Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Well, this is my first episode, so I
Speaker 1: think I'll just talk off the cuff, off the top
Speaker 1: of my head for a few minutes to just let
Speaker 1: you know what we're doing here with this podcast. Anxiety
Speaker 1: Bites as a little generation X nod to the movie
Speaker 1: Reality Bites, but there is nothing bite sized about this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll be having long conversations with all kinds of experts
Speaker 1: who can help us understand our anxiety, where it comes from,
Speaker 1: what we can do about it, whether it's a neuroscientist,
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist and author, a researcher, a meditator and artist,
Speaker 1: anybody who has experienced anxiety who works in the field
Speaker 1: of helping others cope with anxiety. Now, I don't want
Speaker 1: to make this podcast about me, because it's not about me.
Speaker 1: It's about everybody. It's about anxiety. But a little background
Speaker 1: on me. I am, in my other life a comedian.
Speaker 1: I have comedy specials on Netflix. I'm also a TV
Speaker 1: writer and I've been working in entertainment for about twenty
Speaker 1: five years. But something happened during the Great Lockdown of
Speaker 1: where I was no longer on tour. I wasn't on stage,
Speaker 1: and I was fine with it, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: use my voice somehow, maybe in a way that just
Speaker 1: didn't distract people with jokes, but maybe helped people. And
Speaker 1: I was noticing on social media that a lot of
Speaker 1: people were discovering that they had anxiety for the first time,
Speaker 1: or they were actually just becoming an anxious person for
Speaker 1: the first time, and I realized, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: actually feelt pretty good. I have had generalized anxiety disorder,
Speaker 1: panic disorder, multiple phobias since I was eight years old,
Speaker 1: and none of it was diagnosed or handled properly until
Speaker 1: I was twenty two. But as a kid, I sat
Speaker 1: around having panic attacks in school. I remember, at age twelve,
Speaker 1: thinking I was having a heart attack. But there was
Speaker 1: also a part of me that knew this has to
Speaker 1: do with mental health, even though I had never heard
Speaker 1: the expression mental health. But I knew, or I thought
Speaker 1: I knew. If I tell people what I'm feeling, if
Speaker 1: I tell people that I feel like I can't breathe
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm going crazy, they will lock
Speaker 1: me up for life in a padded room. And I'm
Speaker 1: not ready for that yet. And so I just had
Speaker 1: a grand plan, which was, whatever this is going on
Speaker 1: inside of me that seems to be getting worse every year,
Speaker 1: I will just ride it out until it gets so
Speaker 1: bad that I want to live in a padded room.
Speaker 1: And that is how I will deal with this thing.
Speaker 1: I never had to go live in a padded room
Speaker 1: because I got help. Ironically, there is padding in the
Speaker 1: room I am in right now, but that is just
Speaker 1: because it makes a podcast sound better. But I began
Speaker 1: therapy in my early twenties. I've done it all, from
Speaker 1: therapy to medication to meditation, and I'm telling you everything
Speaker 1: I have tried to help my anxiety has worked. But
Speaker 1: different things work at different times. But the one thing
Speaker 1: that really tipped me over the edge into being able
Speaker 1: to say I no longer have a phobia of flying,
Speaker 1: of driving alone on the freeway, of getting in subways.
Speaker 1: My silb a fear hides what helps my circular thinking,
Speaker 1: my rumination, all of the thought processes that are anxiety.
Speaker 1: What helped was when I realized I can apply the
Speaker 1: sense of humor I have in my job to my anxiety.
Speaker 1: I used to take anxiety so seriously and say things
Speaker 1: I suffer from anxiety. I just thought it was this scary,
Speaker 1: terrible thing, and I gave it so much weight, you know,
Speaker 1: I almost gave it so much respect in a way.
Speaker 1: And now I try to laugh about my anxiety. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have suffer from anxiety. So I have a
Speaker 1: friend called anxiety, and it loves to get in the
Speaker 1: passenger seat of my car and try to give me
Speaker 1: suggestions about terrible things I should think about. And I
Speaker 1: just don't let anxiety weigh in on any decisions I'm making.
Speaker 1: But it's allowed to be there if it needs to
Speaker 1: be there. You know, I learned to live with it,
Speaker 1: but it is not anything like it used to be,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't control my decisions or my life. I
Speaker 1: know that might not sound appealing to people. I think
Speaker 1: people want to just get rid of anxiety, But it
Speaker 1: feels like I've gotten rid of it, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: by accepting it and poking a little fun at And
Speaker 1: so I want to have honest conversations with people. I
Speaker 1: don't want to come from some lofty place of you know,
Speaker 1: peace and love. And I'm whispering, and you know I've
Speaker 1: changed my life. I still swear and and and yell
Speaker 1: fuck you at people if I'm driving in a bad mood.
Speaker 1: This is real people talking. This is not self help,
Speaker 1: this is not wellness, This is not anything on relatable.
Speaker 1: Unless you don't have anxiety, then you know, congrats, you
Speaker 1: won't relate. But yeah, during the lockdown, I was noticing
Speaker 1: people on social media and I thought, wait, why don't
Speaker 1: they just type anxiety into the internet, like like this
Speaker 1: thing I wished I'd been able to do so many
Speaker 1: years ago. And I realized people don't know where to start.
Speaker 1: Some people don't even know if they're allowed to claim
Speaker 1: that it's anxiety because they don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: And doesn't a doctor have to tell them they have it?
Speaker 1: And oh, maybe I'm just stressed, or it's the state
Speaker 1: of the world, or you know, once this goes away,
Speaker 1: I'll be better. And and so I started teaching breathing
Speaker 1: classes over zoom for fun, and I wrote a newsletter
Speaker 1: about anxiety. And when the response was frankly more overwhelming
Speaker 1: than the response to my last tour as a comedian,
Speaker 1: I realized, I think I have something here, and so
Speaker 1: I pitched this podcast I did to I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: They said, yes, so here we are together now, and
Speaker 1: I actually thought at one point, Oh, I hope, um,
Speaker 1: I hope everyone still wants to talk about anxiety by
Speaker 1: the time this podcast comes out. I had no idea
Speaker 1: that it would be the next epidemic. Anyway, I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy Anxiety Bites. There will be new episodes every week,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure over the course of the episodes, I'll
Speaker 1: reveal more and more about my personal experiences with anxiety.
Speaker 1: But you don't need the whole story right now. And
Speaker 1: it's frankly again, it's not about me. It's about all
Speaker 1: of us, and it's about anxiety, and it's about not
Speaker 1: feeling so alone, because that was always the worst part
Speaker 1: of it for me, was that I felt so alone
Speaker 1: when I had it, and even after I found out
Speaker 1: what I had was normal, I still felt alone because
Speaker 1: not a lot of people were talking about it. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about it, Anxiety Bites. But you're in control,
Speaker 1: and now let's talk to our guest today on Anxiety Bites.
Speaker 1: I am talking to Dr Judd Brewer. He's a New
Speaker 1: York Times bestselling author. He's a neuroscientist. He's the director
Speaker 1: of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and Associate
Speaker 1: professor and Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of
Speaker 1: Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at
Speaker 1: Brown University, as well as a research affiliate at m
Speaker 1: I T. He's a wicked smartt you guys. His latest
Speaker 1: book is called Unwinding Anxiety, a clinically proven, step by
Speaker 1: step plan to break the cycle of worry and fear
Speaker 1: that drives anxiety and addictive habits. So in this book,
Speaker 1: Dr Judd is basically saying anxiety as a habit and
Speaker 1: we can approach treating it the way we might approach
Speaker 1: quitting smoking. Dr JEDD's book was called Craving Mind From
Speaker 1: Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why we get hooked and
Speaker 1: how we can break bad habits. Doctor Jedd has done
Speaker 1: a ton of TED talks, He's written articles. All of
Speaker 1: the places that you can find him will be linked
Speaker 1: in the show notes. And he's also the creator of
Speaker 1: the Unwinding Anxiety app. It's a step by step program
Speaker 1: for your smartphone or tab it. It helps you uncover
Speaker 1: your triggers, break the cycle of worry and panic, identify
Speaker 1: your anxiety habits, and learn specific anti anxiety tools. So
Speaker 1: I've been a fan of doctor Judd for a while now.
Speaker 1: I've just heard him on other podcasts and I've read
Speaker 1: his books and the way he approaches anxiety as something
Speaker 1: that we do have control over, and that in a
Speaker 1: weird way, the way we've been habitually having anxiety, and weirdly,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a reward system there, even
Speaker 1: though it's a disordered reward. We're getting something out of worrying,
Speaker 1: and so we have to change that and replace it
Speaker 1: with something. So it's not easy, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't want to look at it that
Speaker 1: way because you want to think, no, I don't have
Speaker 1: any control. Anxiety is just something that's happening to me.
Speaker 1: And yet isn't that what all of us anxious people
Speaker 1: want is control. I think we want control over the
Speaker 1: world and other people's actions. But when we're told, oh,
Speaker 1: you have control over your own actions or well, I
Speaker 1: didn't want that's not a fun kind of control though. Anyway.
Speaker 1: In my interview with Dr Judd, I talked to him
Speaker 1: about his personal experience with anxiety that he actually thought
Speaker 1: was ib s, how he gets anxious about his patients
Speaker 1: who have anxiety, and what he's learned over the past
Speaker 1: twenty five years studying the mind and how anxiety is driven,
Speaker 1: and we talk about why his dream for his app,
Speaker 1: Unwinding Anxiety is that people eventually unsubscribed from it. So
Speaker 1: let's talk to your new favorite person, doctor Jedd, doctor
Speaker 1: Judd Brewer, thank you for being on anxiety Bites. I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask you what is your past relationship to
Speaker 1: anxiety and what's your current relationship to anxiety today? Be
Speaker 1: happy to explore my relationship with anxiety. You know it
Speaker 1: started way back in the day. Actually, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know I had anxiety. In college. I remember having let's
Speaker 1: just say, some g I issues, you know, I'd talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about this at the end of my book,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, your new book on my anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, done a bunch of backpacking in
Speaker 1: college and was also, you know, always concerned about you know,
Speaker 1: getting back curely infections from not you know, carefully filtering
Speaker 1: my water. And so my senior year, I remember going
Speaker 1: to the student health in the doctor there you know,
Speaker 1: these g I issues, and he said, oh, could you
Speaker 1: be stressed out? And It's like, no, not me, I'm
Speaker 1: not stressed. I played the violet and I run I'm
Speaker 1: a vegetarian, blah blah blah, and he goes, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: a long story short. It turned out that I had
Speaker 1: irritable ball syndrome, which is totally stressed and anxiety related.
Speaker 1: And so so that was my first encounter, let's say,
Speaker 1: with anxiety, not even knowing it. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think anxiety can really be a shape
Speaker 1: shifter in many ways. A long story short. I went
Speaker 1: on to get panic attacks during residency, and you know,
Speaker 1: in my psychiatry residency, which was really fun because then,
Speaker 1: you know, after I have a panic attack, I could
Speaker 1: go down the diagnostic checklist and be like check check, check, check. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just had a panic attack, you know. And and
Speaker 1: today I would say, you know, a lot of what
Speaker 1: I've learned about my own mind has helped me work
Speaker 1: with anxiety. I certainly get sensations and feelings that come up,
Speaker 1: but it's I'm much more able to manage and work
Speaker 1: with it. And um, I can you know, I jokingly say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I I wrote this book because I was
Speaker 1: anxious about how to help my patients with anxiety, because
Speaker 1: you know, what I learned in medical school and residency
Speaker 1: was to prescribe medications and the gold standard medications out there.
Speaker 1: There's this term in medicine called number needed to treat,
Speaker 1: which gives us a quick and dirty estimate of how
Speaker 1: well something works. So the higher than number of the
Speaker 1: worst it is. So with medications, that number needed to
Speaker 1: treat is five point two, meaning you have to treat
Speaker 1: five patients before one person shows a significant reduction and symptoms.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine, for five patients come into my
Speaker 1: office in one day, I don't know which of those
Speaker 1: five is going to benefit, so I'm basically playing the
Speaker 1: medication lottery with them, and I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do with the other. So I'm getting anxious about
Speaker 1: to help my patients with anxiety. So those that's that's
Speaker 1: my you know, my previous and I guess current relationship is.
Speaker 1: I've been blown away with what I've learned about my
Speaker 1: own mind. So I started meditating at the beginning of
Speaker 1: medical school, first day of medical school, and over the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years have learned so much about how
Speaker 1: my mind works and all these twists and turns and
Speaker 1: serendipity around how anxiety can be driven. That that's where
Speaker 1: we started developing programs and then as a researcher testing
Speaker 1: them to see how well they can work. And long
Speaker 1: story short, that's why I wrote this on Running Anxiety
Speaker 1: book was to make it accessible, make these these tools
Speaker 1: accessible to anyone. Man, I wish you'd been around when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager with anxiety and no Internet and
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was. And I was afraid to
Speaker 1: ask the Life arian if they had any books about
Speaker 1: the brain, because I thought she was going to say, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have to call the hospital and you're going to
Speaker 1: have to live there the rest of your life. Are
Speaker 1: you perhaps anxious? That's very bad? You know? Can you
Speaker 1: hold for one minute please? And then she starts whispering, Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so let me get into this. And I want to
Speaker 1: talk about obviously your book and your app, but I
Speaker 1: have a question about the brain because you are also
Speaker 1: a neuroscientist. Is that right? Okay? First of all, when
Speaker 1: the hell are our brains going to evolve past this?
Speaker 1: Because if I hear one more time, oh, it's left
Speaker 1: over from being a caveman. Well okay, but when when
Speaker 1: will this change? When will this default setting to being
Speaker 1: anxious and overreacting? You know, when in our lifetime now, well,
Speaker 1: right from a genetic perspective, not in our lifetime. From
Speaker 1: a functional perspective, I think it can happen. You know,
Speaker 1: this evolutionary process can happen pretty quickly. So you can
Speaker 1: look at to see how quickly we have learned to
Speaker 1: use technology as a way to leverage attention. Right, So
Speaker 1: that happened pretty darned quickly, you know. Within you know,
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, there were you know, first researchers showing that
Speaker 1: animals could learn how to get out of cages by
Speaker 1: you getting a food reward. So that was you know,
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds. That was a hundred and twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: And now you can look at social media and how
Speaker 1: they are totally getting us all addicted to those things.
Speaker 1: So this process has been understood and people have adapted
Speaker 1: it to capture our attention. And this is also driven
Speaker 1: our anxiety, and so that as soon as we learn
Speaker 1: how that works. You know, the way I think of
Speaker 1: it is, if we can learn how our minds work,
Speaker 1: then we can start to work with our minds. And
Speaker 1: so in that sense, just like you know, it's capturing
Speaker 1: our attention, it's capturing our the uncertainty you know around um,
Speaker 1: I think of it this way. The only certain thing
Speaker 1: is that there's always going to be uncertainty. So that's
Speaker 1: not actually something that we want to evolve beyond because
Speaker 1: that helps to survive. But what we can learn is
Speaker 1: how that uncertainty drives anxiety, and that's something that we
Speaker 1: can learn to work with within months. You know. For example,
Speaker 1: my lab has done several clinical studies where we got
Speaker 1: a fifty seven percent reduction in clinically validate anxiety scores
Speaker 1: in anxious physicians using an app. You know, we did
Speaker 1: a study with generalized anxiety disorder. We got the sixty
Speaker 1: seven percent reduction, and there we could actually calculate that
Speaker 1: number needed to treat the thing I mentioned earlier ray
Speaker 1: for this. So in medications it's five. With this study
Speaker 1: it was one point six, So so it only takes
Speaker 1: one point six people doing this kind of a mindful
Speaker 1: thought behavioral work around anxiety to see your results. Is
Speaker 1: that what you mean? That's great. When I first found
Speaker 1: out twenty years ago, when I went to therapy for panic,
Speaker 1: and it was explained to me that it's just my
Speaker 1: adrenaline kind of seaking out and it's this leftover thing
Speaker 1: from you know, my brain is trying to protect me.
Speaker 1: That that was of great comfort. But I know for
Speaker 1: some people that it can seem like, oh great, well
Speaker 1: now it can't be fixed. But like a lot of things,
Speaker 1: we we can actually change our mind literally literally we can.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing that I see they get
Speaker 1: some conflated or mixed mushed together, is people conflating the
Speaker 1: survival piece with the actual anxiety piece. So if you
Speaker 1: think of the Cayman brain, it was really set up
Speaker 1: to develop habits, you know, where it's it's about learning
Speaker 1: where to remember food is and also how to avoid danger.
Speaker 1: On top of that's been layered the neo cortex, literally
Speaker 1: the new brain, which helps us survive in a different way,
Speaker 1: which is through thinking and planning. And that survival comes
Speaker 1: based on getting information, like accurate information in the present moment,
Speaker 1: so we can our brains can basically simulate based on
Speaker 1: past experience using information that we have. So here it's about,
Speaker 1: you know, if we don't have accurate information, that's when
Speaker 1: our brains starts spinning out of control into anxiety. And
Speaker 1: I think I want folks to be very you know,
Speaker 1: to understand that because it's not just our adrenaline. Certainly,
Speaker 1: when we get freaked out, our adrenaline pumps, but it's
Speaker 1: not that you know, that fear reaction that happens really quickly,
Speaker 1: actually faster than we can even think. That's a survival
Speaker 1: mechanism that helps us learn to avoid danger. That's different
Speaker 1: than anxiety. Does that make sense? That makes total sense?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm glad you separated that for me too,
Speaker 1: because I think i've like you said, anxiety is a
Speaker 1: shape shifter, and uh, I think sometimes I have conflated
Speaker 1: that fear instinct with with anxiety. Yes, so we all
Speaker 1: have times when we're anxious and when we when we worry,
Speaker 1: for example, that can actually feedback and you know, basically
Speaker 1: kicking our adrenaline that makes us more anxious. So I
Speaker 1: have a lot of patients in my clinic who when
Speaker 1: they go to bed, there head hits the pillow and
Speaker 1: the brain starts thinking. And it's like the brain says, okay,
Speaker 1: it's my turn. Now you get a chance to talk.
Speaker 1: And now it's we start regretting the things we've done
Speaker 1: during the day, or we start worrying about the future.
Speaker 1: And then and then they look at the clock and
Speaker 1: they think, I gotta get sleep because I got this
Speaker 1: thing to do tomorrow, and which, of course, Jack's their adrenaline.
Speaker 1: It makes it much harder for them to sleep. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: so now they've just created this kind of thought pattern
Speaker 1: of now the anxiety is about the sleep. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. What what's the story on chemical imbalances?
Speaker 1: I mean, is it just sort of a a thing
Speaker 1: that people saying, it's not really something we're born with?
Speaker 1: Or can we change our chemistry in our brain? Well,
Speaker 1: we can certainly change our chemistry in our brain. Thoughts
Speaker 1: will literally have chemical have chemical cascades that lead to
Speaker 1: chemical reactions. So in that sense, we are basically just
Speaker 1: a jumble of chemistry. If you look at the chemical
Speaker 1: and balanced thing, I think it's a simple and quick explanation.
Speaker 1: Oh take this pill because it's a chemical imbalance and
Speaker 1: it's going to help with the chemic. For some people,
Speaker 1: they have genetic polymorphisms, meaning that they're they're they're the
Speaker 1: proteins that are expressed on certain cells look slightly differently
Speaker 1: than other people, which can affect how certain neurotransmitters, you know,
Speaker 1: function in their brain. And for some people, you know,
Speaker 1: things like selective serotonine reactic inhibitors, which are the first
Speaker 1: line treatment like the prozacs, the soul lofts, the paxels
Speaker 1: of the world. That's how you know, for some people
Speaker 1: those can be helpful. Yeah, this is where this number
Speaker 1: needed to treat comes in. It should be noted that
Speaker 1: historically these were developed as antidepressants and people just started
Speaker 1: using um testing them out with anxiety and found, oh,
Speaker 1: they're better than placebo, so we'll prescribe those as well.
Speaker 1: So you know, they affect serrantonin reuptake, that's where their
Speaker 1: name comes from. But it doesn't necessarily mean, especially for
Speaker 1: the majority of the population, some chemical imbalance in their brain.
Speaker 1: It means, this is the best we've got, and here's
Speaker 1: our explanation. So try the pill. And because they're generally benign,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't have generally don't have sign effects
Speaker 1: for most people, and you know, they're it's hard to
Speaker 1: overdose on them. For a psychiatrist or even a general
Speaker 1: practitioner like a primary care provider, to to prescribe these
Speaker 1: things and not worry about it too much. And there's
Speaker 1: also you know the added benefit of having a placebo effect.
Speaker 1: Oh I am taking a pill to help my brain.
Speaker 1: And you know that's not to discount the placebo effect
Speaker 1: for some medications. That's the majority of effect that's happening
Speaker 1: in and from you know, from my clinical perspective, it's
Speaker 1: like whatever, you know, if this is helping and it's
Speaker 1: not harming, game on. So in terms of the type
Speaker 1: of therapist someone should see, right if if they're experiencing,
Speaker 1: let's say, daily anxiety attacks, um, whether it's thoughts, you know,
Speaker 1: thoughts spiraling or sweaty palms or whatnot, or they're avoiding
Speaker 1: certain things driving on the freeway there, you know, certain
Speaker 1: places give them panic attacks, you know, all the whole
Speaker 1: shi bang. And they're looking in a directory and they're
Speaker 1: looking to find a therapist. Is there something they should
Speaker 1: be looking for, because I know that for me when
Speaker 1: I was having daily panic attacks, you know, my therapist
Speaker 1: wanted to go back into childhood, which is great, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to help me have some tools to
Speaker 1: go to bring to the office the next day. And
Speaker 1: I believe in my recovery as an anxious person that
Speaker 1: I need the tools now because I need to just
Speaker 1: be able to function and then once I'm better, sure,
Speaker 1: let's go back to childhood. Let's talk about this. I
Speaker 1: get it, um, but what what do you tell what
Speaker 1: would you tell someone to look for? So, as a
Speaker 1: hard carrying psychiatrist who is trained about the whole childhood
Speaker 1: thing and all that, it wasn't until I became a
Speaker 1: neuroscientist that I started to realize, you know, neuroscience may
Speaker 1: play a bigger role here in helping people with anxiety
Speaker 1: than going back to our childhood and that childhood piece
Speaker 1: maybe somewhat of a holdover from you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: Freudian days or whatever. You know, in a way that
Speaker 1: we're just trained, Oh, this is what we should be doing.
Speaker 1: But if you look at it, especially looking at how
Speaker 1: anxiety is driven. So this is something I did not
Speaker 1: learn in residency training. This is something that I learned afterwards. Serendipitously,
Speaker 1: when I was studying habit changed. You know, we were
Speaker 1: developing programs for smoking and for overeating, and especially with
Speaker 1: our we had this eat right now app that we
Speaker 1: were studying with folks, and folks were saying to me.
Speaker 1: Remember somebody asking, hey, you know, I'm realizing that anxiety
Speaker 1: is triggering me to Stressy can you create a program
Speaker 1: for anxiety? And I was thinking, well, like medications, but
Speaker 1: you know they don't work that well. So it put
Speaker 1: a bug in my ear. And it was actually back
Speaker 1: in the eighties when prozac, you know, first came out,
Speaker 1: that people are doing research suggesting that anxiety could be
Speaker 1: driven like other habits. And this is really what this
Speaker 1: you know, at this lightbulb moment where I was like,
Speaker 1: I never learned that, Why didn't I? Where didn't I
Speaker 1: learned that in residency? And the reason I mentioned that
Speaker 1: is that when I started looking to the neuroscience behind
Speaker 1: how that works, it's like, oh, habits are driven through rewards,
Speaker 1: not based on childhood. There's actually a formula called Carla
Speaker 1: Wagner curves. The details aren't important, but basically, how rewarding
Speaker 1: a behavior is is going to drive whether we perpetuate
Speaker 1: it or not, whether we keep doing it or not.
Speaker 1: Childhood is nowhere in that equation. You want to change
Speaker 1: the behavior, including worrying, which drives anxiety. It's not about
Speaker 1: going back into the childhood. It's a about what's happening now,
Speaker 1: what's driving this? And can we take a neuroscience based approach?
Speaker 1: So long long answer to your short question, whoever it
Speaker 1: is make sure that they're actually up on the current
Speaker 1: neuroscience and not just you know, I had freedom psychoanalysis
Speaker 1: training or something like that. Nothing wrong with that, but
Speaker 1: we know a lot more now than was known in
Speaker 1: Freud's days. But I think it's a it is a
Speaker 1: sophisticated concept that Okay, you're doing this habit, this anxiety,
Speaker 1: whether it's the kind of thought spiraling you're doing before
Speaker 1: you go on a trip, or you're drinking every nite
Speaker 1: to handle the work stress, whatever it is, you're actually
Speaker 1: getting some kind of reward, however disordered it is, from
Speaker 1: doing this. Let's look at it and get you a
Speaker 1: better reward. I mean, first, right there, somebody has to
Speaker 1: be willing to say, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: it's my quote fault. But I feel like that that
Speaker 1: must be challenging to you know, I think there's some
Speaker 1: comfort and saying no, no, no, I'm not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: Life is happening to me, now fix it, you know,
Speaker 1: don't make me change something that must be extremely challenging
Speaker 1: in your podcast, right And I actually learned something from
Speaker 1: one of my patients that i've I've used to help
Speaker 1: my other patients with this exact question that you're asking,
Speaker 1: which is one of my patients. So, as I was
Speaker 1: working with a patient and helping her understand like this
Speaker 1: was basically, you know, her brain trying to help her survive,
Speaker 1: you know, this thinking and planning brain going offline. She
Speaker 1: actually started using this mantra with herself when she noticed
Speaker 1: that she was starting to get repped up with anxiety.
Speaker 1: She just used this mantra, Oh, that's just my brain.
Speaker 1: And what that reminded her of was that it was
Speaker 1: her brain doing this thing, it wasn't actually her fault,
Speaker 1: and it could also help her remind herself, oh, I
Speaker 1: know how to work with this, so she could ground
Speaker 1: herself and actually work with it. That's incredible, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I do think the irony about anxious people myself and
Speaker 1: what did is we just want control. We want to
Speaker 1: control the universe, we want to control you know, everything,
Speaker 1: and things like your book on winding anxiety and working
Speaker 1: with a therapist, you're actually being given the greatest gifts, control, options, choices,
Speaker 1: and we're like no, no, no, no, no, don't you
Speaker 1: know I don't want to It's just funny. I see that.
Speaker 1: I saw that so many years in myself, Like someone
Speaker 1: is giving me exactly what I want. Here you can
Speaker 1: control this, and I'm like, now I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do it. And so you know, it's it's tough. I mean,
Speaker 1: like everything you're saying in your book makes total sense,
Speaker 1: but I imagine as the person that has to work
Speaker 1: with people, it might take a beat to get there,
Speaker 1: right it can, and so here I find two things
Speaker 1: that are common. One is when the anxiety gets bad enough.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like somebody getting into the gutter with
Speaker 1: when they're drinking. Becomes bad enough, then they wake up
Speaker 1: and're like, wow, this is a problem. Just something about this.
Speaker 1: So when somebody's anxiety is bad enough, they're more driven
Speaker 1: to find a solution. I hope that we can reach
Speaker 1: people before that because I hate to see people suffer
Speaker 1: from debility to tating anxiety. The other piece is to
Speaker 1: really be able to see, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: just my brain and we're giving them these tools. You know,
Speaker 1: think of it as knowledge is power, And so for
Speaker 1: anybody listening, keep in mind, the more you know about
Speaker 1: how your mind works, the more you'll be able to
Speaker 1: work with it. And this applies beyond anxiety. So if
Speaker 1: you're not sure, if you have anxiety or not. Just
Speaker 1: think of any habit that you have, and this same
Speaker 1: process can be applied in the same way, and then
Speaker 1: maybe examine whether you've got a little bit of anxiety
Speaker 1: and then use it in the same way. And I
Speaker 1: want to empower everyone listening to be able to claim anxiety.
Speaker 1: You know, I think so many people think it is
Speaker 1: this big, bad disorder, and you know, they can't say
Speaker 1: they have it because you know, they don't have it
Speaker 1: as bad as this and that. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: just think anxiety is sort of the human condition in
Speaker 1: a way, you know, whether some people experience it often
Speaker 1: or not. I like the way you put that. So
Speaker 1: there is one condition that I certainty can say that
Speaker 1: we all have what you just named the human condition.
Speaker 1: And in that human condition is a whole range of
Speaker 1: emotions and a whole range of states. And our brains
Speaker 1: are just they're just trying to gather information so they
Speaker 1: can predict the future. And when there's uncertainty, we might
Speaker 1: get a little anxious, and that's okay. And the more
Speaker 1: we can notice more quickly that we're anxious, the more
Speaker 1: we can actually get our thinking and planning brain back
Speaker 1: online and get back on track. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: how we do some of that. So maybe explain to
Speaker 1: everyone what's an adaptive versus a maladaptive behavior and how
Speaker 1: does that get us on the road to learning about
Speaker 1: changing our habits within Well, let's use any habit as
Speaker 1: an example. So we form habits through a simple process.
Speaker 1: You know, three elements of trigger, a behavior, and a result.
Speaker 1: So an adaptive habit. You can think, I won't use
Speaker 1: too many examples from our ancient ancests is because I
Speaker 1: agree with you, I think that's overplayed, but it's helpful
Speaker 1: to just kind of conceptualize where this comes from. So
Speaker 1: imagine our ancient ancestors didn't have refrigerators, right, they didn't
Speaker 1: have um sources of food that they could get every day.
Speaker 1: They had to go find food, and so the brains
Speaker 1: are set up and our brains are still set up
Speaker 1: this way, you know, to go find the food. So
Speaker 1: the first element is a trigger. They see the food,
Speaker 1: there's the trigger, they eat the food. There's the behavior.
Speaker 1: That's the second element. And then the third element is
Speaker 1: from a neuroscience perspective or reward, where their brain, you know,
Speaker 1: the stomach sense this dopamine signal to their brain that says,
Speaker 1: remember what you ate and where you found it. So
Speaker 1: an adaptive habit is to remember where food is. Another
Speaker 1: adaptive habit in modern day is too well. Think of
Speaker 1: all the habits that we have that we do every day,
Speaker 1: like tying our shoes, putting our clothes on, walking, eating breakfast,
Speaker 1: making breakfast, making coffee. Imagine having to relearn those things
Speaker 1: every day. You know, we'd be exhausted by the end
Speaker 1: of breakfast. So the idea there is there are tons
Speaker 1: of adaptive habits that we take for granted because their habitual,
Speaker 1: we do them without thinking. That's basically what habit is.
Speaker 1: It's an automatic behavior that that's just cute. So there,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got habits. Most of our habits are
Speaker 1: adaptive and then sometimes they become maladaptive. So based on
Speaker 1: what we've learned, they cannot be so helpful. So maybe
Speaker 1: an example would be, so adaptive habit is learning how
Speaker 1: to eat. Maladaptive habit would be learning the value of
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. You know, so we set down this reward
Speaker 1: value of chocolate cake. Typically it starts okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to childhood. Are you ready? So so we got
Speaker 1: a birthday parties when we're kids, and we associate cake
Speaker 1: with not only tasting good, but ice cream and presents
Speaker 1: and friends and parties. And for me, did you ever
Speaker 1: go to roller skating birthday party? You know? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I associate that with roller skating sometimes. Um. And so
Speaker 1: imagine all the times we laid on that reward value
Speaker 1: as a kid, and then when we're not a kid anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, when we were kids, we could eat cake
Speaker 1: for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Right, it didn't affect us
Speaker 1: at all, you know, just we're like boom all album
Speaker 1: more cake. Now I get a sugar rushi and crash
Speaker 1: when I eat cake, you know, so I have to
Speaker 1: eat it very judiciously, you know. And if I ate
Speaker 1: cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, things probably wouldn't go
Speaker 1: so well in terms of my body feeling good, in
Speaker 1: my brain functioning. So, uh, we can see how that
Speaker 1: can become maladaptive if we just carry that habit forward,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to take the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: So that's where the same behavior can be just fine,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes maladaptive. So I think of, you know,
Speaker 1: the far end of the habit spectrum as addiction, right,
Speaker 1: and the simple definition there is like continued to just
Speaker 1: despite adverse consequences. So that can be applied to everything
Speaker 1: from overeating to smoking. Ready for this to worrying, right,
Speaker 1: because worrying tends to be maladaptive. It just it's just
Speaker 1: it gets us all fired up with adrenaline. It doesn't
Speaker 1: help us solve problems. Actually, it moves this in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction, because it's harder to think and plan when
Speaker 1: we're when we're worrying. I Yet it's it. It becomes
Speaker 1: rewarding in the sense that even if we can't control
Speaker 1: the situation, we at least feel like we're doing something.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like the parents worrying about their kidther
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know if he or she is safe. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just worry about them until they get home. I
Speaker 1: can promise you they're worrying did not keep their kids safe,
Speaker 1: but it gave them something to do. It's like if
Speaker 1: you're driving on the freeway deadlock traffic and you start
Speaker 1: taking side streets. It takes the same amount of time,
Speaker 1: but you felt like you were doing something and you
Speaker 1: still we relate to the thing because there were just
Speaker 1: too many cars on the road. That day, you know,
Speaker 1: and and I really relate to that. You know, in
Speaker 1: my days of fear flying, I had maladaptive habits I had.
Speaker 1: I had the habit of doing certain thinking which only
Speaker 1: increased my anxiety and panic on the flight. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't let it go because the reward I was getting
Speaker 1: was that I had convinced myself that I was inherently
Speaker 1: doing something dangerous and I survived it because I got lucky,
Speaker 1: you know, when the plane landed safely, and that all
Speaker 1: of my worrying was keeping me in reality. I had
Speaker 1: this very insistent thing that listen, nobody bullshit me here.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about everything's okay and blah blah.
Speaker 1: I'm going to face reality. You know. I know that
Speaker 1: wasn't even a question. It was just sort of a rant.
Speaker 1: And well, I think you're highlighting something that I think
Speaker 1: it's helpful to know, which is our brains love to
Speaker 1: make associations, right. One of the biggest ones that I
Speaker 1: see is performance anxiety, where people feel like, well, I
Speaker 1: was anxious and I performed well, so therefore anxiety helped
Speaker 1: me perform well. Wrong, actually wrong, dead wrong. There's no
Speaker 1: evidence to support the fact that anxiety makes people for
Speaker 1: perform better. In fact, there plenty of research showing that
Speaker 1: there's an inverse relationship, being the more anxious someone is,
Speaker 1: the worst they perform. Now, I don't know about you
Speaker 1: when you've performed, but the height, the peak of performance
Speaker 1: is when people talk about being in flow or being
Speaker 1: in the zone and how much anxiety is happening in
Speaker 1: those moments. Zer oh yes. And you know what's interesting
Speaker 1: you said that. I just figured it out now because
Speaker 1: I'm not, uh, honest to God as a performer. I
Speaker 1: really am not like this big, attention starved person. And
Speaker 1: so I used to think why the only place I'm
Speaker 1: not anxious is on stage? And it wasn't because I
Speaker 1: love the crowd and the applause. It's not that. It's
Speaker 1: what you're saying. I was in flow, um, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't really be anxious when you're I don't know,
Speaker 1: the bad word for that is happy. It's not happy.
Speaker 1: But when you're focused is way I think of this,
Speaker 1: and is you know in the way that Mehi chicks
Speaker 1: and Mohi was the psychologist that termed you know, the
Speaker 1: coin the term flow is that we're out of oursel
Speaker 1: we're outside of ourselves. Were merged with it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like action and events are merged into one where
Speaker 1: we lose a whole sense of who we are. We
Speaker 1: lose a sense of self. So he describes this as effortless.
Speaker 1: It's selfless, it's joyful, it's timeless, all these things that
Speaker 1: you talked about. And if you think of anxiety, so
Speaker 1: anxiety makes feels closed down, it feels contracted flow, it
Speaker 1: feels such the opposite. So expanded that you can think
Speaker 1: of anxiety, says okay, here I am because I'm feeling anxious.
Speaker 1: When we've expanded that to infinity, we lose a sense
Speaker 1: of where we end and where the rest of the
Speaker 1: world begins. And in fact, this is where my lab
Speaker 1: has done some research, some neuroscience research on this, where
Speaker 1: there's a part of the brain called the default one network,
Speaker 1: which is involved in self referential processing. Basically, when we're
Speaker 1: thinking about ourselves, it gets activated and it gets really active.
Speaker 1: You said, that's called the default network because it is
Speaker 1: what we default to. We're not doing, say anything else.
Speaker 1: In fact, it probably we're defaulting to this about fifty
Speaker 1: of waking life like this is this is the thinking
Speaker 1: about ourselves and how we feel and what we think
Speaker 1: and making our associations and all that. And so it
Speaker 1: gets activated when we're craving things for everything from cocaine
Speaker 1: to chocolate to gambling, and it gets activated when we worry.
Speaker 1: The more we worry, the more it gets activated. Yet
Speaker 1: when we so my lab studied experienced meditators, we find
Speaker 1: that experienced meditators decrease activity in that defaultment network. They're
Speaker 1: deactivating that network compared to everybody else. And in fact,
Speaker 1: we've even had folks get into flow while they're in
Speaker 1: the in our fm R I scanner and we can
Speaker 1: see their post their defaultment network. Parts of that brain,
Speaker 1: in particular the post your singulate cortex get really quiet
Speaker 1: when they're in flow. Anxiety bites will continue on the
Speaker 1: flip side of this message from our sponsors, This one
Speaker 1: is just sort of a comment, I guess. But you
Speaker 1: mentioned fun. You know, I think anxious people forget to
Speaker 1: have fun, you know, And and I love you talk
Speaker 1: a lot about in your book having a playful attitude, right, so,
Speaker 1: being curious about our thoughts and like you said, your
Speaker 1: your patient who said, oh, that's just my brain, you know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of the point of One of the underlying
Speaker 1: points of this podcast is like we can have some
Speaker 1: fun with our self diagnosed anxiety diagnoses. You know, um,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be I have anxiety. And so
Speaker 1: my point is like a little thing I do is
Speaker 1: I call my anxiety Lisa. So. I used to work
Speaker 1: at this office and the human resources woman was such
Speaker 1: a drama queen, and she would come to my desk
Speaker 1: and she would go Now, if I ask her, what's wrong, there,
Speaker 1: I go. She's often running. If I pretend I didn't
Speaker 1: hear her sighing, then she goes away. So my anxiety
Speaker 1: tries to get my attention. Hey, when are you gonna die?
Speaker 1: Hey you can't sleep tonight? Hey blah blah blah. That's
Speaker 1: Lisa sighing. I don't have to follow it down its road.
Speaker 1: I can just go, h, thanks for weighing in and
Speaker 1: and move on. Yeah, And you're giving a great example
Speaker 1: of how things like mindfulness training like we use in
Speaker 1: this Unwinning Anxiety app can help people get that perspective
Speaker 1: where if you can see anxiety as thoughts and emotions
Speaker 1: and body sensations, then you get perspective and you're no
Speaker 1: longer as identified with it. You know, in physics they
Speaker 1: call this observer effect. By observing, you're affecting the results.
Speaker 1: We can do that with our minds by seeing. And
Speaker 1: I love how you name it Lisa. You know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there is Lisa again as compared to you know, you
Speaker 1: are locking arms with Lisa and she's your she's grabbing
Speaker 1: you and dragging you along. It's like, oh, there it is. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's that thought, there's that body sensation and the oh
Speaker 1: that's really where the curiosity comes in. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this? So, for example, getting really curious when
Speaker 1: we're anxious, it's like, oh, there's restlessness, there's tightness, there's heat. Well,
Speaker 1: is it restlessness that equals anxiety? No, it's just restlessness.
Speaker 1: Is it heat? Well, now that's heat, is it? The
Speaker 1: you know, is that that burning quality of this rising
Speaker 1: my chest? Well, that's just burning rising my chest. So
Speaker 1: it's not that these are pleasant, but it helps us
Speaker 1: see that this big, bad concept of that we labeled
Speaker 1: anxiety is made up of physical sensations, and the more
Speaker 1: curious we get about them, the less identified we are
Speaker 1: with them. So you have this wonderful app called unwind
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at it right now, and you can
Speaker 1: do things like check in. So I'm checking in and
Speaker 1: it asked me how I'm feeling. I could put anxious,
Speaker 1: how anxious skill a one to tend hit next, and
Speaker 1: then you know, you might take me through. Okay, so
Speaker 1: bring your awareness to your thoughts, or it might give
Speaker 1: you a little breathing exercise. So I really highly recommend
Speaker 1: everyone get this app. And uh, I do mean this
Speaker 1: as a compliment, but one time I used it last
Speaker 1: week when I was feeling anxious, and I swear to God,
Speaker 1: all I had to do was and I didn't even
Speaker 1: end up doing anything because there's something in my brain
Speaker 1: that goes, well, there's an app for this, so what
Speaker 1: you have is normal and you just needed to check
Speaker 1: in and get out of the default mode you talk about.
Speaker 1: And then I didn't even end up checking and I
Speaker 1: just merely opening the app and knowing that there's a
Speaker 1: name for what I have, and it was enough for
Speaker 1: that day. I'm not recommending people don't use and that's
Speaker 1: you know, we've designed this with the world's worst business
Speaker 1: model in mind, which is we've designed this on winding
Speaker 1: anxiety app to help empower people to learn how their
Speaker 1: minds work and to work with their minds so that
Speaker 1: they can internalize the training, because we're not trying to
Speaker 1: get them to subscribe for life so we make more money.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a psychiatrist. I want to help people,
Speaker 1: and so the sooner somebody learns how to work with
Speaker 1: their mind, the less they actually need it. And like
Speaker 1: you're saying, just that association, like oh, I know how
Speaker 1: to work with my mind. Just having it there can
Speaker 1: help somebody, you know, once they've learned the tools, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like you've done a great job with this,
Speaker 1: they can internalize and use those tools whenever they need them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I noticed it just sort of stopped, even the
Speaker 1: physical sensation. So before we go, may I ask you
Speaker 1: to do a little a little play with me. It's
Speaker 1: an improvisational play. And uh okay, So I want to
Speaker 1: take someone through what they should do in a panic attack,
Speaker 1: right because and I know that we could have gone
Speaker 1: on and on about your meditation practice, and maybe you'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll talk about that. But it's really
Speaker 1: hard when you're in the middle of a panic attack
Speaker 1: to suddenly start meditating or you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just not gonna happen. Right. So, let's say I'm on
Speaker 1: an airplane and I'm having a panic attack, and you're
Speaker 1: next to me, you're my coach, and I begin So
Speaker 1: here it comes the sweaty palms, my heart's racing, and
Speaker 1: feeling feelings of unreality. I'm going to die. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: What do you say to me in that moment to
Speaker 1: get me to try to stop this attack? Yeah? So knowing, so,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say this. So in my mind as
Speaker 1: a neuroscientist, the first thing I'm going to think is
Speaker 1: this person is having a panic attack, so they're thinking
Speaker 1: and planning. Part of their brain is offline. They can't
Speaker 1: actually utilize their rational brain right now, So we're not
Speaker 1: going to go there. Okay. So you're sitting next to
Speaker 1: me and I say, okay, pull out your hand. We're
Speaker 1: going to do this practice called five finger breathing together.
Speaker 1: You want to do this, okay, but I can't breathe
Speaker 1: in short of breath. What do you mean, Take your
Speaker 1: index finger of one hand and put it at the
Speaker 1: outside of the base of your pinky of your other hand.
Speaker 1: Can you do that? Yeah, okay, I'll do that a while.
Speaker 1: The plane's crashing. So as you breathe in, trace up
Speaker 1: the outside of your pinky and feel what that feels like.
Speaker 1: Now pause there for a second. Now I should breathe
Speaker 1: in trace at the outside of your ring finger, long
Speaker 1: deep breath, as you breathe out, traced down the inside
Speaker 1: of your ring finger. And we're gonna do one more.
Speaker 1: As you breathe in trace up the outside of your
Speaker 1: middle finger, and as you breathe out, traced down the
Speaker 1: inside of your middle finger. And if we were doing this,
Speaker 1: we would keep going for five breasts up to your thumb,
Speaker 1: and we do another five breasts from your thumb back
Speaker 1: to your pinky. Yeah, so ten breaths of forcing your
Speaker 1: working memory, part of your brain to pay attention to
Speaker 1: four things at once. Okay, you're breathing rate your fingers,
Speaker 1: your index finger, and your pinky, and then also visually
Speaker 1: seeing your hands. Okay, those four things. Our brains can't
Speaker 1: hold much more in working memory than four things at once.
Speaker 1: So if we do that, it does multiple things. One
Speaker 1: is it forces us to see how quickly we're breathing.
Speaker 1: And typically when you're tracing up your finger, our breathing
Speaker 1: starts to slow down. Already. Typically, when we're anxious, we're
Speaker 1: gonna breathe rapidly, so it starts to slow down our breathing.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, it's it's like our brain
Speaker 1: has a certain amount of working memory. It crowds out
Speaker 1: the working memory from those anxious oots. So those anxious
Speaker 1: thoughts gets booted right, and when we take ten breasts,
Speaker 1: our physiology calms down and when those thoughts come back on.
Speaker 1: Now there's a mismatch in terms of arousal level. Our
Speaker 1: body is calmer. Those thoughts come in at a different
Speaker 1: arousal level, and they say, hey, we're supposed to be anxious,
Speaker 1: and our body says, well, I'm not actually feeling as
Speaker 1: anxious as I was. So it's easier to be able
Speaker 1: to watch those thoughts and just name, oh, there's Lisa
Speaker 1: or whatever and let them go rather than get caught
Speaker 1: up in them. Because if the arousal level is the
Speaker 1: same for the body and the thinking brain, they're gonna
Speaker 1: play off of each other and they're just gonna be like,
Speaker 1: I'm anxious. Oh yeah, I'm really anxious. Now I'm really
Speaker 1: you know, and they just go out back and forth
Speaker 1: with each other. So if your body is calm your
Speaker 1: anxious thoughts come in like a bunch of guys with
Speaker 1: a six pack and they're like, yeah, let's party. And
Speaker 1: they opened the door to the house and it's some
Speaker 1: old ladies knitting and they're like, She's like, oh, pull
Speaker 1: up its chair, I've got some yarn. Let's party. Well
Speaker 1: us And I know you have to go go be
Speaker 1: a real doctor here, but I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on anxiety Bites and being uh so informative.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Thanks for having him, Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: anxiety bis. I hope you enjoyed my chat with Dr
Speaker 1: Judd Brewer. So I made a list of some of
Speaker 1: the practical takeaways that we learned today if you want
Speaker 1: to refresh yourself. So number one is doctor Jedd said,
Speaker 1: the only certain thing is that there's always going to
Speaker 1: be uncertainty. So uncertainty is not something we want to
Speaker 1: evolve beyond because it helps us survive too. It's not
Speaker 1: just adrenaline that makes us anxious. It's a natural function
Speaker 1: of our mind to feel fear when the brain doesn't
Speaker 1: have accurate information, and it's a survival mechanism that helps
Speaker 1: us learn to avoid danger. Three worry can feedback and
Speaker 1: kick in our adrenaline, which makes us more anxious. For
Speaker 1: neuroscience may play a bigger role in helping people with anxiety. Then,
Speaker 1: going back to childhood in our therapy sessions. Five, habits
Speaker 1: are driven through rewards and how rewarding a behavior is.
Speaker 1: So that's going to drive a whether we perpetuate a
Speaker 1: behavior or not. But by the way, rewards can be disordered,
Speaker 1: and that's where it can get tricky. Six. The more
Speaker 1: you know about how your mind works, the more you'll
Speaker 1: be able to work with it. I think that was
Speaker 1: actually seven. I at some point I've lost to count here.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go back and re record this.
Speaker 1: I told you this podcast is nothing if not unpretentious.
Speaker 1: So whatever the next one is, the more quickly we
Speaker 1: can notice we're anxious, then the more we can get
Speaker 1: our thinking and planning brain online and get back on track.
Speaker 1: A habit is just automatic behavior, and some are healthy,
Speaker 1: are adaptive, and some are maladaptive. Like worry, worry doesn't
Speaker 1: help us solve problems. That actually moves us in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction, as worry makes the brain literally unable to think.
Speaker 1: There is no scientific evidence to support the notion that
Speaker 1: anxiety makes us perform better when in actuality the peak
Speaker 1: of performances when we are in the zone or what's
Speaker 1: called in flow, and the term flow means we are
Speaker 1: out of ourselves. It's effortless, selfless, joyful. Anxiety is constricted,
Speaker 1: flow is opposite. And lastly, anxiety is thoughts, emotions and
Speaker 1: body sensations. But you are not anxiety. Thanks again for
Speaker 1: listening to Anxiety Bites. Will see you next week and
Speaker 1: remember anxiety bites, but You're in control. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.