The Worry Trick

How Your Brain Tricks You into Expecting the Worst and What You Can Do About It

The Worry Trick is an energetic and illuminating self-help book for anyone who struggles with worrying too much.

The Worry Trick, written by David A. Carbonell and narrated in audiobook format by Stephen Paul Aulridge, Jr., offers an enlightening new method of managing anxiety with clarity.

The book deconstructs how the brain responds to “worry” (or anxiety), breaking down the reasons why people worry at a level that impacts their everyday lives. It reframes the issue as not a personality flaw, but an evolutionary response. This eye-opening approach successfully strives to help chronic worriers work with the current of their thoughts rather than focus on how they are thinking “wrong.” The Worry Trick picks apart typical ways people try to mitigate their excessive worrying–simply trying to think “positively,” actively trying not to think about their worries, and avoiding triggers—in a way that is unpredictable and also makes perfect sense.

The unique method incorporates bits and pieces of cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy, while rejecting other aspects of these popular approaches. By consolidating these theories and presenting them using easily digestible and funny anecdotes, this book offers a new way of thinking about thought, itself. The book never falters in the clarity of its message, and typically the bold jokes do well at enhancing the ideas on anxiety.

The Worry Trick translates well into an audiobook format. The narrator’s personable and lively audio enriches the text, and together they work to infuse a potentially dry and clinical topic with charisma and accessibility. Aulridge’s voice is balanced in a way that reflects the text and theme of the book—professional, yet animated.

The Worry Trick is an energetic and illuminating self-help book for anyone who struggles with worrying too much.

Reviewed by Paige Van De Winkle

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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