Debra Kissen - Rewire Your Anxious Brain for Teens: Using CBT, Neuroscience, and Mindfulness to Help You End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

Rewire Your Anxious Brain for Teens is an excellent resource for teens who want to conquer anxiety. Packed with useful tools and practical suggestions, it brings together the best of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), neuroscience, and mindfulness in a clearly written, comprehensive workbook. Read this book, practice the strategies within, and you will rewire your brain!

Kevin L. Gyoerkoe, PsyD , director of The Anxiety and OCD Treatment Center in Charlotte, NC; and coauthor of 10 Simple Solutions to Worry

For teens experiencing the challenge of anxiety, this book is a treasure trove of valuable tools, presented in an effective and easy-to-understand style.
What makes this book especially valuable for teens is the format: the reader is prompted and encouraged to bring powerful tools on board through specific exercises, many of which take only a few minutes.
Specific tools empower the reader to:

• understand and befriend the experience of anxiety
• become a positive coach for oneself
• practice mindfulness and meditation
• build resilience
• learn to dial down intense emotions
• overcome procrastination
• enhance ones ability to focus and to move toward fulfilling goals
• overcome social anxiety

  Neal Sideman , self-help advocate, internationally known coach and teacher for people recovering from anxiety disorder, member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and cochair of the ADAA Public Education Committee

Rewire Your Anxious Brain for Teens is a refreshing approach to helping young people understand anxiety and how to master it. By often offering two examples of teens with anxiety at a time, the reader is able to clearly see the difference between skillful and unskillful approaches to anxiety. Rather than talk down to teens, the authors appeal to teen skepticism with credible reasoning backed by science. The book is full of practical see-for-yourself exercises with easy-to-understand explanations of how these new skills literally impact the brain. I learned a lot that I wish I had known when I was a teenager.

Jon Hershfield, MFT , director of The OCD and Anxiety Center of Greater Baltimore, and author of When a Family Member Has OCD and Overcoming Harm OCD

As I read the book, I automatically thought of many of my own patients who could benefit from the exercises and examples presented in it. The exercises show young people how to relieve themselves of negative and futile self-judgments. Instead, alternatives are offered to guide a teen on an optimistic, self-directed journey toward mastery of troubling anxiety by literally rewiring an anxious brain. Most teens will easily be able to see themselves in the examples, and gain a more realistic understanding of anxiety. They will also see that following the exercises will ultimately result in greater self-esteem.

Judith T. Davis, PhD , president of Performance Development Associates, and psychologist in private practice

This book was truly a pleasure to read. The authors did a tremendous job of explaining the relationship between the brain and anxiety in very user-friendly language. The inclusion of exercises throughout the book provided a hands-on opportunity to begin using the strategies discussed. I would highly recommend this book.

Brian J. Schmaus, PhD , clinical psychologist at the Anxiety Treatment Center of Greater Chicago

There are many good informational sources to help teens decrease stress, worries, and anxiety. This one stands apart in its recognition that habitual trouble with anxiety resides in the ways your brain seeks to protect you, rather than some flaw in your personality or being. It also stands out for its creation of ten simple and specific ways you can retrain your brain, much as you might use specific exercises to retrain your abdominal muscles. If youre looking for a guide which offers CBT exercises to coach you to a path of less anxiety, here it is!

David Carbonell, PhD , author of Panic Attacks Workbook , The Worry Trick , Fear of Flying Workbook , and Outsmart Your Anxious Brain

Researchers know more about the processes that produce anxiety disorders in the human brain than they do about any other disorders. This should be the best news for teens suffering from anxiety disorders, but the problem is, can the average teenage anxiety sufferer understand the brain processes that need to be changed in order to overcome an anxiety disorder? Based on over one hundred combined years of working with anxious teens, these authors have put together an amazing book that not only explains the anxious brain in language a teen can understand, but also provides exercises and strategies that give teens the resources they need to change their brains in order to have needed control over their anxiety. With clear examples and explanations, the book pulls readers in, preparing them to engage in the process of taking charge of their lives. This book is a dream come true for anxious teens and the therapists who help them. It will change millions of lives.

Catherine M. Pittman, PhD, HSPP , coauthor of Rewire Your Anxious Brain , and professor in the department of psychology at Saint Marys College in Notre Dame, IN

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

In consideration of evolving American English usage standards, and reflecting a commitment to equity for all genders, they/them is used in this book to denote singular persons.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2020 by Debra Kissen, Ashley D. Kendall, Michelle Lozano, and Micah Ioffe

Instant Help Books

An imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer; Edited by Karen Schader

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kissen, Debra, author.

Title: Rewire your anxious brain for teens : using CBT, neuroscience, and mindfulness to help you end anxiety, panic, and worry / Debra Kissen, Ashley D. Kendall, Michelle Lozano, and Micah Ioffe.

Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, [2020] | Series: The instant help solutions series | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019055192 (print) | LCCN 2019055193 (ebook) | ISBN 978168403
3768 (paperback) | ISBN 9781684033775 (pdf) | ISBN 9781684033782 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Anxiety in adolescence--Juvenile literature. | Cognitive therapy for teenagers-
Juvenile literature. | Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy--Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC RJ506.A58 K53 2020 (print) | LCC RJ506.A58 (ebook) | DDC 618.92/8522--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055192

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055193

Contents

Letter to the Reader

Were so glad youre reading these words. You may be wanting to move past your own anxiety or find ways to support a loved one. Youll find help in these pages, as you participate in our brain rewiring training program.