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Humor and anxiety coexist in "Anxiety Club," a film about comedians' mental health battles.

The documentary shows how comedy can open the door to more honest conversations about mental health.

A live stand-up tour extends "Anxiety Club's" impact, coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Month.

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

“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........

© Psychology Today