How to Ride the Wave of Anxiety and Overthinking

In the high stakes world of technology companies, a lot of lip service is paid to well-being and mental health. But Meredith Arthur has been researching practical ways to manage anxiety and overthinking since before it was cool. In this episode, Morra speaks with the author and Beautiful Voyager creator about everything from polyvagal theory, clinical somatics, self-regulation and internal safety. They share their favorite routines for managing anxiety and stress. Learn more about Meredith here: https://bevoya.com/about Listen to Meredith’s previous Anxious Achiever episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5B88kIsQfcvPRR3Ut8wynX?si=6jCXb7mLRvKZAIbAcYPRKQ

Ongoing stress can affect not just your emotional and mental health, but also your physical health. The connection between mind and body is often overlooked in the work world, but leadership development expert Jason Miller has spent his career trying to change that. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele hears more about Miller’s experience that landed him in the ER. Plus, Dr. David Barlow, Professor Emeritus at Boston University, shares tips on how to right-size your phobias and better cope.

To succeed in sports and in the corporate world, you might need more than just resilience. Enter the concept of anti-fragility, which focuses on the idea that meaningful resistance and meaningful difficult situations can be approached in a way where you actually come out better on the other side.  Dr. Nick Holton is a performance coach for professional athletes and Fortune 500 Executives. Adam Wright is the Director of Mental Performance at the Washington Nationals MLB team. Together they founded The Anti Fragile Academy, and they speak with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how they train corporate leaders to withstand pressure, and improve as a result.

It turns out, a lot of our beliefs about how we are performing at work - and how we choose to label that performance - can negatively impact our jobs and our mental health. Basima Tewfik is an Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who looks deeply at our social behaviors and psychology at work. And she’s found that labels like anxious, neurotic, and imposter syndrome can actually be really detrimental to our success. Even impostor feelings, in her research, can lead to positive outcomes at work. Tewfik thinks of each like a double edged sword and explains how her research focuses on the positive side of phenomena like these.

Why do we feel anxious even when threats are only imagined, and why have we evolved to feel anxiety? The connection between mental and physical health is well documented and talked about, but very easy to forget in times of stress. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Dr. Christine Runyan, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and co-founder of Tend Health about the roots of this complex emotion, and learn self care techniques that actually work, and why.  Dr. Christine Runyan on On Being: https://onbeing.org/programs/christine-runyan-on-healing-our-distressed-nervous-systems/ More about Tend Health: https://tend.health/meet-tend/meet-founders/

Sanyin Siang is an advisor, coach, and adjunct professor at Duke University where she leads the Fuqua/Coach K Leadership and Ethics Center or COLE. She’s also someone who believes in being your own best friend, and that starts with the self-talk we have going on in our heads all day long. In this episode, she walks host Morra Aarons-Mele through her superpowers framework, her own quest to find her strengths, and how high-achievers can zero in on our gifts instead of what we need to improve.  The Superpowers with Sanyin Substack: https://leadershipplaybook.substack.com/

Tim Shriver is a filmmaker, chairman of the Special Olympics, and host of the podcast Need a Lift. He’s also a member of the Kennedy clan, and has spent much of his life’s work helping to increase emotional awareness and improve the discourse around things like mental health, faith, disabilities, and more. He speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about the most important conversations we need to be having now, how children and adults alike can improve their mental health and emotional flexibility, and what drives him in his work.  Listen to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/need-a-lift-with-tim-shriver/id1765227660 The Dignity Index: https://www.dignity.us/

Yowei Shaw was the host of the NPR podcast Invisibilia before layoffs hit the organization. In the aftermath, she struggled with how her identity and sense of self shifted in unexpected ways. Now, she hosts the podcast Proxy with Yowei Shaw. We’ll talk about the process she went through following her layoff, how she’s recovered, and advice she’d share with others in the same situation.  Listen to her podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0VkDE8LAXf5COW4tqhhy1B Learn more about Yowei’s layoff story: https://the.ink/p/yowei-shaw-proxy-layoffs-emotions

Check out a new show we love: LinkedIn's Let's Talk Offline. Co-hosted by Gianna Prudente, LinkedIn's early career development editor, and Jamé Jackson, a LinkedIn community manager, this show seeks to answer unfiltered questions about work life, covering topics like: Setting workplace boundaries, building your personal brand, scoring your dream job, and navigating office friendships. The show aims to help Gen Z and young millennial professionals advocate for themselves, stand out, and make positive changes in their work lives - all without sacrificing their values, sanity, or sleep. In this episode, they dive deep into social anxiety.

Envy can drive us - but it can also drive us into a wall. It can motivate us at work, but it can make us - and the teams around us - miserable. And sometimes, envy is trying to tell us we might want a change in our own life. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with executive coach and president of PartnerExec, Nihar Chhaya, about how to recognize and reframe envy before it gets the best of us at work. The Upside of Career Envy: https://hbr.org/2020/06/the-upside-of-career-envy