Breaking Mad: The Insider’s Guide to Conquering Anxiety

The tone of the book is set on the first page: Anna Williamson tells the reader «congratulate yourself for taking the first step». Chapter 1 opens with three small SOS tips: congratulate yourself, press the «pause» button and make time for yourself, ask yourself every day «how am I feeling today?» and answer honestly before the automatic «I'm fine». This sets the whole style of the book: short, friendly, «mate-like» instructions.

The author explains openly why she wrote the book like this: in her darkest period she waited for someone to tell her «everything will be all right», but the books that came to hand were full of scientific terms. So she wrote it as a «quick fix» guide — a book to carry in a bag, to open when needed, free of professional jargon. She says complex books are useful too, but the aim here is not to lose the reader in scientific words but to give help that can be applied at once.

A separate explanation follows about the word «normal»: the author uses it in the sense of «typical, probable, in working order», with no disrespect; what matters is knowing «who you are». The first exercise is «assess your present state»: draw a scale from 1 to 10 (1 — very good and peaceful, 10 — unbearable fear), mark how you feel now and ask «what would it take to improve this score by one notch?» Repeat daily; if 10 keeps recurring, contact a doctor or a mental-health service.

In the section «What is anxiety?» the author appeals to statistics: in the UK one in five adults struggles with anxiety; by official data of 2015 about 20% of those over 16 show symptoms of anxiety and depression. With these numbers she says she belongs to the «club of gloomy owls». She writes that at her first panic attacks she felt like «the loneliest person on earth» and was afraid of being branded «weird» or «mad».

Then comes the relation of stress and anxiety: stress is the sum of pressures from various sources, while anxiety is often the continuation of stress; the author compares them to Ant & Dec, famous duos of British television. Then the «spidergram» exercise is given: write «Me» in the middle, note the sources of stress around it («my boss pressures me», «I argued with my mum», «I am not sleeping enough»), rate each 1–10, choose the three most important and prepare an action plan. At the end of the section it is explained why anxiety exists: it is a protective mechanism; the «fight, flight or freeze» model is described through the trap situation of the primitive human.

• The chapters are built on short «quick fix» boxes and numbered exercises and can be read from any point
• The author speaks openly of her own period, which lessens the sense of stigma
• The psychologist's short pieces and statistics (one in five adults in the UK) show the scale of the subject
• In every chapter the tone of «I have been through it too» keeps the reader from feeling alone