Hello!
You're listening to How To, and I'm Charles Duhigg.
Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to share with you a number that surprised me when I learned about it.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that roughly a third of American adults
and teenagers will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.
This is one of the most common mental health conditions in the country.
About 40 million adults are living with anxiety right now.
But fewer than half those people ever get treated.
So if you've ever felt your chest tighten before a hard conversation,
or you've been awake at 2 a.m., running through everything that could go wrong in your head, you're not alone.
That's exactly where today's guest is starting from.
Matt Johnson is a father of three from just outside Dallas.
He's a former pastor and then a police officer.
And for years, he's been having what he calls attacks.
The feeling of heat creeping up his neck, his ears going red, this sense that the walls are closing in.
Sometimes this happened to him four or five times a day.
And it's often triggered by nothing more than his phone buzzing twice in a row.
As we dig into Matt's story, it becomes clear that these moments aren't random.
They're tied to some of the hardest things a parent can live through.
So to help him make sense of it, we brought in Dr. Ben Michaelis,