Judson Brewer, Unwinding Anxiety
Dr. Judson Brewer, a neuroscientist and meditation expert, discusses his "Unwinding Anxiety" app, which treats anxiety as a habit. He explains how to break anxiety loops by understanding the mind's reinforcement learning and using mindfulness practices like breathing into sensations and noting.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Addressing To-Do List Thoughts During Morning Meditation
Mindfulness, Addiction, and Renunciation (Non-Addiction)
Introducing the Unwinding Anxiety App and Anxiety as a Habit
Defining Anxiety and Challenging its Perceived Benefits
Breaking the Anxiety Habit: The Three-Gear Approach
Mindfulness Techniques for Managing Anxiety: Breathing and Noting
User Experiences and Successes with the Unwinding Anxiety App
General Advice for Managing Anxiety Without the App
The Role of Technology and Social Media in Modern Anxiety
Using Mindfulness to Manage Technology Addiction
The Concept of Disenchantment in Breaking Habits
5 Key Concepts
Anxiety as a Habit
Anxiety, particularly worry thinking, can function as a habit loop. When feeling anxious, the mind might engage in worry or problem-solving, which can sometimes provide intermittent reinforcement, making it feel like a control strategy or distraction, thus perpetuating the habit.
Reinforcement Learning Machines
Our minds are constantly comparing and looking for the 'bigger, better offer' (BBO). This means the brain learns to repeat behaviors that provide a reward or relief, even if temporary, and will naturally move away from behaviors perceived as less rewarding or painful.
Renunciation as Non-Addiction
The concept of renunciation, often unpopular, can be reframed as non-addiction. This perspective helps in letting go of habits or substances that cause suffering, not as a deprivation, but as freeing oneself from their addictive pull and the negative consequences they bring.
Prapancha
An ancient Indian word from the Pali language, meaning the 'imperialistic tendency of mind.' It describes how the mind takes a single data point from the present moment (e.g., feeling anxious) and colonizes the entire future with it, creating a mental movie of prolonged suffering that may not reflect reality.
Disenchantment
This refers to the process of seeing clearly that a habitual behavior or addiction, which once seemed appealing or necessary, is actually causing suffering and is not serving one's well-being. It's about realizing that the 'scent' drawing you in is actually 'rotten,' leading to a natural withdrawal from the habit.
7 Questions Answered
Instead of fighting or trying to stop these thoughts, welcome them. Give these inner 'characters' (like the planner) a name, acknowledge them when they appear, and then gently return your attention to your breath.
While there's no specific prescription, reducing addiction (renunciation as non-addiction) can be very meaningful for mindfulness practice, as substances can lead to feeling awful the next day, making meditation more difficult or fuzzed out.
Anxiety is often seen as excessive worry about the future. The key is whether it's causing suffering; it exists on a spectrum, and if it's problematic, it warrants attention regardless of a formal diagnosis.
While it might seem that anxiety helps get things done, there's no causal connection; you might be succeeding despite anxiety. Peak performance states like 'flow' are anxiety-free, suggesting anxiety can actually hinder rather than help.
Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent category of psychiatric disorders, with generalized anxiety disorder affecting about 20% of the population. Some data suggest over 50% of college students meet criteria for clinical-grade anxiety.
Technology and social media contribute through 'fear of missing out' (FOMO) due to constant information availability and the addictive nature of 'weapons of mass distraction' like smartphones, which are engineered to increase engagement and can lead to disconnection.
Mindfulness helps by training us to understand how our minds work and observe how we get sucked into technology. By clearly seeing the suffering and lack of reward from excessive phone use, we can become disenchanted and regain control over our minds.
12 Actionable Insights
1. Anxiety is a Habit
Recognize that anxiety, particularly worry thinking, often functions as a habit loop, serving as a distraction or an attempt to gain control. Understanding this is the crucial first step to breaking the cycle and seeing its true, unhelpful nature.
2. Break Anxiety Habits (3 Gears)
To break anxiety habits, follow a three-step process: First, recognize the specific triggers and worry thinking of your anxiety loop. Second, clearly observe what you are actually gaining from the anxiety (often suffering). Third, replace the anxiety with more rewarding behaviors like kindness, curiosity, or being present in the moment.
3. Replace Worry with Awareness
When you catch yourself in habitual worry, consciously replace that behavior with awareness, especially an attitudinal quality of curiosity. This steps out of the worry cycle, reveals the pain of worry, and taps into the inherent reward of curious awareness, which feels better than anxiety.
4. Leverage Brain’s Reward System
Utilize the brain’s natural tendency to seek pleasant experiences by focusing on the inherent rewards of beneficial behaviors like joy, kindness, curiosity, or awareness. This ‘bigger, better offer’ approach helps to naturally shift habits away from those causing suffering, rather than relying on willpower.
5. Anxiety is Not Monolithic
Resist the mind’s tendency (prapancha) to project present anxiety into a future filled with suffering. Instead, investigate the present experience of anxiety with curiosity and friendliness to see it as a constantly changing flux of sensations and thoughts, rather than an overwhelming, stable force.
6. Thoughts Are Just Thoughts
Practice observing your thoughts, including anxious ones, as mere mental phenomena rather than absolute truths or commands. This detachment allows you to ‘zoom back the camera’ and reduces the power of thoughts to control your emotional state and behavior.
7. Breathe into Anxiety
When experiencing anxiety, focus on the physical sensation in your body. On your next in-breath, breathe into that feeling with kind, curious awareness, holding it briefly, and then release with the out-breath, as bringing awareness to tightness can help it loosen.
8. Note Anxiety’s Sensations
Use noting practice to observe the specific physical sensations (e.g., tightness, gurgling, throbbing) and mental phenomena (e.g., worry) that constitute anxiety. This helps deconstruct anxiety, making it appear less monolithic and more manageable by revealing its constantly changing nature.
9. Welcome Distracting Thoughts
When meditating and thoughts like to-do lists arise, do not fight or try to stop them. Instead, welcome them in, perhaps by giving them a name, and then gently return your focus to the breath, as fighting is a losing battle and welcoming can diminish their power over time.
10. Embrace Non-Addiction
For habits causing suffering (e.g., excessive drinking, sugar), reframe ‘renunciation’ as ’non-addiction.’ Experiment with giving up substances or behaviors that cause more trouble than they’re worth to improve well-being and meditation practice.
11. Mindful Tech Management
Apply mindfulness principles to manage technology and social media use: observe how your mind gets drawn in, and clearly see what you truly gain from excessive use. This process of ‘disenchantment’ helps you gain control and use technology responsibly.
12. Observe Self-Flagellation
When you notice yourself engaging in self-criticism or self-flagellation after a mistake, bring awareness to that self-criticism itself. Observe it with a sense of humor or detachment to ‘pop the bubble’ of self-judgment and foster a more compassionate response.
5 Key Quotes
The mind, as my friend Jeff Warren likes to say, secretes thoughts the way the stomach secretes enzymes. You know, it is just its job to think.
Dan Harris
Anxiety is taking credit. This is diabolical.
Jud Brewer
Bringing awareness to something that's tight, it seems it just kind of helps it loosen up on its own.
Jud Brewer
If you can teach a person to see their own mental processes clearly, they are not as owned by them. And that gives you the leg up.
Jud Brewer
You don't want to have your happiness dependent upon the decisions made in a C-suite in Silicon Valley. You want to be taking responsibility for your own mind.
Jud Brewer
2 Protocols
Managing To-Do List Thoughts During Meditation
Dan Harris- Do not try to fight or stop the thoughts; instead, counterintuitively welcome them in.
- Identify and give names to recurring 'inner characters' or neurotic programs (e.g., 'the planner').
- When you notice a character stepping onto the stage, acknowledge them in a friendly way (e.g., 'Hey, what's up, Julie?').
- Return your focus to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, over and over again.
Breaking the Anxiety Habit (Unwinding Anxiety App Approach)
Jud Brewer- First Gear: Recognize when you are stuck in the anxiety habit loop, including triggers and worry thinking.
- Second Gear: Clearly see what you are getting from the anxiety; this helps diminish the perceived value or 'reward' of being anxious.
- Third Gear: Once anxiety's value diminishes, your brain starts looking for other things to do, allowing you to bring in specific mindfulness practices like breathing into anxiety or using noting practice.