Dr. Jud Brewer on Unwinding Anxiety (#397)

Dr. Jud Brewer (IG: @dr.jud) is an internationally renowned addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is an associate professor in the School of Public Health, and Medical School at Brown University.

Jud’s 2016 TED talk, “A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit,” has been viewed over 16 million times.

He has trained Olympic athletes and coaches, government ministers and business leaders.

Jud’s first book, The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits, was published in over 16 languages.

Today, we’re discussing his new book, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.

Watch the full video version of this conversation below.

In this episode, we discuss:

Jud’s lightbulb moment
How mindfulness can help with anxiety
The three gear approach to anxiety
Anxiety and panic defined
Anxiety as a habit
Understanding the trigger, behaviour, and reward
Start mapping out your habit loops
Is your anxiety making you productive?
Make sure that you’re proving causation rather than correlation
The increase in anxiety and mental health issues during the pandemic
Differentiating a rational response from clinical anxiety
Learning to be comfortable with discomfort
Bring awareness to your behaviours
The behaviour result relationship drives future behaviour
Is worrying actually solving the problem?
What is the default mode network?
Uncertainty doesn’t mean danger
The gold standard treatment for anxiety
Finding a bigger better offer (BBO) that doesn’t become habituated
Deprivation curiosity can help us map out habit loops
Interest curiosity is the joy of discovery
Changing your relationship with your thoughts, emotions, and feelings
Making kindness and gratitude a habit
A growth mindset leads us into open states
Using meditation and mindfulness to see habit patterns
Research focusing on identifying psychological phenotypes
Dr. Jud recalls his mental process from a recent surfing experience
Differentiating between the comfort zone and growth zone
Staying kind and curious

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