The caricature of anxiety is sweaty hands, hyperventilating into a paper bag, alarms blaring, someone visibly falling apart. However, for most people, the experience feels like being a captive audience to a brain that constantly twists through worst-case scenarios. It is very internal and hides behind success, performance, humor, and charm.
“It’s like there’s an edgy improv group in your brain…and it needs just one word suggestion to spin countless scenarios no one is comfortable with.” — Aparna Nancherla, Anxiety Club
Anxiety Club, directed and produced by Wendy Lobel, is an award-winning documentary that offers an honest portrayal of anxiety, healing, and hope, using humor without diluting the experience. Through stand-up, skits, and exclusive interviews, the documentary follows some of today’s most brilliant comedians, including Tiffany Jenkins, Joe List, Marc Maron, Aparna Nancherla, Mark Normand, Baron Vaughn, and Eva Victor, pulling back the curtain on what it feels like to live inside an anxious mind. It offers rare access to that internal landscape through recognized voices, bringing what is often silenced into public conversation.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Wendy Lobel about the making of Anxiety Club. Lobel is a director and Emmy Award–winning producer with a background in journalism and documentary storytelling. She produced Worried Sick about teens with anxiety for Nick News with Linda Ellerbee, the long-running Nickelodeon series known for tackling complex social issues and current events geared toward young audiences.
In our conversation, she spoke about witnessing profound suffering around anxiety, especially in teens, and having the privilege of seeing how transformative the appropriate therapeutic approach can be. She notes that this experience was what ultimately ignited the idea for Anxiety Club.
Lobel was intentional about choosing comedians who were already speaking openly about mental health and who had the capacity to be vulnerable and transparent about their personal struggles. Describing herself as “a member of the anxiety club,” she brings an inherent understanding that deepens the interviews and builds trust within them.
“I had these feelings of being nervous as a kid, and I just thought that I was crazy…back then, I didn’t really have anybody to talk to about it…because everybody else seemed fine. So, I was like, I’m not going to mention this is how I’m feeling… There was no word for it.” — Tiffany Jenkins, Anxiety Club
For many people with anxiety, structured environments create predictability, where expression feels safer and more contained.
“People always say, what, you’re an introvert, you’re a comedian? You’re anxious. How does that work? Well, because I’m on a stage, saying exactly what I want to say, exactly what I’ve been practicing. It’s honed. I know it works. And then you can’t talk…and then I get to leave.” — Mark Normand, Anxiety Club
The film explores the relationship people have with their anxiety and different ways of approaching it. It follows Tiffany Jenkins through exposure therapy with clinician Natalie Noel, LMHC, while also showing Joe List engaging in somatic meditation with Tara Brach, Ph.D., offering access to different therapeutic modalities. Somatic techniques such as mindfulness and meditation help regulate the nervous system and bring awareness back to the body, interrupting the cycle of anxious thought patterns, whereas exposure therapy helps retrain the brain by facing feared situations instead of avoiding them. The nervous system learns that discomfort is tolerable and not dangerous. There is no one-size-fits-all phenomenon. Different approaches can all be pivotal in the healing journey. It is about finding what works.
“I like knowing why I do the things I do…that’s why I go to therapy. I like knowing what makes me tick…what informs my decisions.” — Baron Vaughn, Anxiety Club
Anxiety has an evolutionary purpose. It is part of a survival system designed to detect threat and keep us alert, and it has been preserved because it serves a function. The work is learning to distinguish when it is protective and when it begins to interfere with the life we want to live (Balan, 2024).
“If you are incapacitated and your life is unmanageable…you should address that. If you are uncomfortable but you are OK…that might just be you.” — Marc Maron, Anxiety Club
Anxiety and addiction often intersect as attempts to escape internal distress. When the nervous system feels overwhelmed, substances can offer temporary relief by numbing intensity or managing racing thoughts, but they disrupt regulation and reinforce avoidance, making the underlying anxiety more entrenched over time (Balan, 2024).
“…it felt like I could drown this, drink it away…but then you’re just dumping a depressant on top of depression and anxiety and insecurity.” — Joe List, Anxiety Club
Mental health struggles are often intensified by the assumption that everyone else is calmer, less chaotic, and more regulated. That belief amplifies isolation, fuels shame, and keeps people silent.
“Wow, I got this brain… I wonder what it would be like to step into somebody else’s brain for a day…or twenty minutes even. Just to see what it’s like.” — Eva Victor, Anxiety Club
Wendy Lobel explained how each participant was filmed separately, often within their own homes and personal environments, creating a sense of familiarity and emotional safety that allowed for a more intimate and honest portrayal of their experiences. There was a shared understanding around the mission of the film, which created a sense of openness and a willingness to go deeper.
Tiffany Jenkins’ therapeutic work in the film required true vulnerability and bravery. During filming, she was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which initially felt like it might shift the direction of the film. Instead, it expanded the conversation and resonated with many people who experience anxiety alongside intrusive or compulsive thoughts. The inclusion of OCD treatment added another layer to the narrative, strengthening its relevance. The cameras were present in the therapy room but intentionally unobtrusive, allowing the sessions to unfold naturally. Lobel emphasized that Jenkins was free to stop at any point if she felt uncomfortable, which helped create a sense of safety within that unpredictability.
Anxiety Club is designed to make people feel seen, less alone, and more open to seeking help. It is a hilariously disarming and deeply moving documentary and a testament that laughter and mental health struggles are not mutually exclusive. The film is extending beyond the screen with a live stand-up tour launching during Mental Health Awareness Month, including a kickoff event at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on April 27 and the Laugh Factory in Hollywood on April 30. The tour coincides with the film’s May 1 TVOD release on platforms including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, PUNCHUP, Google Play, and YouTube Movies. The project is also reaching audiences through screenings at colleges, universities, and mental health organizations. A portion of proceeds from the Anxiety Club digital release will be donated to Comedy Gives Back and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
There is a conversation waiting to happen about anxiety. This film gives it a place to begin.
As the Anxiety Club team puts it, “This is not just a movie, it’s a movement.”