I think that the best way to describe this book would be to say that if I had read this 10 years ago, it would have helped me a lot. This is a fantastic read for young people suffering from anxiety which can be such a confusing time, especially in schools when you are surrounded by so many people who seem to be fine. As I have grown up, I've realised that a LOT more people suffer from anxiety than you may think. This book deals with why people get anxiety as well as how to help it. Anxiety is scary and can make you feel alone, so I think this book proves that you are definitely not alone. This would be an ideal book to purchase for young family members / friends going through mental health issues as it talks in a way that is relatable and makes you feel understood. It's easy to read and nice to pick up when you feel like you need a bit of support.

Interesting with helpful tips!

The book contains some interesting points but as the age range is so wide, some of it feels aimed mostly towards the lower end of the bracket rather than my age group at the very top.

As a psychologist, I found this to contain good general knowledge and several helpful techniques for understanding and controlling anxiety. Some of the writing would be a bit above the lower end of the target group, and other areas much too simplistic for the older readers. Overall, I feel this could be a very useful tool.

I didn't suffer from anxiety as a young adult, but I do as a not-so-young adult who works with young adults, and I can see this book being a very useful tool book to keep in the school library.

A practical handbook with some meditation and mindfulness techniques that will be familiar to anyone who's read up on anxiety before, this is jargon free and makes anxiety seem normal and not weird. As some other reviewers have mentioned, I think the target age group is a little confused. I would recommend this more for the younger end of the suggested audience. Older teenagers and young adults are likely to find it a little patronising and may find adult books better.

Oh boy!! So this is a really difficult review to write, mainly because it's not that the book wasn't good necessarily, but more that it wasn't really what I was expecting or looking for.

This book really caught my eye because I have moderate to severe anxiety and the blurb promised coping mechanisms and stories of others with an anxiety disorder. However, after reading the book, the blurb kind of... poorly advertises the book itself.

The intended audience is honestly way too broad for any book, even for non-fiction. 10-21 is just.... a lot of years.

What intrigued me, as an eighteen year-old, was the description of child development and how experiences in your early childhood can affect your anxiety levels early in life. However, if I had read some of those sections when I was ten, or even twelve, or even fifteen, I would have been bored to death.

On the flip side, a lot of the topics, particularly in the first few sections, seemed as though they would be good for a tween or young teen who has just been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but it didn't really fit what I was looking for, because I have anxiety and I know I have anxiety and I get it, this is what happens when you get anxiety. I know this. Anyone who has had anxiety for more than like three months knows this. I get it. I don't need to hear five summaries in a row of the physical and cognitive symptoms of anxiety.

It was just weird, because on one hand this book would be great for kids/teens who have finally put a label on the anxious/scary feelings they have, but on the other it's good for upper teens/young adults if they want to learn what might be behind their anxiety. I just wish that the book could have chosen one audience and stuck to it, because the result of trying to please everyone in such a diverse age range made the book messy and not fun to read.

I did appreciate that the book continually acknowledged that the symptoms of anxiety will differ from person to person, and that it tries its best, especially in the different real-life examples, to show this. It seems as though a lot of self-help books try to put a box around mental health issues, which can be frustrating when your experience doesn't fit neatly into the box. Even in the preface, it was obvious through the author's sharing their own experiences, that this handbook was striving to encompass all the different types of anxiety.

As I mentioned briefly before, the writing style was needlessly repetitive. Reading it was like when a three year-old tells you the same story 10+ times in one day, and just when you think you can move on from this, they come up to you and tell it to you again. It was driving me up a wall. I was so annoyed. Ugh.

For a non-fiction book, it had really engaging writing, though I'm sure it helped that I was invested in the subject. I really enjoyed the bulleted lists and illustrations, because it made the reading easier for me and definitely added to the appeal for a younger teen.

I hate saying that a book was too long, because I feel like that's kind of a cop-out a lot of people use when reading, but Good. Ness. I felt like I invested way too much time into this book, especially for a non-fiction piece. I was dying inside by the end of it.

So, all in all, if the book really split in half the targeted age range, I think that this would be a much more enjoyable handbook, whether it be for tweens and teens, or upper teens and young adults. I would recommend My Anxiety Handbook for people who are interested in the psychology of anxiety or young teens just diagnosed with anxiety (that is, if you can deal with the endless repetition and sections that are obviously intended for someone older or younger than you).

Over the years I have suffered from general anxiety and occasionally talked about it on my blog in relation to books and certain fictional characters. Sometimes I have really good days in which I feel fine, and other days I struggle to get out of bed. I really love reading books with characters who have anxiety or have some anxiety symptoms. It makes me, and I think many other readers, feel not so alone in the world. My Anxiety Handbook by Sue Knowles, Bridie Gallagher, Phoebe McEwen is not only a book that those who suffer from anxiety should read, but a book that I feel everyone should pick up and read. 

This book describes different aspects of anxiety, reasons for anxiety, coping mechanisms, and more. To say I learned a lot form this book would be an understatement. I did not know that there was a lot more depth to reasoning for anxiety, rather than just stress. Anxiety can occur even as a child and due to seeing how adult figures, like parents, may act around you when you are younger and you picking their behavior up or maybe due to extreme trauma or stress that you are feeling from something big. Sometimes people are just anxious and their is not really a huge reason for it. Anyhow, I learned about the explanation of why anxiety occurs, some of which I never knew before. 

Another thing I really liked in this book was the coping mechanisms it talked about. Some mechanisms were things that I learned in Psychology class in High School and other where things that I never even thought about like thinking of reaching your goals as climbing a ladder. This means exposing yourself to little things at a comfortable pace & amount, to help you prepare for a bigger challenge or end goal. This would be like if I was really worried about going to dance with a bunch of people, I may want to try to go to small venues and hang around smaller groups of people before the dance and have the events and amount of people I spend time with get bigger and bigger leading up to that dance. That way when I finally do get to my end goal it will not be as scary. I see this as possibly working in some situations and something I may even want to try for myself one day. They do warn about doing things at a comfortable pace and that doing something head on is not always best for everyone. Overall, find what is best for you and try to use that method as you see fit. 

A quote I really appreciate in this book is " 'Don't be anxious it will only make things worse.' If that worked we wouldn't be writing this book." I really appreciate this quote because one of the things people who have anxiety hate hearing the most is that "anxiety is all in our heads" or to just "stop being anxious then." If there was some magic switch to turn off our anxiety I would love to know about it. In reality though there is not magic switch or power that people who have anxiety have that can just stop anxiety. Sometimes anxiety can be triggered by going to certain places or being around large groups or people or during certain situations like exams or performances and then there are times where anxiety just creeps on us for no reason. Why are we feeling anxious just sitting around in our dorm room? I have no clue. Honestly, I wish I did. That is just how anxiety can work and this book makes sure to express that. While some of the mechanisms they talk about may not work for all people and situations, they do give a handful of different ways to cope with our anxiety. This includes this like breaking your thoughts about yourself and situations that are negative and thinking if they are really true and % of truth related to it. It is something I never really thought about. Or maybe having something physical like a worry box to put all your worries in that you write down and place in the box. I am someone who is really creative and I find crafts relaxing so doing a project like that could even just help me with anxiety before I even start putting notes in the box. The book later talks about finding what relaxes you and doing it. I feel this is important because a lot of people can have different ways of coping with anxiety and one person way of dealing is not always the best way of dealing. Self-soothing can be different for a lot of people. For me it is crafting and watching my favorite TV shows. For others it may be reading or taking a bath or writing. The book discusses this and I really appreciate not only giving me creative ideas, but how the authors express that everyone has their own ways of coping with stress and anxiety and coping mechanisms are not all one size fits all. The book even talks about ways to cope through different breathing and physical exercises. I think it's important to stress the variety of ways that you can help anxiety levels to go down, even if one way may not work for every person. Just having the different coping mechanisms in this book is what really helps to make this a great guide. 

Another thing I really like about this book is it talks about how to deal with different types of stress related to different types of things. For instance, their is a whole chapter about dealing with anxiety that is related to school. That is something I feel myself and many other will appreciate as I know a lot of people who have anxiety can have it triggered or made worse due to school work or a school environment. There is even an entire chapter about how to cope with transitioning and maybe moving to a new places or leaving something familiar in exchange for a new experience. I like that this was added as it shows the variety of aspects that can bring on major anxiety and what to do to help with it. 

One of my favorite things about the book was the personal story section. In this chapter people shared their stories about their experiences with anxiety and what they do to cope and relax. As I read these parts I really felt a strong bond between the writers of these passages and a connection to the actions and ideas they had. I tried a lot of the same things they done in the past to help with anxiety from apps to talking about it with people. I liked the variety of people that they choose for this section as it showed that anxiety can come in many forms and occur in many different people and situations. 

The photos in this book are also really cool. I like the illustrations and have to commend the artist for drawing pictures to show people doing literal and theoretical things related to anxiety & anxiety relief. I really liked the creativity that went into the design ideas of these drawings, whether it be more simple or complicated. 

Overall, this book was interesting, helpful, and made me think and learn a lot about what I believed or did not believe about my anxiety or anxiety in general. I think if I had to say one complaint about this book I would say it felt a little repetitive and long at some parts and I would have liked a few more illustrations, but those are just nit picky things. Honestly, if you are looking for a guide to help with anxiety or just to learn more about it then this book is for you. 

4 out of 5 Stars 

**** out of *****

I received this book from Netgalley In exchange for an honest review.

This book is geared toward younger teenagers. It begins by explaining what anxiety is and the effects anxiety has on the body. There are cute little drawings throughout the book. There are tips on how to change anxious thoughts and worrying, and how to be mindful. This could be a useful book for young people.

**Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of MY ANXIETY HANDBOOK in exchange for my honest review**

MY ANXIETY HANDBOOK, geared to ages 10-21 is a book that tries to do too much for too many people. Ages 10-21 encompasses three age ranges, middle grade, young adult and adult. Writing one self-help book to reach these different groups is a nearly impossible task. I’m a child psychologist and always looking for books to recommend.

MY ANXIETY HANDBOOK reads as if geared toward ages 13-15 with conversational, down to earth sentences. The content of the chapters seem most interesting to the 18-21 crowd with a lot of psychoeducational information that probably won’t appeal to younger readers. The juvenile graphics will appeal most to the younger set. Each of these areas is done well, but not together in the same book.

The well-known exercises for anxiety understanding and reduction are probably too complex for younger readers to do on their own without adult direction. The activities and exercises have a solid foundation. Mindful meditation, for example, can be beneficial for kids and adults of all ages. The stories of young anxiety suffers are also helpful.

The e-copy of MY ANXIETY HANDBOOK wasn’t formatted for Kindle and because of many errors I assume the book will go through at least one more copy edit. I didn’t rate down for format.

I wouldn’t recommend MY ANXIETY HANDBOOK to clients because it doesn’t do enough for any of the age groups it’s trying to reach.