Link to External Source Article Thursday, March 20, 2008 Book Review: How did we become so anxious?
by Judith Timson March 18, 2008 In her compulsively readable new book, A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine), Toronto author Patricia Pearson reports that more than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety. Ms. Pearson herself has battled her way back from debilitating anxiety attacks, one of which involved frantically ordering crates of freeze-dried vegetables in case the pandemic flu hit and there was no fresh food available. After reading her book, rich in humour and insight, I came to the grateful conclusion that I was (barely) within the normal range of anxiety. I know people who are not so lucky, burdened with clinical anxiety that inhibits their lives. But how did we all get so anxious? It can’t all be from watching CNN. Ms. Pearson thinks anxiety is spreading through our culture because “we need, on a collective, cultural and spiritual level, to grow.” There’s also the matter of control – we wish desperately to control what is going to happen to us, and if modern life has r
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