Lorwen C Nagle, PhD Profile picture
Harvard-trained psychologist. Ph.D. @UTAustin. Mental health is wealth. My threads help you build financial success, become fearless, and destroy anxiety.
23 subscribers
Feb 4 9 tweets 3 min read
Ernie Hudson is 80 years old.

And he looks stronger than most men half his age.

His secret?

No “get shredded in 30 days"...

Just repeatable systems he’s followed for years: Image
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He basically treats physical fitness like mental fitness:

Small reps.
Daily repetition.
No drama.

And that’s why it lasts decades.

The lesson?
Feb 3 13 tweets 3 min read
Anxiety isn’t overthinking.

It’s your brain reacting to uncertainty...
and your soul reaching for freedom.

I condensed Kierkegaard into 4 moves. Use this when anxiety spikes.🧵 At 21, Kierkegaard watched his 5th sibling die.

By 30, he was engaged, famous, and set for a conventional life—

Then he detonated it.
Feb 1 14 tweets 3 min read
David Sinclair is a longevity expert.

But his most underrated “longevity protocol” isn’t supplements.

It’s how he keeps anxiety low in a high-pressure life.

Here's Sinclair's 6-rule system. (you don't want to miss this) 🧵 Image
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1. Choose stressors that make you stronger.

Stop lumping all “stress” together.

There are 2 kinds:

1. Biological stress (hormesis) that builds resilience.

2. Psychological stress that grinds you down.

They shouldn’t even share the same word.
Jan 31 11 tweets 3 min read
Most people aren’t “burned out.”

They’re stuck in always-on stress.

Here are 7 ways to switch it off (without meds) 🧵

1. Stop putting your brain in scatterbrain mode. Image When your attention is constantly yanked around, your body stays keyed up.
Even “rest” doesn’t feel restful.

Try this:
Check social 2x/day + 30 minutes phone-free quiet or device-free walking.
Jan 28 10 tweets 4 min read
5 personality traits that predict how you handle stress.

Find yours in 30 seconds (and how to work with it) 🧵 Image
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First: the Big 5 are not “labels.”

They’re your nervous system’s default strategy.

When you're aware of your default strategy, you can build on it and let it empower you. Image
Jan 24 12 tweets 5 min read
High-functioning anxiety isn’t overthinking.

It’s a nervous system that won’t shut off.

Here are 7 ways to shut it down today (for real) 🧵

1. Stop treating your thoughts like truth. 1. Thoughts aren’t facts. They’re weather.

An anxious mind doesn’t “think.”

It scans like a radar system.

1. It predicts.
2. It rehearses.
3. It builds catastrophes.

So your next move is this:

Set a timer, "chimes", that ring random times of the day.
Check in with your body.

This helps you notice if you're calm or in the fight-or-flight response.
Jan 22 11 tweets 4 min read
High performers don’t fail at psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy fails them.

Here’s why (7 reasons) and what actually works...🧵 Image
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1/ High-achievers learned to survive, not feel.

As children, we learn what brings success.

• Being impressive
• Being useful
• Being controlled

These personality performances work and we double down on them.
They kept us safe and allowed us to thrive.

Yet, later in life, we outgrow these performances.

But we don't know how to act any other way.
Jan 21 10 tweets 3 min read
Anxiety isn’t just in your head.
It’s in your GUT too.

Here are 7 gut-based ways to calm anxiety, improve mood, and restore mental clarity (without meds)🧵

1. Your gut is your second brain. Image 1. Your gut has MORE neurons than your brain.

There are 100+ million neurons in your intestines.

This is more than your spinal cord.

This “enteric nervous system” talks directly to your brain

through the vagus nerve.

When your gut is stressed, your mind feels it.
Jan 19 11 tweets 4 min read
Anxiety isn’t just in your head.

It’s stored in your nervous system.

Here are 9 body-based ways to release it (without medication) 🧵

1. Cold water on your face. Image
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1. Cold water on your face activates the vagus nerve.

It triggers the mammalian diving reflex → increases parasympathetic (vagal) activity and slows your heart rate, which helps interrupt panic attacks.

Cold water also signals GABAergic release, giving you a quick, refreshing, invigorating feeling. It's a sure-fire way to interrupt negative thought loops.
Jan 18 10 tweets 4 min read
Modern anxiety isn’t just stress.

It’s thought addiction.

And the most dangerous drug on earth is the one we call, “our mind.”

Byron Katie's 4-question turnaround can detox it. 🧵

In just 30 seconds, you can discover it yourself... Image Byron Katie's life was a nightmare.

She was clinically depressed, agoraphobic, and addicted to alcohol. For nearly 10 years, she could barely leave her bedroom.

Then, in 1986, watching a cockroach crawl across her foot, she recognized it wasn't the world that was imprisoning her; it was her own mind.
Jan 17 11 tweets 6 min read
I’m American.

After my PhD, I went to India.

What I experienced dismantled my Western worldview.

Here are 8 lessons that permanently rewired how I see life: Image
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1. Control is an illusion.

Arriving in India, I was shoved into a bus heading for Hardiwar and the Ganges.

My backpack was buried under a herd of goats and a pile of dead fish.

Nothing was “mine” anymore.

My Lesson:
Let go or suffer. Image
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Jan 15 15 tweets 5 min read
Modern therapy is built on an 18th-century mistake.

Descartes said: “I think, therefore I am.”
Vico said: “We create what we know.”

One built a culture of analysis.
The other understood imagination.

Western society chose the wrong one. 🧵
Here's the story no one is telling you... For 400 years, we’ve treated the mind like a machine.

1. Analyze the thought.
2. Reframe the belief.
3. Control the emotion.

But human wounds weren’t created through logic.

They were formed through images, feelings, and lived experience.
We understand our world through our imagination.
Jan 14 15 tweets 6 min read
The most dangerous, oddly glorified, yet overlooked problem in the world:

Overthinking and underacting.

It's why you're stressed, depressed, and your immune system is always in chaos.

Here's Eckhart Tolle's 9-step protocol to escape the prison of overthinking: 🧵 Image
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Most people don't realize that unnecessary negative mind activity contributes significantly to their unhappiness.

Overthinking isn't just annoying - it's physically damaging your body...

When you think fearful thoughts, your body reacts as if you're in real danger.

Here's what's happening in the mind...
Jan 13 13 tweets 3 min read
Nearly 100 years ago, a famous psychiatrist discovered a psychological shortcut that made desperate people believe almost anything.

It wasn’t about money.
It was about healing.

And it worked so well that even scientists stopped asking questions.

Here’s the forgotten story: 🧵 Image Wilhelm Reich wasn’t a fringe guru.

He was:
• a medical doctor
• a psychoanalyst
• Freud’s star student
• a rising force in European psychiatry

At first, everything he said made sense.

Then it crossed a line science couldn’t follow. Image
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Jan 11 9 tweets 2 min read
Here are 7 truths Freud revealed in private letters—
(They never made it into textbooks):🧵

1/ Freud wasn’t a “mental health advocate.” Image He was a neurologist who watched people lie to themselves for a living.

His cleanest ideas weren’t written for the public.

Truth #1: The biggest threat isn’t pain. It’s self-deception.

Pain is honest. Illusion is a drug.

And every drug charges interest.

Bottom line: Most people suffer from the stories they refuse to stop feeding themselves.
Dec 30, 2025 14 tweets 4 min read
One of the most extreme psychological transformations ever recorded didn’t happen in therapy.

It didn’t happen in safety.
It didn’t happen with insight.

It happened inside a Nazi concentration camp.

And the mechanism still explains why most anxiety treatments FAIL today.

Here’s the story: 🧵Image In 1942, a Viennese psychiatrist lost everything.

• His parents
• His wife
• His freedom
• His name

He was reduced to a number.

Most prisoners collapsed psychologically within weeks.

He didn’t. Image
Dec 29, 2025 13 tweets 5 min read
The most influential psychologist of the 20th century wrote private letters to his children.

They weren’t about therapy.

They were about how to survive being human without losing your soul.

Here are 9 principles Carl Jung QUIETLY taught his children—that most people never hear about: 🧵Image First, understand who Jung was:

• Medical doctor + psychiatrist
• Founder of analytical psychology
• Broke with Freud at the height of his career
• Studied myth, religion, alchemy, and dreams
• Treated world leaders, artists, and thinkers

But his most radical work wasn’t in books.

It was in how he taught his children to live.Image
Dec 27, 2025 10 tweets 3 min read
Some people are disappearing into the woods.

No stories. No updates. No “prove I’m alive.”

In 2025, their absence is louder than a post.

Because they’re not “unplugging.”

They’re rebooting 7 brain systems, the internet quietly BURNS OUT. 🧵 #1 They’re protecting their dopamine system.

Social apps run on variable reward schedules.
Random likes. Random outrage. Random validation.

That spikes dopamine and trains the brain to crave more input.

Nature does the opposite.

Slow movement + predictable sensory input
= dopamine normalization.

Your brain remembers how to feel satisfied again.
Dec 26, 2025 10 tweets 3 min read
The West didn’t lose God.
It lost the container that made life feel coherent.

Now millions are “fine”…
but quietly hollow, anxious, and divided.

Here are 7 consequences nobody was prepared for:🧵

1/ Humans never stopped worshipping something. Now, the "self" has become a full-time job.

Without transcendence, the psyche tries to be its OWN god.

So you:
• brand your life.
• justify your worth.
• curate your identity.
• optimize your body.
Dec 22, 2025 10 tweets 3 min read
You might think you have anxiety.

But these 8 symptoms can mean you’re NOT anxious—

(You’re mentally over-managed and emotionally starved.) 🧵 #1 You overthink everything.

You stay 100% in your Executive Control Network (ECN) and abandon imaginative thinking.

By doing this, you bury your feelings.
And, you stay stuck in reason.
Dec 21, 2025 7 tweets 3 min read
After analyzing 500+ anxious clients, I found the cause behind most chronic anxiety loops.

It’s not trauma, stress, or overthinking.

It’s a SINGLE morning habit almost everyone does without realizing it... 🧵
(And, the psychological cost is staggering) Right when you wake up, your brain is in a fragile transition state.

1. The Salience Network is calibrating.
2. The DMN is still half-dreaming.
3. Blood pressure hasn’t stabilized yet.
4. Your imaginative system is wide open.

But then you do something catastrophic… Image