When anxiety narrows your world: adaptive or avoidant?

For this episode I’m speaking to clinical psychologist and author Dr Alexandra Shaker about her book The Narrowing and about how prolonged stress and trauma can constrict not just our nervous systems, but how we experience our lives and how we can identify when our narrowing might need to open up. When we’re anxious, especially chronically anxious, our worlds can begin to shrink. We say no more often. We avoid certain places. We reduce risk. We make life smaller so it feels manageable. I often describe it myself, when I’ve felt anxiety close in on me that I’m “making my world smaller so I could cope with it,” and at the time that felt protective, even necessary. But what happens when that narrowing becomes the default? Use code FORAN10 when pre-ordering my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety, with Easons . Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Yourself here Follow me on Instagram @CarolineForan and @OwningItPodcas t, on Tik Tok here

You can listen to When anxiety narrows your world: adaptive or avoidant? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

When anxiety narrows your world: adaptive or avoidant? is an episode from Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast by Caroline Foran.

This episode is 51:17 long.

This episode was published on Mar 9, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.