Anxiety Ease | High Functioning Anxiety, Entrepreneur, Business Leaders, Neuroscience, Anxiety, Psychology of Mind, Resilience · Lisa L. Hartwell, PsyD,RN

How to Manage High-Functioning Anxiety with Gentle Fitness Routines

·36 min·2 clips

Molly says her first panic attack came after she began doing HIIT every day.

1. Anxiety Ease | How to Manage High-Functioning Anxiety with Gentle Fitness Routines centers on Dr. Lisa Hartwell and fitness coach Molly McNamee. 2. Dr. Lisa Hartwell is a Hawaii-licensed clinical psychologist and anxiety coach, and Molly McNamee specializes in chronic stress and pain relief through movement. 3. The episode asks what happens when exercise becomes part of the anxiety problem instead of part of the solution. 4. Molly says people often hear “you should exercise, it’ll help,” but she calls that advice potentially dangerous when workouts are too intense. 5. She describes having anxiety since age 5, including a panicked, claustrophobic reaction on the St. Louis Arch. 6. She says she was a competitive gymnast and dancer, and that anxiety showed up before meter competitions for years. 7. Her first panic attack happened at 19 after she started doing HIIT every day and spending hours at the gym. 8. She says the panic attacks later escalated to one to three per day while she kept training the same way. 9. Molly says her turning point came after an injury forced her to slow down and change her workouts. 10. She says shorter, low-impact workouts stopped the panic attacks and changed the direction of her business. 11. Molly uses a lactose-intolerance analogy to explain how an anxious body can react badly to the wrong kind of workout. 12. She says workouts that make someone feel winded and unable to breathe are not useful for anxiety from a science standpoint. 13. She recommends movement that connects to breath, includes deep belly breathing, and ends with more energy rather than exhaustion. 14. Lisa Hartwell adds that in her clinical work, some people use paper-bag breathing, ice, or other grounding tools during panic attacks. 15. Molly says shaking hands, rubbing hands together, and balancing in tree pose can help a person feel grounded during panic. 16. She also says a “vibe check journal” can track energy, mood, bloating, heart racing, sleep, and snacking patterns. 17. The conversation stays practical and conversational, with Lisa reflecting on her own grad-school and private-practice experiences. 18. Molly repeatedly gives coaching examples, including starting clients with two or three short workouts a week instead of four, five, or seven. 19. People with high-functioning anxiety who want a personalized, lower-intensity fitness approach will likely benefit most. 20. People looking for a high-intensity workout challenge or a general fitness pep talk may skip it.

As heard by us

A calmer take on workouts that help anxiety instead of feeding it.

The episode treats exercise less like a clean fix than a thing that can turn into another source of strain for an anxious body. Dr. Lisa Hartwell makes a clear case for working out in a way that still supports physical and health goals without feeding anxiety, and that gives the…

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If exercise makes you more wired, this episode offers a gentler route.

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