Pandemics and vast uncertainty aside, life is hard. And for whatever reason, it seems to be getting harder. Studies have shown that the average kid today experiences more anxiety than the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s.  It feels like there’s this undercurrent of anxiety to everything we do. But instead of dealing with it, we fill our calendars with back-to-back appointments and our lives with endless distractions. We do everything we can to avoid having that anxiety bubble up. But what if we didn’t? What if we stopped trying to numb and distract? What would it look like to just accept anxiety as a fact of life and deal with it head on?  That’s what we’re getting after in this episode. Along the way, Matt shares the intimate details of how he’s grappled with anxiety through the years and Ammar discusses his inability to meditate.  Most importantly, Andy Puddicombe, the former monk and co-founder of the meditation app Headspace, stops by to help us to identify ways to cultivate a more mindful approach to life, deal with emotions as they come, and find more presence.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices