Cuenca Author Publishes a Manual on Managing Daily Anxiety — Available on Hotmart for $31

The Book

Gabriela Criollo, a Cuenca resident and licenciada en Administración de Empresas, has published a self-help manual titled "Manejar la ansiedad día a día" — Managing Anxiety Day by Day (source).

It's available online through Hotmart at a cost of $31, and Criollo maintains a presence on Instagram as Gabriela Criollo Oficial and on Facebook as Gabriela Alexandra Criollo Cabrera.

Why She Wrote It

Criollo is explicit in the interview that the book grew out of her own experience:

"Sufro de depresión y ansiedad, pero hoy soy una persona muy diferente."

She pushes back on the idea that anxiety is a character flaw:

"La ansiedad no es pereza ni excusa: es una batalla silenciosa donde levantarse de la cama ya es un acto de valentía."

And she names the exhaustion that goes with it:

"La depresión y la ansiedad son crisis reales, con un agotamiento extremo."

The manual is built around day-to-day coping tools rather than clinical theory — that's the framing in the source article.

What This Means for You

Anxiety and depression are common in the expat community in Cuenca, for reasons worth naming openly:

• Moving abroad strips out the routines and relationships that hold mental health in place. You lose your doctor, your support network, your default social circle, your language fluency — all at once.
• Spanish-language therapy can be a barrier. If your Spanish is conversational but not clinical-grade, accessing good local therapy is genuinely hard. Criollo's resource is in Spanish, but it's structured and written for a lay reader rather than a clinician — more accessible than a textbook.
• $31 is low-risk to try. Not a replacement for therapy, but a structured reading can be a useful supplement — especially if you're on a waiting list, uninsured, or trying to figure out whether what you're experiencing fits the anxiety frame.
• For Cuenca-based English-speaking options, there are expat-friendly therapists who work in English — worth asking in established expat Facebook groups or at your GP.

If you prefer local resources over international ones, Criollo is a Cuenca voice writing about something a lot of people here are dealing with quietly.

Source: El Mercurio