Mapping habit loops allows individuals to understand and change their anxiety-driven behaviors.
Paying attention to the actual rewards of behaviors helps individuals shift their perspective and open up new possibilities for change.
Approaching anxiety with curiosity enables individuals to explore their triggers, gain insights, and respond differently to anxiety-provoking situations.
Deep dives
Mapping Habit Loops: Understanding Triggers, Behaviors, and Rewards
One of the main strategies discussed in the podcast is mapping out habit loops. Habit loops consist of triggers, behaviors, and rewards. By mapping these loops, individuals can gain insight into their habit patterns, such as anxiety or stress eating. The focus is on the behavior and the result rather than solely on the trigger. Mapping habit loops allows individuals to recognize the reward value associated with certain behaviors and opens the door to making changes.
Updating the Brain's Reward Value: Shifting Perspective on Anxiety
The podcast discusses the importance of updating the brain's reward value. The brain uses reward values to determine which behaviors to engage in. By paying attention to the actual rewards or results of a behavior, individuals can discover that certain habits or coping mechanisms, like worrying or smoking, do not actually provide the anticipated reward. By starting to see the true reward value of these behaviors, individuals can begin to shift their perspective and open up new possibilities for change.
Embracing Curiosity as a Tool for Change
Curiosity is highlighted as a powerful tool in managing anxiety. The podcast emphasizes the importance of adopting a curious mindset, both towards one's own anxiety and other emotions, as well as towards the present moment experience. Curiosity helps individuals observe and explore their thoughts, emotions, and body sensations without judgment. By approaching anxiety with curiosity, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of their triggers, develop new insights, and expand their capacity to respond differently to anxiety-provoking situations.
The Power of Awareness in Behavior Change
Paying attention and being aware of our behaviors is a crucial factor in behavior change. When we pay attention to our actions, we can identify the shortcomings and learn from them. For example, an app called E right now helps users pay attention to overeating, causing them to realize that it is not as rewarding as expected, leading to a decrease in overeating behavior. The key is to update our brain's reward value and shift our behavior. This ability to adapt is vital for survival, and awareness is the simple ingredient that can bring about this change.
The Role of Curiosity and Kindness in Habit Change
In habit change, it is important to not only update the reward value of old behaviors but also introduce new behaviors with higher reward values. One effective approach is to cultivate curiosity and kindness. Curiosity allows us to explore our direct experience and compare the reward value of old habits with that of curiosity itself. This creates a bigger, better offer that makes it easier to disengage from old habits. Similarly, kindness towards ourselves can counteract self-judgment and cultivate a healthier relationship with our thoughts and emotions. Both curiosity and kindness are intrinsically rewarding and powerful tools for habit change.
Judson Brewer visits Google to discuss his book "Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind." The book lays out a step-by-step plan that is clinically proven to break the cycles that drive anxiety and addictive habits.
We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for a wine bottle every night, many of us are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. In this timely book, Dr. Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.
We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope, such as stress eating, procrastination, and social media doom-scrolling. Anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought, so we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us how to map our brains, so that we can discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices.
