In any given year, 18 percent of Americans will suffer from an anxiety disorder. That's twice the number of those who suffer from depression. If you broaden the study to include anyone who experiences an anxiety disorder at any time in his or her lifetime, the number increases to nearly thirty percent. Our levels of anxiety have also increased dramatically over the last fifty years. According to psychologist Robert Leahy's book Anxiety Free, "The average American child today exhibits the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient did in the 1950s." Material comfort and security may be higher than it was back then, but other prevailing issues like separation from extended family, loss of community and neighborhood, uncertain employment, threats of terrorism, uncertain futures, high medical costs, immersion in technology, and lack of emotional support are a few of the many contributing factors.

As psychologist Robert Leahy puts it, "We live in the Age of Anxiety …. We've become a nation of nervous wrecks."