Dr. Judson Brewer | Unwinding Anxiety

In today’s episode, we cover anxiety with Dr. Judson Brewer. Jud is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and associate professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University, as well as a research affiliate at MIT.   Anxiety can make anyone’s life more difficult, but you can take steps to minimize or eliminate it altogether—so how are your habits and thought processes making your anxiety worse, and what can you do to take back control of your life?   What to Listen For Introduction – 0:00 What common misconceptions do people have about anxiety? How do habits and anxiety play off each other and what can we do to prevent our habits from creating crippling anxiety?   Taking back control from our environment and biology – 12:51  What can you do to overcome the influence our environments and biology have on amping up our anxiety? What simple exercise can you do to stop bad habits and when should you do it? What question can you ask yourself if you want to stop binging or over indulging?   Is anxiety stopping you from pursuing positive activities? – 34:56  What can you do if your anxiety is getting in the way of doing things that are good for you? How can bringing awareness to your anxiety help you to get your life back from anxiety dictating your actions?   The danger and harm caused by worrying – 49:20  What is going on when you worry and how does it impact your behaviors? What can you do if you’re constantly worrying?   In ancient times, anxiety was useful for teaching us what we should be concerned about. But in the modern world, we are bombarded with a million things everyday that we “should” worry about. Between notifications on our smartphones, the news, that overflowing email inbox, and everything we see on social media, the anxiety can be overwhelming. As a result, we tend to develop habits as a way of coping with the anxiety, and those habits can lead to even wo