Podcast Summary
Understanding Anxiety as a Habit: Anxiety forms a habit loop, which can be disrupted by mapping it out, disenchanting anxiety-driven behaviors, and offering the brain a better alternative through curiosity.
Anxiety is not just a feeling or a disorder, but a habit that can lead to other maladaptive behaviors. Dr. Judson Brewer, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, argues that understanding anxiety as a habit can help in effectively treating it. He explains how anxiety forms a habit loop, and suggests hacking it by mapping it out, disenchanting anxiety-driven behaviors, and offering the brain a better alternative by getting curious about anxiety. This approach, which is outlined in his book "Unwinding Anxiety," can also be applied to depression and anger. Dr. Brewer's personal experience with anxiety led him to specialize in anxiety and addiction disorders as a psychiatrist. Despite the limitations of medication, he became interested in habit change and addiction research, which led him to develop a program for anxiety using the same principles. The program, called "Unwinding Anxiety," has shown promising results, with a 67% reduction in clinically validated anxiety scores.
Understanding Anxiety as a Habit: Anxiety is a complex feeling involving physical sensations and mental behaviors. It can be defined as a feeling of nervousness or unease about an uncertain future event. Anxiety triggers worrying as a behavior, which reinforces the anxiety. Mindfulness practices are more effective than medications in managing anxiety.
Anxiety is a complex experience that involves both physical sensations and mental behaviors. Anxiety can be defined as a feeling of nervousness or unease about an uncertain future event. It's closely related to fear and worrying, but they are not the same. Anxiety can trigger the mental behavior of worrying, which in turn can reinforce the anxiety. To form any habit, there needs to be a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. In the case of anxiety, the trigger is the feeling of anxiety, the behavior is worrying, and the reward is the sense of control or the belief that we're doing something, even if we're not. Anxiety can be caused by various things, and sometimes it becomes a habit that persists regardless of the situation. Understanding anxiety as a habit can help us break the cycle and find more effective ways to manage it. The study mentioned earlier showed that mindfulness practices can be much more effective than medications, with a number needed to treat of 1.6 compared to 5.2 for medications.
The Deluge of Information Causes Uncertainty and Anxiety: The constant influx of information, both accurate and inaccurate, creates a state of uncertainty, leading to anxiety. The digital world exacerbates this issue by making it harder to distinguish truth from falsehood.
The increase in anxiety among Americans and Westerners can be attributed to the high levels of uncertainty caused by various factors such as the pandemic, economics, and digital information overload. Our brains are wired to reduce uncertainty by seeking information, but the deluge of information, both accurate and inaccurate, creates a constant state of uncertainty, leading to anxiety. This anxiety can manifest in various ways, including worrying, distracting oneself with social media or food, and other unhelpful coping mechanisms. The digital world, with its constant influx of information and misinformation, adds to this anxiety habit loop, making it harder for individuals to distinguish truth from falsehood and adding to their overall sense of uncertainty.
Understanding Anxiety Habit Loop: Identifying the trigger, behavior, and result of anxiety habit loop provides insight and control, essential for managing anxiety effectively.
While it may be tempting to try and substitute unwanted behaviors during moments of anxiety with something more adaptive, such as push-ups, the root cause of anxiety often remains unaddressed. This can lead to the need for more and more of the substitution behavior, rather than alleviating the anxiety. Instead, it's crucial to identify and understand the anxiety habit loop by mapping out the trigger, behavior, and result. This process can provide insight into the mind's patterns and help decrease anxiety, even before implementing any new strategies. The brain dislikes uncertainty, so gaining clarity on the anxiety habit loop can bring a sense of control and understanding, making it an essential first step in managing anxiety.
Mapping out the habit loop of anxiety: Identifying and understanding the habit loop of anxiety can help reduce uncertainty and anxiety by shedding light on the process and retraining the brain through mindful observation and updating reward values.
Understanding the habit loop of anxiety and mapping it out can help reduce uncertainty and anxiety by shedding light on the process. A therapist might use a simple tool, like drawing arrows between the trigger, behavior, and result, to help a patient see the connection. This process encourages a mindful, objective approach, rather than self-judgment. After identifying the habit loop, the next step is to update the brain's reward value by "disenchanting" anxious actions. Our brains learn by setting reward values and forgetting the details, so by understanding the details of anxious behaviors and their lack of reward, we can retrain our brains and reduce anxiety.
Our brains learn and repeat behaviors based on past rewards: Recognizing that unhealthy habits aren't as rewarding as we think can help us shift towards healthier options by updating the reward value through awareness and attention.
Our brains are wired to maximize rewards, including calorie intake, based on past experiences. This reward value system drives our habits, and we don't change them unless we update the reward value through awareness and attention. For instance, if we discover a new cake shop and find it has the best cake ever, we'll keep going back due to a positive prediction error. Conversely, if the cake is terrible, we'll avoid it due to a negative prediction error. This learning process applies to all behaviors, including unhealthy eating habits or worrying. When we pay attention to the direct experience of these behaviors, we may realize they're not as rewarding as we thought. For example, worrying doesn't actually keep us safe or solve problems, and overeating can lead to negative health consequences. By recognizing these truths, we can become disenchanted with these habits and shift our behavior towards healthier options. This process, as demonstrated by the E app, can take as few as 10-15 instances of paying attention to create a negative reward value.
Reflecting on negative behaviors to find intrinsically rewarding alternatives: Reflecting on negative behaviors and their rewards can help us naturally let go of them and choose healthier alternatives, creating a 'bigger, better offer' for our brains.
Becoming aware of the negative results of our behaviors can help us naturally become disenchanted with them, making it easier to stop engaging in them without relying on force or willpower. This reflection process allows us to compare the reward value of the old behavior to a new, more rewarding alternative, which our brains are more likely to choose. This approach, known as creating a "bigger, better offer," can help us address the root cause of anxiety and other unwanted behaviors by replacing them with intrinsically rewarding alternatives. Instead of pushing away anxiety with unhealthy coping mechanisms, we can embrace curiosity and explore the underlying causes to find healthier solutions.
Turn towards anxiety with curiosity: Curiosity helps conquer fear, observe emotions without judgment, and widen eyes to take in more info, inducing a feeling of curiosity
Instead of running from anxiety, we should turn towards it with curiosity. Curiosity, as James Stevens put it, can conquer fear even more than bravery. By focusing on our direct experience and observing our sensations and emotions without judgment, we can learn to be with anxiety and heal. Our eyes play a role in this process as they naturally widen when we're curious, allowing us to take in more information. If we're not feeling curious, we can use a simple hack by opening our eyes wide to induce the feeling of curiosity. In essence, curiosity is a powerful tool that can help us navigate anxiety and foster a new way of being.
Explore anxiety through curiosity instead of dwelling on causes: Shift focus from anxiety reasons to present moment feelings, recognize negative consequences, and offer curiosity as a new alternative
Instead of focusing on the reasons behind our anxiety, we should shift our attention to the present moment and explore our feelings through curiosity. This practice, referred to as a "curiosity mantra," can help us move from our thinking brain to our feeling body, allowing us to fully experience and understand our anxiety without getting stuck in habitual worry loops. First, identify your anxiety habit loops by being mindful of your thoughts and actions when you feel anxious. Next, disenchant the anxiety behavior by recognizing the negative consequences it brings. Finally, offer your brain a new, more appealing alternative through curiosity. It's important to note that this approach doesn't involve delving into past experiences or childhood traumas to explain the cause of anxiety. While these experiences may be significant, they don't directly contribute to behavior change. Instead, focus on the present and the current rewards and consequences of your anxiety behavior.
Understanding Habit Loops: Anxiety, Addiction, Depression, and Anger: Recognizing patterns of anxiety, addiction, depression, and anger as habit loops allows us to disrupt them and make positive changes through mindfulness and skillful responses.
Our behaviors, including anxiety, addiction, depression, and anger, can be understood as habit loops. By recognizing these patterns and bringing awareness to them, we can begin to disrupt them and make positive changes. For instance, with anxiety, we can learn to accept things we cannot change and focus on what we can. Similarly, for depression, we can stop ruminating on past mistakes and instead bring mindfulness to the present. Anger, too, can be seen as a habit with a trigger, response, and reward. By questioning the reward of anger and seeking more skillful ways to address frustrations, we can break the anger habit. Programs like mindfulness-based cognitive therapy have been shown to be effective in addressing these issues, and they all involve the same basic principle: understanding and changing habitual patterns of thought and behavior.
Managing Anxiety and Negative Emotions: Practice mindfulness to manage anxiety and negative emotions. Letting go of anger can free up energy for positive change.
Holding onto anger and negative emotions can be an inefficient use of our energy. Dr. Judson Brewer, the author of "Unwinding Anxiety," suggests asking ourselves what we're gaining from the anger to help us let go and find alternative ways to approach situations. To learn more about his work, visit his website at drjud.com, or check out the show notes at awhim.is/anxietyhabit. Remember, releasing anger can free up energy to find solutions and improve overall well-being. Dr. Brewer emphasized the importance of mindfulness practices, such as meditation, to help manage anxiety and negative emotions. He also introduced the concept of habit-stacking, which involves pairing a new habit with an existing one to make it easier to adopt. These techniques can be found in his book and the apps he mentioned. The A1 Podcast, hosted by Brett McKay, offers ad-free episodes on Stitcher Premium. Visit Stitcher Premium.com and use code MANLY for a free month trial. Be sure to leave a review on your preferred podcast platform and share the show with others to support the continued production of this valuable resource. In essence, the conversation with Dr. Brewer highlighted the importance of mindfulness practices in managing anxiety and negative emotions, and the benefits of letting go of anger to free up energy for positive change.
