrating evidence-based tools from a systems lens. And she speaks both internationally, she speaks in person, and she's all over the internet, does tons of virtual interviews. She owns a private practice, so she's still in the game working with people, and her practice is called Heartship Psychological Services. And as Hadlee said, she's the author of the new book Generation Anxiety. I read it. I loved it. I know, Hadlee, you loved it. So I'm really excited to dig in. So let's do this.

Let's do it.

I would love to hear about your story, your process of becoming a person, becoming Dr. Lauren Cook, becoming an anxiety warrior and healer.

Yeah, I mean, I suppose it takes one to know one, and a lot of people who work in psychology, many of us are called wounded healers in a

way. I don't think I even really fully realized the depths of my anxiety until I started learning more about it, and then it started to really give a name and a voice and a grounding to it of like, oh my gosh, like, this is a thing. You know, for me in particular, I've struggled for so long with emetophobia, which is a phobia of vomit. Very kind of niche. Now with TikTok, it's really kind of blown up. But I was having severe panic attacks about this fear of throwing up. Let me take that over because I heard the bell go off. I was having severe panic attacks because of a fear of throwing up. And then really, I saw my body just kind of take it and run with it, where I was having panic so much of the time, even when it wasn't related to vomit. And, you know, as someone who is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and all these different things, it still wasn't cutting it. You know, the mental piece wasn't— doing the trick. And I felt like I was just becoming such a prisoner to my body. And that's why I'm such a fan of moving beyond just Westernized medicine and Westernized care. Because for me, meeting my naturopathic doctor, Dr. Sarah Norris, shout out to her, she healed my panic attacks and it was getting my gut in a healthier place again. That's why I love your book so much, Dr. Nicole, Panic Proof, because it really does speak to how we heal anxiety holistically. And the thing that gets me really excited in this conversation is that we can give people hope again when it comes to anxiety, because I was in such a place of feeling hopeless and helpless and having the thoughts of, is this just my life now that I can't go to a restaurant and not have a panic attack? I can't be in a car and not have a panic attack. And now I'm in a place where, you know, maybe I have a panic attack. once or twice a year. And I'm so grateful for that. And I hope that gives other people hope that they too can get better if they're struggling with the throes of anxiety as well.

Yes. And how old were you when that started?

It got really bad post-college. But looking back, I mean, I had anxiety even as a little kid. Not to get too much into the psychodynamic history of it, but my mom had breast cancer when I was 2 years old and was vomiting a lot from chemotherapy and things like that. And so your body remembers these things, right? It's fascinating. I have no cognitive memory of my mom being sick, and yet I've had this deep-rooted fear of vomiting. And I've done a lot of work now to see the trauma that was in that experience and how that impacted my body. But that's the thing. Anxiety, it's like a tree sometimes that can branch off in all kinds of ways. and evolve with time. And to your point of what you write about in the book, sometimes the body really just kind of locks into the panic cycle. And that's the point that I had gotten to and thankfully learned how to get out of as well.

So it sounds like you went through this really frightening time when you were really little. Your mom was sick, she was throwing up. And even though you don't remember it, In terms of like your brain logically and consciously doesn't remember it, your body remembers it. And that's always really tricky for me. And so I honor you bringing this up, and I'd love to ask a little bit more about that process, if that's okay.

Of course.

So I'm wondering about people who have these symptoms, and oftentimes The adversity, the stressor, the trauma, the events can occur within the first 5 years. And so we may not cognitively remember it, but the body for, for sure does. And so then, how did you connect the dots in a meaningful way that helped you understand, not only in a like, oh, mental aha way, but in a felt bodily way? So that you could start to free yourself from that anxious patterning?

Mhm. It's really been a mix of things, and that's why I love looking at it from an all-encompassing lens. It's been the mental, it's been the bodywork. I've done a lot of exposure and response prevention work, which has been really helpful for me. But also, I'm a huge believer in ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. That is one of my favorite modalities to practice as a psychologist, is helping people learn. It's not so much about always making the anxiety go away. Like, I think a lot of people get really distressed when they can't make the anxiety stop. And instead, it's about learning, okay, how can I still live with it and still live a meaningful life? And, you know, one of the things that where it all came to a head, I was getting to this place in my life where I was thinking I wanted to become a mom. But because of my phobia, it— I know for people who don't struggle with it, they can hear this and be like, girl, this sounds ridiculous. Like, you're afraid of throwing up, so you were ready to, like, call off being a mom? Mm-hmm. But my fear was that intense. The morning sickness, kids being sick. I was ready to call the whole thing off. But, you know, something like ACT, it really had me look at it and say, What do I value in my life? Do I value, you know, starting a family? Do I, or do I value wanting my anxiety to run the show? And I got to a place where it was like, I don't want to let my anxiety dictate my decisions. Maybe I don't become a mom for other reasons, but I don't want anxiety to call that shot. And so becoming a mom and having these exposures, right, of having morning sickness and having my son throw up on me, I have now gotten to a place where I see those things as such moments of victory of like, yes, I'm doing it, I'm facing it, and that feels so empowering versus letting fear just have its thumb over my life. And I love in my work helping other people do that and learning it's not about making the anxiety go away, it's learning how do you still live that meaningful life even with anxiety along for the ride.

I love that part in your book where you talk about identifying values and really living from that place regardless of our fears and these different things. And also, I love hearing, because I've been listening to your book, and so I was listening to how you were thinking about that and everything. And so to hear now that you do have a kid, and that's so awesome. I love that. That's amazing. Um, but yeah, so how can our listeners start to identify those values and come to it from a place of like, I want to be in alignment with my, my values more than I want to avoid the pain, the fear, the, the suffering?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we do talk about that in my book, Generation Anxiety. There's a fun, like, laundry list of values, if you will, to sort through. I think one of the best things we can do is ask ourselves the regret question. You know, when I get to the end of my life, is there anything I'd regret not doing? And that can be a really good litmus test of like, ooh, maybe this is a place where my anxiety has been stopping me, telling me I'm not ready yet. I need a little bit more time. Those are all some of those like telltale signs of, all right, anxiety is making us postpone our living. And I saw a post the other day. I think they said the average lifespan is 76. And so actually, technically, middle age is more like 38. And we think that we just have this unlimited time sometimes and really starting to shift and say, okay, no, how do I really want to make the most of my life today and not just let anxiety try and push back the timeline of my life?

So good. I want to hear what you were going to say. Oh, yeah. So it sounds like being in integrity with our values. And sometimes people think that being in integrity means being honest or being a good person. But I always look at the root of words, and actually the root of it is feeling whole. And so being in integrity with our values is what makes us feel fulfilled.

And I always say, Our values, it's not necessarily about making other people happy. Like, there's a reason a lot of people with anxiety are chronic people pleasers, right? They are living for the values of everyone else or the should values. But really being honest with ourselves of like, no, what is authentic to me, right? And, and learning how to not be, you know, apologetic for that. We don't have to do that in a cruel way. But I think if we can be— yeah, to, to your point about the honesty, I think if we can be more honest about that with ourselves, then I think we have a much better shot at finding authentic happiness, even not just moving through anxiety.

Yeah, I think that's a really important point that you say your values are your own. They're not— a lot of times we identify our values as things that we feel like we should value, you know. And what if we actually identified Free of all of the other conditioning and all the things. What if we actually identified our values?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think we'd be a lot better off.

Yes. Dr. Kim, what were you gonna say?

Oh, I have no idea. I was just thinking about what do I actually really value? And then I started thinking about how much time I spend with the things that I value. So for me, My— some of my top values are quietness and nature, being outside. And I live in the city in Phoenix. I live in the middle of the city. It's really loud. There's Dodge Chargers zooming by, showing off for each other. And in Michigan, I live in a city where you can hear the interstate like a mile away, but you can still hear it. And there's just this like constant bombardment just with environmental stimuli. And it's so much labor and effort to get away and to get into nature. So I don't, don't do that as much as I think I would benefit from. And then my other value is creativity and creating things. And Paul and I were talking about, I think Hadlee, we talked about this in another episode, is that they say if you want to really be creative is that you have to dedicate uninterrupted time to be creative. Mm-hmm. can't just— at least it's much more difficult to drop in and be like, all right, I'm scheduling this hour of creativity because we're not in that alpha brain state. And, and so I was just sort of thinking about the bombardment. And I know you talk about this a lot, Dr. Lauren, with especially the millennial and the Gen Z generations and how much stimuli and responsibility. Like, when I went to school, maybe you guys went to better schools, but I didn't have homework as a kid until I was in like middle Like, I didn't have homework in elementary school. Did you guys?

No.

That sounds lovely.

I remember being excited the first time I had homework because I felt old because we didn't have it in elementary school.

Yeah. I definitely did. I remember even like second grade starting to have some homework, you know? But yeah, no, it's fascinating. That's partly why I'm even hesitant a little bit to send my son to like a Montessori school because They give the children jobs, right? Or the kids have jobs that they do. And I don't know, maybe it's my burned-out millennial self that I'm like, I don't want my son to have a little job at, you know, 2 years old. I'm sure Montessori schools are amazing. But, you know, thinking about, yeah, as a millennial who, you know, is 33 and, you know, already feeling pretty exhausted sometimes, thinking about like, how can we protect our peace of our little ones? too. It's something I'm trying to be mindful of. But yeah, it's fascinating when you look at millennials and Gen Z and the overstimulation that we're getting. It's fascinating even with— I'm not sure what time this episode will be released, but as we're talking right now, the whole TikTok ban and seeing the response of that. I mean, you saw reels getting posted of people rocking back and forth. not knowing what to do with themselves because they couldn't scroll on TikTok. And I think that really shows us how addicted we are to this constant stimulation. And a lot of people now, ironically, are actually getting anxious if they can't have that overstimulation. Our bodies just don't even know how to sit in the silence anymore.

Oh, that's such a good point. The sitting in silence thing. I've had so many clients where They— well, once they do, like, find a way to sit in silence, it's like the most empowering thing ever because they're like, whoa, this is so peaceful. But it takes a while for them to get there a lot of the time because they're so inundated all the time. Yeah. Oh, it's so good.

I had a Transcendental Meditation teacher. He wore an eye patch. I don't know why that's important for the story, but it is. And he used to always tell me, Nicole, you are going to be who you will be if you do Transcendental Meditation, or you will be who you will be if you do not. And I was like, oh wow, it's that profound in how much it can change us. People in Transcendental Meditation is a form of meditation where we can focus on a mantra. We can focus on one thing, and we sit in that stillness, and you just think and repeat the mantra over and over, which is the opposite of how most of our young brains are now beginning to develop. Is— so you see kids in restaurants and they have iPads, and I'm like, you barely know where your thumb is, and yet you can work this iPad.

Yes.

And it's like so much stimuli and so much information, and our brains haven't evolved to process that. Like, the human brain has not evolved to process all of that inbound data. And then when we've been given that and we've neurologically arranged around that, and then we take it away, it's like a huge disruption for the system.

Yeah, well, and I feel like there's something, you know, cross-generationally too In terms of how we respond to it, right? Because I'm thinking about even the other day, you know, my son, he's almost 20 months old, so a little over a year and a half. And truthfully, we don't take him out to restaurants that often lately because he has a hard time sitting still. But at the same time, it's like, that's what little kids do, right? They play, they roam, they meander. And I love my mom. She is the best grandma, Mimi, in the whole world. But she was getting really frustrated. She was like, he needs to sit still, like, have him be quiet. And sure enough, what do I do? I pull out my phone with Miss Rachel on YouTube, and my son sits there quietly. And so you think about, like, how, you know, even across generations, like, we're getting more hardwired to kind of shut down the playfulness, shut down, you know, the roaming. Like, we just want people to be quiet and contained in a way. And I think that's sad, too, that we're dampening that, especially with our kiddos.

Oh, absolutely. And I want to bring in a caveat that for some families, that is the option. The option is to give your kid an iPad.

I've been there. I'm in that club.

And so we are not at all Like bashing on parents who give their kids technology. Like, that is not— that's not what's happening here. And I'm curious, like, do you feel like that the technology aspect is one of the biggest reasons that we are Generation Anxiety? What do you feel like are some of the other reasons as well?

I do think that's a huge aspect to it. You know, I don't think it's by chance that Gen Z in particular has been labeled the loneliest generation. You know, we see each other online all the time and we have a lot of superficial connection, but people aren't getting deep face-to-face connection with eye contact. But, you know, there's a lot of things that have happened internationally and here in the United States. You know, you look at what's happened in the last 20 years. It's been one thing after another for these young kiddos. And you look at something like the Stress in America survey from the American Psychological Association, and they found that 75% of young adults feel unsafe in this country every single day. And the number one thing that they were afraid of, any guesses what they said?

The government. The planet.

Gun violence.

Gun violence.

Gun violence. Yeah. And, you know, you think about how so many places now that felt safe, or at least normal, no longer feel that way. Going to the grocery store, going to a concert, a movie theater, going to freaking school. And our kids are just on high alert. These teens, these college students, always kind of feeling like they have to look over their shoulder, not knowing who they can trust. I really think that has an effect on people's brains and bodies over time. Absolutely. And a lot of them will say, too, that they feel pretty hopeless and helpless that that's going to change. And when you have that, you start to not only have anxiety, you then start to have depression when that anxiety has been so longstanding. Now, I remain hopeful as millennials and Gen Z get older and come into more Yeah. Positions of power, I think we're going to really see positive change happen. But I feel it's my work to keep people motivated and to keep people in the fight because, you know, you see in this last election, there was a lot of increased apathy in millennials and Gen Z. And, you know, if we can bring back that passion and that hope again, I think that would really, really help some of these fears people are having.

And how do you feel like we enkindle that hope again?

I think it's coming together and still talking about it, still finding community. I mean, I've actually seen that really up close here in Southern California with these fires of people from all ages, generations, backgrounds, identities, doesn't matter, coming together and supporting each other. So things like that, I mean, obviously we would never wish for anything like that to happen, but it does give me hope, you know, that people still can come together in community. But we got to keep doing things like that, you know, and we can't just isolate or just have these conversations online. We've got a long way to go.

Yeah, I love how in your book you talk about how Your anxiety can make you selfish.

Yeah.

And it sort of feels like it relates to this where potentially some of the antidote is to be a little bit more generous and giving. And not to say just be generous, but to step out and to give to other people. can help us to not feel so isolated and alone.

That was one of my favorite pieces to write about in the book. And I know it's maybe a controversial hot take where people are like, anxiety making you selfish? What? But it pulls us so into our head and me, me, me, what's my experience? And that I don't think that's ever done in a malicious way, but I think it can be a real empathy blocker of thinking about what are the experiences of people around me. And so Yeah. The more we can look up and look out rather than just looking in, I think it can be a real antidote to anxiety because it gets us out of the deep minds of our brain.

Yeah.

A practical approach for that, I think, comes from neuroscience, where when we're really anxious, we have excess amounts of default mode network activation. And so those are parts of the brain, and they all get activated. And they make us more self-referential. We find that we're hyper-aware of every little sensation in our body. We may become scared of it. We may dwell. We may ruminate. We may obsess. And it's, it's almost a dissociative state. It's not a present state. It's like when your brain is on cruise control and autopilot.

Mm-hmm.

And so that is by default a selfish state, not negatively. They're not necessarily negative, like how we apply the term selfish to other people when we're being critical. But then there's the other brain activation states called the executive control network, which is when we're in our present brain, we're in our logical brain, we're in our ability to change lanes instead of being on autopilot. We're able to see people, have empathy with people, connect with other people. And so something that helps me practically, and I'd love some ideas from you, Doctor, is, is when I, I get the urge to pick up my phone and I like to mindlessly scroll too, and Instagram is usually my scroll of choice. Mm-hmm. And I started to stop and ask myself like, what is, what is this feeling that I'm experiencing that's activating this desire to pick up my phone and scroll? Like there's— the scrolling is in response to something that just occurred. Sometimes it's automatic and it's just like I closed it and opened the app and closed it and opened the app. And it's just like an OCD kind of a repeated pattern. But oftentimes for me, it's kind of an unmet need. And for me, it often is a need of connection. It's like, what is Hadlee up to? I miss Hadlee. Or what's going on at my office in Michigan? How are people there? You know? Mm-hmm. desire for connection. So I'm curious about your take on that because I know you have a lot of really good practical solutions and examples.

Well, and everything has a shadow side and a light side, right? I too, I love a good scroll sometimes, especially at the end of the day. My algorithm knows how to make me laugh, I will say. And I'm the queen. My poor husband, he'll get sometimes 15 reels that I think are just hilarious. And he's like, hey. So, you know, things like that, I think it can be really nice for, you know, especially if you've tailored your algorithm in a way where it's sending you that kind of content, right?

Yeah,

that's the tricky part. But

how do you do that? That's— listeners must know, how do you tailor your algorithm so that it's like positive laughter?

How do I— I know, I guess I'm— I just like and share all those things, right? But, um, um, but yeah, I, I don't know. I think I'm a really big fan of things where we're using our bodies. And so we can't just kind of numb ourselves out with the scroll all the time. So anything where we're having to use our hands, whether it's cooking or crocheting, knitting— so many Gen Zs, by the way, they have like— Yeah. The crochet and the knitting, it's back. Or playing tennis, things like that where we're just having to use our mind in another way can be so good for us. And I know you talk about this in Panic Proof, Dr. Nicole, too, of how good it is to move our bodies for our brains. I too am a very big believer in that. Even a 20-minute walk I think can be very restorative. It's like giving a facial to our brain. So things like that. And then really trying to get face-to-face interactions and prioritizing that in our lives and making eye contact, like actually seeing other people. It's a fascinating experiment if we start to notice, how often do I actually make eye contact with my loved ones? And a lot of us will notice, oh, I don't actually make that much eye contact. But getting those tactile sensations of a hug, a handhold, a kiss, a cuddle with our pet. I'm looking at my little Siamese cat, Mochi, right now. All of those things, I think, are really good for our bodies. It helps us come back to ourselves, putting that as a priority. And those are things, especially with the physical contact, that don't have to take up Too, too much time in a day either.

I love that, the eye contact thing especially. I actually, I just, I've had glasses for a while, but I don't wear them all the time. Like, I wear them, you know, when I'm driving and when I'm working on the computer or whatever. It's mostly just for far away. But I got contacts last year for the first time. And so now I wear contacts, like, when I go to, like, a social setting. And it makes such a big difference because I can actually make eye contact with people. And I notice so much more connection. It's amazing.

That is so fascinating. That is interesting. Yeah.

I can confirm.

When you— when someone's making eye contact with you, do you feel it in your body?

I do.

Yeah.

Because it slows me down. And that's something I love about you, Dr. Nicole. I can tell you have this ability to just sit in the slowness. I am so fast, and I always have to remind myself, like, it's okay to slow down. And I feel like eye contact, it literally pulls my body down. It's a be here now moment.

Yeah, even my dog. Like last night I was holding Shiva. She's like the, the sweetest fluffy little 14-pound Cavapoo.

She's my favorite dog in the world. I love her so much.

Which means so much. I love that. Yeah. And so I was sitting next to my spouse Paul, and I was holding Shiva like a little baby, and she's like looking up at him, and then I'm looking in her eyes And I'm looking at her left eye, and then her left eye looks at my left eye, and it just connects for a second. And I like feel it in my like solar plexus, like amazing, like, what a beautiful moment of connection.

Mm-hmm. Oh, I love that. I love that.

So question based on all of this, what if someone is like, that sounds terrifying? To make eye contact with people, because I know people who, like, will not make eye contact with other people, and it's, it's so scary to them.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is why I love helping folks with social anxiety, because it actually can respond— that presentation can respond really well to a little bit of exposure work. It's fun little experiments to just test out and see What happens when you try it, right? And you do these gradual exposures. So it's not like, okay, go in tomorrow to a party and stare at somebody for 10 minutes, right? Or we're not going to put you in an improv class right off the

bat.

But you build up and you really start to see like, oh, I can handle that. So much of exposure therapy, I call it demystification of just learning all these things we've told ourselves to fear. are actually often really okay. Maybe they're unpleasant, but they can really be okay. As someone who has done a lot of exposure work, even personally in my own life too, you know, so that's where I'm very much a behaviorist as a therapist, is showing people the behavioral data that you can ask someone out on a date, you can ask for a raise at work. It's going to be uncomfy. But you will survive it, and you're gonna feel so much more confident versus just trying to, like, pep talk yourself up. Like, I really think we have to, like, show ourselves the evidence and the proof, and then the brain will finally, like, buy in. That's my personal stance on it.

You're speaking my language. I'm— my background is in behavior change, so I'm all about it. Yeah,

I love that.

Totally. I love that you said that. Demystification. Exposure therapy is demystification. So good. I saw you, Dr. Nicole, write that down too. I think you sure did.

I've just started using that line lately, and I'm like, you know what? Yeah, I feel that. I feel that. I hope it helps folks,

especially with reprogramming the brain. It's like every time that you allow yourself within your agency and control to have an experience, and then you survive that experience, or maybe it's actually even a positive experience, is that you're laying down new neural pathways in the brain.

Mm-hmm.

And it's like what you were saying at the very beginning of our conversation, is then when we change the brain, the signal from the brain is going to send different information to the gut. And the gut microbiome is going to connect with that vagus nerve and say, oh, there's different information here. We got it. And then your gut starts to change. And then when your gut changes, then it's going to start regulating your immune system differently. And then it's going to regulate your hormones.

Yeah.

So it can really start with— is maybe you look at someone for— you just hold 3 Mississippis and that's what you do. I'm going to hold your eye contact for 3 And I'm going to do that each time I talk to you, just for 3 Mississippis and starting there. And you're going to slowly start changing the way your whole brain and body and nervous system have been programmed to try to hold you in this fear pattern.

Mm-hmm. Oh,

and you can start by looking at your, your pet.

Yes.

Eye contact with your pet.

Yeah. Animals can be so much less threatening than a human, you know, like when people are like, would you, Remember that thing when women were like, would you rather encounter a bear in the woods or a man? Oh, and then do you guys hear it? Yeah. And most women were like, I'd rather encounter a bear. So start with maybe not bears, but, you know, start with like a dog or your Siamese kitty cat or Moki.

Mochi, like the dessert. Yeah. Most beautiful blue eyes ever. Yeah, here we are.

So true. So good.

I feel it.

Is there anything else that you want to make sure that our audience knows before we finish up our conversation today? Anything that's on your heart you want to share?

I guess the last thing I'd leave with is really talking about the core message of Generation Anxiety, which is this idea of empowered acceptance. I think people are feeling very overwhelmed by what's happening in the world and what's my role in that. And also a lot of guilt sometimes too, like, who am I to be happy or to enjoy my life when there is so much pain happening in the world? And so really taking an approach of the acceptance piece— we can't live in denial, we can't put our heads in the sand— I really think that actually Yeah. Amplifies anxiety when you're spending so much energy turning away versus if you look at it head-on and say, okay, I see these problems for what they are. I'm not running in fear from them. But then also taking that empowered approach, that behavioral approach of what can I do to take action to be a part of the solution, right? Rather than just feeling like my life is happening to me because There are a lot of elements of life that are out of our control, but how can I still take positive, meaningful steps even in the wake of that? And I think that can really soothe a lot of anxiety too, to feel like we still have a voice, we still have a path in it as well. So empowered acceptance— I hope that will help people who are feeling maybe really untethered in their own personal lives or with what they're feeling happening in the world.

Empowered acceptance was— I love the way that you put those 2 words together. It's like a state and an action. Empowered acceptance. And that's what helped me be able to fly again without Xanax, is acceptance.

I loved that. I, I loved reading about that in the book for you. And you're, you're a story too, Nicole, of how we've learned to live with our anxiety. It doesn't mean it goes away 100% necessarily, but we don't let it stop us from living our life. And I think that's really powerful.

So grateful for the work that you do. I love your book. It's so great. Everybody, please go and grab it. It's Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World. And even if you're not a millennial or Gen Z, get this book. It has so much goodness that could help, could help all of us. So thank you, Dr. Lauren Cook. You are amazing. We're grateful.

Oh, thank you. I'm a big, big fan. So it's really fun to get to spend some time with you. And I'm endorsing you. Everybody get Panic Proof. This book is gold. I am recommending it to so many of my clients. So like I said before we officially hit record, congratulations. This is a Masterpiece work.

Thank you, that means so much. Thank you.

Oh,

oh, awesome everyone. Thanks for listening. We're so grateful for you all.

Oh,

bye everyone.

Bye.