Michael Zvolensky has focused much of his time untangling the
interrelated relationship between anxiety and addiction with
numerous grants and millions of dollars from the National
Institute of Mental Health. He started in academia as an anxiety
specialist, but when working with addicts, he noticed an
overlooked link. "There's evidence that anxiety and tobacco use
co-occur at a higher rate than would have been expected,"
explains Zvolensky, "higher than would typically be found for
mood and other emotional disorders." Zvolensky's research
explores a distinction between "anxiety sympathy" and actual
symptoms of anxiety in cigarette addiction and the act of
quitting. Anxiety sensitivity reflects the belief or expectancy
that when you experience internal distress like anxiety symptoms
they will cause you harm. Medical literature has traditionally
focused on symptoms but the subject's belief in what those
symptoms could actually do seems to be more important in
explaining behavior, according to Zvolensky. In the