Anxiety Isn’t the Problem — It’s the Habit Loop Behind It
I recently had a conversation with psychiatrist and neuroscientist Jud Brewer that stopped me in my tracks — not because it was abstract or inspirational, but because it finally explained something I’ve lived with for decades.
Even in long-term sobriety.
Even with years of self-work, therapy, meetings, journaling, and personal development.
That thing is anxiety — and more specifically, how anxiety quietly turns into habits like worrying, overthinking, scrolling, information hoarding, procrastinating, and self-judgment.
What Dr. Brewer helped me see is this:
Anxiety isn’t a personal flaw.
It’s a learned habit loop.
And once I saw that clearly, everything changed.
Worry Is a Behavior — Not a Personality Trait
One of the most powerful reframes from our conversation was this:
Worry isn’t just a feeling — it’s something we do.
Anxiety shows up as a sensation in the body.
Worry is the mental behavior we use to try to control that sensation.
And here’s the trap:
Worry feels productive. It feels like we’re doing something. That tiny sense of relief is enough to reward the brain — which means the loop gets reinforced.
Anxiety → Worry → Temporary relief → Repeat
Over time, this becomes automatic. So automatic we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
That’s the definition of a habit.
Why “Why Am I Like This?” Keeps Us Stuck
As someone in recovery, I’m very familiar with the idea of “getting to the root cause.” Childhood trauma, identity, shame, conditioning — all of that matters.
But here’s what surprised me:
Dr. Brewer says the “why” is often the least important part when it comes to changing anxiety.
Not because the past doesn’t matter — but because focusing on why often keeps us stuck in our heads instead of helping us change what we’re doing right now.
When anxiety hits, the more helpful question isn’t:
“Why am I like this?”
It’s: “What am I getting from this behavior?”
That question shifts us from self-blame to curiosity — and curiosity is where real change begins.
The Default Mode Network (AKA: The Overthinking Machine)
We also talked about the brain’s default mode network — the system that activates when we’re not focused on a task.
This network lights up when we:
- Worry about the future
- Replay the past
- Judge ourselves
- Compare ourselves to others
- Crave, resist, or ruminate
In other words: it’s the “me, me, me” network.
When fear (an urge to act now) gets crossed with planning (thinking about the future), we get anxiety.
Anxiety doesn’t help us act.
It freezes us.
That’s why so many high-achievers know exactly what to do — and still don’t do it.
The Three Gears of Change (This Is the Part That Actually Helps)
Dr. Brewer’s work focuses on a simple but profound process he calls the three gears:
⚙️ Gear 1: Awareness
Notice the behavior.
Worrying.
Scrolling.
Self-judging.
Avoiding.
No fixing. No shaming. Just noticing.
If it’s automatic, it’s a habit — and habits can be changed.
⚙️ Gear 2: Ask “What Am I Getting From This?”
This is the most overlooked step.
Not:
- “What should I be doing?”
- “What’s wrong with me?”
- “Why can’t I just stop?”
But:
What is this giving me right now?
Safety?
Distraction?
Avoidance of shame?
Temporary relief?
When we see clearly that the reward is small — and the cost is high — the habit starts to lose its power.
⚙️ Gear 3: Find the Bigger, Better Offer
This is where things shift.
Instead of numbing, distracting, or fighting anxiety, we learn to meet it differently — and that feels better than the habit itself.
That’s where the RAIN practice comes in.
RAIN: A Way to Be With Anxiety Without Escaping It
RAIN stands for:
- R – Recognize what’s happening
- A – Allow it to be there
- I – Investigate with curiosity (What does this feel like in my body?)
- N – Note what’s happening moment to moment
Here’s the surprising part:
When we stop trying to get rid of anxiety and simply observe it, it often passes on its own.
Cravings peak and fall.
Sensations rise and fade.
Even when they feel like they’ll last forever — they don’t.
Action Steps (Try This This Week)
If anxiety, overthinking, or procrastination are showing up in your life, try this:
- Catch the Habit
Notice when anxiety turns into worrying, scrolling, or self-judgment. - Ask One Question
What am I getting from this right now? - Practice RAIN
Don’t fix. Don’t flee. Just observe. - Change the Language
Instead of “I am anxious,” try:
“I’m noticing anxiety in my body.” - Let the Wave Pass
You don’t have to do anything for it to end.
Resources Mentioned
- Unwinding Anxiety by Jud Brewer
- Trigger–Habit–Outcome Mapping (free worksheet referenced by Dr. Brewer)
- RAIN mindfulness practice – see below
- Going Beyond Anxiety program (Dr. Brewer’s advanced work)
- TedTalk with 23 Million Views
Final Thought
You’re not broken.
You’re not failing.
You’re not missing some secret piece of information.
Your brain learned a habit — and habits can be unlearned.
With awareness, curiosity, and kindness, anxiety doesn’t have to run your life.
It can become a signal — not a sentence.
Guest Contact Info: https://webapp.unwindinganxiety.com/
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Transcript:
Dr Jud Brewer
[00:00:00] Well, Dr. Judd, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I have so many questions. Um, I have been obsessed with your book, the Unwinding Anxiety. I am somebody who struggles with anxiety. I’ve been sober for 31 years, almost three, two years. But I look back and I feel like a lot of my root cause issues are around anxiety, and I’ve done.
You know, over, you know, 420 podcasts. I’ve done a lot around things like depression and focusing on different kinds of addictions. But I’m really super curious to know what you actually, I know a lot about what you think ’cause I am been going over the book and your unwinding anxiety app is super interesting to me.
I’m gonna totally dive into that too. But I, I just feel like anxiety is at the root of a lot of this and, but I thought, thought we could sort of start with [00:01:00] what is anxiety really? Yeah, that’s a great question. So if you look at the, some of the dictionary definitions, they circle around this feeling of nervousness or unease, and it typically is about something that’s about to happen in the future.
So I think of it functionally as fear of the future. And it’s interesting because it can be in the definition of anxiety is I think the word worry. You know? A feeling of worry. Yeah. Or being worried. And I say that because worrying is also a verb. And so we can feel worried and we can also worry. And in particular, and this is something I never learned in residency or medical school.
But the feeling of anxiety can trigger the mental behavior of worrying. And when those two dance. It is not [00:02:00] pretty because they start feeding off of each other. We feel anxious. We start worrying, oh no. And then that gives us a feeling of control. It’s more of an illusion of control ’cause it doesn’t really control anything.
’cause again, this is fear of the future, but it feels better than doing nothing and that better than nothing, feeling. Is rewarding enough to our brain so it feeds back and says, Hey, next time you feel anxious, you should worry some more. So it sets up this really nasty lube where we think, oh, this is, you know, this is helpful for me, or.
When it becomes really habitual. And I’ve had patients who describe it as they’re addicted to worrying. Yeah. Right. They just feel like this is who they are. They can never change. So there’s, how’s that for starters? It’s good. It was really good. I mean, this thing about worry is, as someone in long-term sobriety, I, I figured we kind of break this conversation now [00:03:00] too.
Addressing people who were sort of at the beginning of their sobriety journey and then long term as someone in long term worry has become this thing, you know, and I read the book now, the Habit Loops. I kind of wanna get into habit, change the three gears, but I do recognize that this worry sort of, I goes through that, um.
You know, the trigger, the behavior and the outcome. So for me, I get lost in the I, I feel anxious, so I start to feel like I should do something and worry it. It does feel like worry. And then I go into learning mode. Like I’m a self-help junkie, like I consume mass amount of information. Mm-hmm. And that kind of makes me feel better.
Mm-hmm. But I don’t always actually act on the information, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. Right. In the Parlin to 12 step, they always talk about self-knowledge avails as nothing, right? Because it’s really Yes. But if somebody is sort of like in this [00:04:00] anxious worry loop how would you begin to address that?
Well, let’s start with the information piece. And we might even look at that as an example where, our survival brains. Have evolved to really take in information and preference it because it’s helpful. You know, if you hear a rustling in the bushes, you can’t ignore it. You need to see, is that a predator?
Is that my. Is that my tribe mate, for example? And so our brains have really evolved to seek out and kind of lean into information. And there’s good research showing that, even non-human primates will forego food for information, right? So that’s how built into our. E evolution. It is, and I say that because you, you highlight this, you know, we look for information, information, information, but information can be like, you know, think of it as brain [00:05:00] candy, where it kind of Exactly.
It rots our brains. And because we can, we can try to fill our brains with concepts. Yeah. We need to bridge that into wisdom and the only way to bridge concept to wisdom is through experience. Mm-hmm. Right. You know, again, it goes to the information avails us nothing. We can know something in our head, but it’s not actually our thinking brain that changes behavior is our feeling body.
Mm-hmm. Our feeling body is much stronger than our thinking brain. If our thinking brain were really strong. You know, my clinic would look very different. You know, patient would come in and they’d say, I wanna stop smoking. I would say, stop smoking. I know, that’s so annoying. Stop drinking, stop scrolling.
It doesn’t go life. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. No, it doesn’t work that way. So that’s where, the, I think it’s important to start there because we often get stuck in these. You know, think of it as a self el habitot loop, where we [00:06:00] think, oh, if I just get one more book or one more podcast, or one more whatever, you know, it’ll be the magic bullet.
You know, I just, I have a patient who just described me, I call it the shiny object syndrome. Yeah. Where she was doing literally five different programs for anxiety at the same time. Yeah. I’m not kidding you. It was five or six. It was ridiculous. Bless her heart. Yeah, I know. And she, you know, she admitted, and this is what we worked on right at the beginning, like how do you start was like seeing that she is just running and running and running where it’s this next thing promises this and this next thing promises, you know, you’re going to regulate your adrenal glands and this one’s going to help your vagus nerve.
And they all sound very scientific. But if you look at it, they’re not actually getting at the root cause of the anxiety itself. Yeah, I mean, your vagus nerve runs basically your entire body and to stimulate your vagus nerve and think that’s gonna give you something specific is kind of [00:07:00] ridiculous.
You know, just looking at it at face value. Yeah, that’s, no, that’s really interesting. You know, listen, I have a lot of empathy for people like that makes me sad to hear her hear that. She’s like trying. So hard to, here’s the trap. It’s like the figure it out trap. Yes. Yes. Trying to figure it out. Mm-hmm. And, uh, so often, like I experience it, the people I work with experience this idea of, I just wanna figure it out, like there’s a missing piece.
And that somehow if we figure out the missing piece, then we’ll be okay. Mm-hmm. Or I don’t even know what the end result is. It’s like then I’ll be achieved my goal. But it’s like the if and then trap. It’s like, if I do this, then I’ll feel that. Yeah. And so. Uh, you looked like you were gonna say something.
Well, I was gonna say, I think the figure it out trap is a big one. I see this all the time. Yeah. And whether it was my patient or you know, 12 others that I can think of, the figure it out is where we’re stuck in our head still. Okay. And [00:08:00] we’re thinking that there’s some magic bullet that’s gonna solve everything.
Yeah. If we take anxiety, there’s actually quite a bit of research that shows. That, you know, if you just take it at the level of, okay, habit loop anxiety forms a habit loop. Yeah. So we’ve done a decade’s worth of research, for example, that shows if you actually target it as a habit, you can get really far.
You know, we had a randomized controlled trial of people with generalized anxiety disorder and we got a 67% reduction in anxiety. Compared to 14% of the people doing whatever usual clinical care is out there, you know, whether it’s medications or psychotherapy or both. So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s interesting that people keep looking, you know, the figure it out is out there.
Mm-hmm. And there’s not a, you know, it kind of floods out the actual science that says, you know what, there’s a lot that’s already figured out here. [00:09:00] But people are, they’d rather have that something that sounds really magical than the thing that actually works. I have a t-shirt that somebody gave me that says science like magic, but reals.
Like magic but real. I mean it’s, you know, it’s so funny though. It’s like. You know, as I consume information, like I’m listening to your book and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I like sent it to a bunch of my friends and it was like, we need to try to do this together. I’m always like a, a group, I’m a group exercise girl.
Whether it’s like Pilates or whatever, it’s like even in mental health, I’m like, let’s just do this as a group. But I’m afraid I’m gonna get stuck. And like, you get the dopamine hit, like, oh my God, this is the answer. And then, um, I feel good. And then I just go about my life. Do you know what I mean?
It’s like, yeah, how do I get from the knowing to the doing? Yeah. It’s a great question. Well, the first step I [00:10:00] think, for a lot of change is to see what the thing is, right? What the, let’s. Let’s say what the habit loop is. So again, if we focus in on anxiety, a lot of people just wake up and they feel like they have anxiety.
They don’t know where it comes from. They go looking, you know, this is the fix it. If I could just figure out what it’s, where it’s coming from, why I’m anxious, then I could solve it. Yeah. And in fact, the why is, this might sound crazy, but the why is the least important part of the equation. That’s.
Isn’t that crazy? Yeah. Well listen, it’s amazing to hear that. That was actually one of the questions I was gonna ask you. It’s like the Y trap. It’s like, I hear this a lot in people who are trying to recover from alcoholism and addictions or whatever. Why am I like this? Why did this happen to me? Why, why?
How did I get here? Type it’s the why question. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, I feel like that causes a lot of. Stress in itself that causes a lot of anxiety because it’s sort of reinforcing this idea that I’m broken or that I’m [00:11:00] bad, and do you know what I mean? Absolutely. And I think that’s how a lot of people describe it, is they feel like they’re broken.
Yeah. They feel like something happened to them and because something happened to them, they’re always going to be this way. And that’s really important to, we need to honor our past. Like not to say, oh, that was a good thing. You know, typically the reason that we’re anxious or, or drinking or whatever is because some we’re trying to escape something.
Right. Or form the habit around, like that was the coping mechanism. So I, mm-hmm. I had a patient who had some really severe trauma as a kid, and the only thing he had control over at the time was his mind. So he started worrying, and worrying became the thing that he could do, that nobody could stop him from doing.
Right. But the worrying didn’t, didn’t keep him safe. And yet, 60 years. Later, so it was close to 50 or 60 years later, it was like half a century later, he’s [00:12:00] realizing that he’s been stuck in this worry loop for half a century and that the worrying is not helping. And so the why is there, but there’s it’s way in the past and really it shifts once we can recognize, okay.
That’s, and he had to honor his childhood self. It wasn’t about, you know, negating what he tried to do as a kid and the only thing he knew how to do. So honoring that helped him see that that was like a pair of shoes that no longer fit, right? Mm-hmm. He’d warned them as a kid. They were worn out and they were hurting his feet.
Hurting his brain. So here, honoring that and seeing it’s not the why doesn’t matter as much as what am I doing to keep it going right now? And that puts us back in the driver’s seat where we can honor what we can do now, which is to see what our brain is doing, see that it’s a habit, and then [00:13:00] be able to move forward and step out of it.
Because that’s the only thing we have control over is what’s happening right now. We don’t have control over the past. Yeah. That’s so interesting because a lot of what you hear in addiction recovery is about getting to root cause and it’s often, related to childhood trauma. Mm-hmm. And so is there a line.
I’m sure it’s different for everybody. You know, addiction’s so complicated. But is there a time or a place or a point where we need to stop talking about the childhood trauma? Is that, is that a pro like Yeah. When do we cross the line to. You hear, you know what I mean, where I’m going with this.
Mm-hmm. It’s like, you know, childhood abuse, like that’s really serious. I hear you’re saying, you know, we honor that. And it’s like, that is why like your neurology is shaped by traumatic experiences and so mm-hmm. When you get the trigger, and we should probably talk about the trigger. Habit outcome mapping.
[00:14:00] I’m sure we’ll get there, but yeah, we can get there. But I would say it’s important to start here, and I’m gonna take a pretty radical stance, but I think the science backs it up, which is that we can actually become identified with our trauma. Mm-hmm. And so it’s very different to. Honor ourselves and the, and the best that we could do at the time, and that it’s not our fault.
It wasn’t our fault. You know, when somebody did something or something happened to us, that’s not something that we asked to have happened, right? Those are things that have happened. So we, we honor the fact that we, you know, it wasn’t our fault that we didn’t have control over those things, and importantly, we checked to see how much we’re wearing that, like an identity.
Right, because that can get in the way. It’s like those shoes or a sweater that we worn for a long time where, you know, may maybe it helped us connect with others, other trauma survivors, for [00:15:00] example, maybe it’s Rewar had some type of reward in some other way that we’re not even. We are not even able to see what it is anymore because it’s so habitual.
Right? Yeah. It’s just who we feel like we are. And I see this a lot where, you know, at first when I even suggest that to patients, they’ll shrink back because they’re so identified with their trauma. Yeah. It takes a little bit of while. A little while to really help people like, look, we’re, you know, this is a, this is a safe space to work with this.
And to help them see that they’re actually holding themselves back. Yeah. Which again, can sound radical, but if you look at it from a process standpoint, it’s really important to see that like the only way to move forward is to let go of the past. Right. And if somebody’s very identified with the past, it can be very scary to move forward because they’re not [00:16:00] sure what’s next.
They, I had a patient, yeah, that’s it. Who said, I’m not sure who I am anymore. When she became, when she was able to let, and this was a good thing, she was scared, but it was also good. Yeah. Yeah. Because she’s like, I, ’cause I spend so much time identified as this and now I’m not. I don’t know who I am anymore, and that was actually a good sign that she was making really good progress.
But we have to first, you know, be willing to challenge these old assumptions. And there are, you know, there are very popular, uh. Methods and books out there right now that are inadvertently encouraging people to hold that identity, which can be, not helpful for people. So I think that’s the first piece, is to be able to recognize, am I identified with that trauma?
If we can see that, then we can start to ask. Is this identification helping me, which actually gets into the process that we’ll talk about in a [00:17:00] minute about how to, how to work with this. And if we see that it’s not helping, that helps us loosen our grip on it as compared to it having a grip on us, us that identifi, that identification is us, right?
We’re holding on to something when we hold on. We can’t let go to move on. And that’s a critical piece, so I just wanna highlight that because that’s not often talked about. No, it’s not. Yeah, I, um, was hearing a lot in the book about reinforcing these habit loops. And you know, it’s so interesting because in addiction recovery they, one of the biggest components is community.
And community is often revolved around identity. Like in 12 Step I am an alcoholic type of thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And for me, like that definition of what that means has radically changed. Right. Like to me, I’m like, how has it, yeah. Say more. Well, I think it, I think in mainstream, [00:18:00] people see alcoholic as a negative connotation to it.
Like, low moral character, weak willed, um, flawed human, just really bad, right? You make really. And to be fair, like we make really bad choices when we’re under the influence and making bad choices. Like it’s insanity to people who don’t know what it’s like. They, you know, these choices that we make.
So, so I get it. However, like I, in recovery, when I hear somebody say that they’re an alcoholic, I go, oh, that’s a badass. That is somebody who is, has like faced their worst fears, who is practicing a set of principles that are very difficult because it like challenges. Everything inside you, you know? And 12 Step is challenging in a lot of ways because it, it forces you to confront like your limiting beliefs.
And these are things mm-hmm. That like alcohol was a thing that saved me, but at some point, like my savior became my executioner type of thing. [00:19:00] Mm-hmm. Right. And so people who are willing to let go of the thi one thing that they think is helping them, uh, I think that is a huge act of courage. Yeah.
Absolutely. You know, and facing up and taking ownership over, you know, the, the things that we’ve done that we might not be proud of. Oh yeah. I mean, that’s putting it lightly. Like I feel like the shame component and addiction recovery is huge. And you do talk a lot about that in the book in terms of self-judgment.
Mm-hmm. And that’s. But anyway, uh, back to the definitions of like how we identify. So although I still sort of use this label of alcoholic, I actually feel like I’ve recovered from alcoholism. That’s kind of how I think about it. But, you know, I go to meetings, I’ll just say it ’cause I wanna fit in, but whatever.
But yeah, so I, when I was getting sober, I had this [00:20:00] identity of party, fun party girl. Mm-hmm. And when I was like, oh my God, I cannot do this anymore. It’s like, well then who am I? Like I had that moment was like, well, who am I if I’m not? ’cause I was like the center of my world. Who am I if I’m not gonna be all those things.
And it was a scary proposition to think about who I was going to evolve into. And one of the things they were like, oh, look at the people that you admire. You know, if you spot it, you got it. If you see a character asset in somebody else, it’s it’s because you have it type of thing. And so that was kind of my way out of that fearful place of who am I without this?
Yeah. It’s a really important point because it lets us let go of the past. Yeah. And opens huge possibilities for the future. That’s interesting ’cause I was gonna ask you how do we let go and, and you mentioned first recognizing that the identity is no longer serving us. And, and I see people even, [00:21:00] you know, once they sort of solve the drink problem then all the reasons that compelled them to the drink to drink in the first plate come comes to the surface.
Mm-hmm. And um. And that’s a lot of identity too. Like I’m not good enough, which is I, when I reached out to you, I was like, how do we solve this problem of believing that we’re not good enough? It’s if it’s so deeply entrenched and maybe reinforced by. You know, like people who are trying to help us, but they’re saying, oh, you’re messed up because you have childhood trauma.
You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. How do we get outta that? Can you please fix this? That’d be amazing. Yeah. There are several aspects here. If we just take the, the self. Talk piece of it. Right. Okay. The I’m not good enough. Yeah. And actually let’s use this as an example of how to, to work this process that, you know, the one that my labs have been studying for the last decade.
The first step in this is being able to identify [00:22:00] what the loop is. Okay. And so we can even zoom in on what’s the behavior. So a behavior might be worrying, as we talked about earlier, and that behavior might also be self-judgment. I’m not good enough. So if we take that behavior and we can trace it back to whatever triggered it and the triggers actually aren’t that important oh, and, and they can be myriad.
There can be a number of different triggers, but that’s not actually what causes behavior change. So we don’t even need to focus too much there. ’cause people get stuck in the triggers. That’s the why piece. Right. You know, oh, why is this happening? Oh, okay. So it’s actually helpful to remember and hold that part lightly.
You know, in mapping out these habit loops around whatever it is, let’s again use self-judgment. So if we take self-judgment, something might’ve triggered it. Like we see somebody on social media that’s doing well and we compare ourselves to them and we think, oh, I’m not good enough. And then the behavior being that self-judgment leads to a result, [00:23:00] and that result could be.
I don’t know what’s a typical result when somebody thinks I’m not good enough? I would say, and chime in here, I’m curious what the top of your mind is, but I would say it, it’s like kind of like we’re punching ourselves in the stomach.
Yeah. I mean, how would you describe it? Yeah. Tell when you say I’m not good enough. Tell people Yeah. Tell people you can’t hit yourself well, but it’s I feel like what, like the self-judgment and things like that, the not good enough. It happens so fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens so quickly that I’m not even aware that I’m doing it.
Right? Mm-hmm. And so, um, uh, and that’s the definition of a habit. It’s so automatic that we’re not even aware of it. Okay, so you just, you just named it. That’s a habit in a nutshell. Not aware of it. It’s so automatic. Yeah. Yeah. I think the social, like I had to take all the social media off my phone ’cause it was making me crazy.
’cause I’m like this achievement junkie and never any, nothing I do is ever good enough. It’s not, do you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s so, I make myself [00:24:00] crazy. But I see something, I feel like this burning, it feels like envy, like Burn with Envy. Mm-hmm. Which is an embarrass. It’s embarrassing to say that out loud, but that’s what, ha, this is what happening.
This is honestly what’s happening. I see something burn with envy and then I go, I’m not good enough. And then I go, oh, I must be missing some information. So I go to my favorite drug, which is. Podcast youth, like consuming self-help information. And I don’t have to feel the it feels like deep shame.
It feels like, oh man. It’s like, no matter how hard I try and I do get stuck in that, and then I learn something and then I get all inspired. I go, okay, I am gonna do some stuff. And, and sometimes I do the stuff and sometimes I don’t. But then I, but the, but I think I, my suspicion. And I so curious what you would think about this, but my suspicion is that it, I distract [00:25:00] myself long enough for that burning envy, terrible shammy, feeling subsides.
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. That’s, Cornell West had a great. Term for our phones, these weapons of mass distraction. Yeah. Isn’t that what addiction is? Yeah. In its essence is all addictions are distractions. Yeah. Yeah. Because we’re from pain, we can’t resolve Exactly. Well pain. So it’s interesting. Pain that we can’t resolve really, you know?
Is it pain that we can’t resolve? It’s painful for sure. Yeah. And it feels like it’s gonna last forever. You know, I had a patient who came into my office who told me, he said, doc, I feel like my head’s going to explode. Yeah. Right. So that pain can feel so painful that it’s feels, and I’m laughing because I’m thinking of all the patients.
He feels his head. Yeah. Yeah. He feels it in his head. And I’m thinking of what number of patients have come in and said, [00:26:00] feel doc, I feel like this craving is gonna last forever. Yeah. And then I ask them, how many cravings do you have now that have lasted forever? ’cause they still have it, right? And then, then it quickly burst the bubble.
But it feels like these things last forever. And so that feeling of last forever, gets in our head to the point where we feel like our head’s going to explode and then we do something to make it go away. Thinking that that was the only thing that would keep it from lasting forever. Which is absolutely not true.
I actually have my patients time, their cravings now. Oh, really? Yeah. You ready? Because just they gotta prove it to themselves to see how long these cravings actually last. Yeah. Whether it’s food, whether it’s cigarettes, whether it’s other, yeah. Whatever it is that the record. Would you wanna guess, how long has somebody’s record craving lasted?
Oh my gosh. Is it gonna be like five minutes, 13 minutes? [00:27:00] Ooh, that’s the record. Over years. Over years. And that’s the record. Yeah. It’s not that long. 13 minutes. Yep. Lucky 13. Yeah. I didn’t even think about that. But it, it highlights how like it can feel like these things last forever. But if we learn how to work with them and be with them and meet them differently instead of running away from them or fighting them.
Yeah. Or just, rolling over and saying, okay, craving, you got me. You know, and letting, letting them consume us. Yeah. It’s really about meeting our experience differently and that’s where mm-hmm. This process comes in. But go ahead. Meeting the experience differently. Yeah. I, I was thinking, I was trying to think of my own experience when I was trying to resist doing something.
You know, there’s this term that you’re jonesing. Mm-hmm. Like that, that really deep, it’s like, and it’s, [00:28:00] um, I want to do this thing really bad. You know, so typically one or two things happen. You get the fuck it’s, and you just do it. Yep. And then that kicks off the shame judgment. You know, like, see I am this POS that I think I am, I am not good enough.
Mm-hmm. Or, um, I have on occasion, like when it comes to the comparison trap, like not good enough. It’s like. I’m trying to do something. I can’t seem to figure it out, and I just feel this shame and I go, okay, I know shame’s not gonna kill me, but it’s like, there’s like a story that comes to explain why I can’t figure out, and it’s never in my favor.
Mm-hmm. Not smart enough. I’m not talented enough, I’m just not enough. Like I, I can’t figure it out. I’m always gonna be this way. And I go, okay, can I just. Sit with this feeling and it sucks. [00:29:00] Mm-hmm. It’s really hard. Yeah. Do you know what happens is I go, you know what? Forget it. I’m fine. I have enough money.
My life is good. I’m just gonna coast. But that is such a lie because that is not in my nature to just chill. I have no chill like I need. I like to be cra, do you know what I mean? Like, oh, I feel so crazy sometimes. But this is sort of at the crux of why I feel like this is all, this must all be anxiety.
’cause it’s all future pacing. And then I go, oh, why am I like this? Here we go. There’s the why again, right? Yeah. Why, why, why? Yeah. And all of these, whether it’s worrying, whether it’s jonesing, whether it’s resisting a craving. Yeah. Resisting. All of those activate a similar network of brain regions called the default mode network.
And it, it’s funny that this was coined by, back in the year 2000, right around there by Marcus Rale at at Washington [00:30:00] University in St. Louis. And he. He just called it the default mode network. ’cause they, they had just discovered it. They didn’t really know what it did. But it seems to be what we default to when we’re not doing anything else.
And what we default to, it turns out is we think about ourselves. Oh, it’s a self-referential network, so Oh, self-centeredness. Yep. If we’re worrying about the future, if we’re craving something, if we are resisting something, if we are judging ourselves, all of those have one, two letter word in common. Dr.
That’s very rude. I feel so called out right now.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, but that’s sort of what it, you know, when I’m having the feeling, it feels like panicky. Like, I, I need to move, I need to do something. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There feels like there’s some sort of danger happening and that nothing’s happening. Everything’s fine. You’re touching [00:31:00] on something really important though.
This is a miswiring of our evolutionary systems. Mm. That are designed to keep us safe and also designed to help us plan for the future. So fear that is itchy urge that says, do something right now. Helps us when we’re in danger right now. Yeah. If you cross that wire with planning, which helps us plan for the future, and you start worrying about the future, now we’re afraid of something that might happen in the future, but we don’t have control over the future, and worrying is very different than planning.
Just feel into both. I’d be curious, how would you describe the feeling of worry versus the feeling of planning? Okay, this is so interesting. ’cause yesterday I did a goal setting workshop, right? So it’s, I have a goal and then it’s do the plan and then create a system so that you know you enjoy.
It’s like a James Clear thing. Oh, you gotta enjoy this [00:32:00] system. How can we do this? Percent, I have 5% more fun. So I was like, okay, today’s Monday I have my goal, my plan, and which is the tasks I’m supposed to do. And then a system. I haven’t quite, mapped it all out yet, but I woke up this morning going, oh shit, I don’t how to do all this stuff.
I don’t know how it’s all going to work out for next. Like, I have all these plans for next year. At the end of the year, everyone’s looking at the. And, uh, yeah, I feel terrified. I’m just like trying to do something different. And everything in me is like, oh, you know what? Let me just check my email first.
Lemme just check this thing on social media first. Let me just like, suddenly I need to shine my tennis shoes. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, um. Yeah, so I’m experiencing like this anxious feeling because I don’t, maybe I don’t have the identity of what a [00:33:00] successful outcome or like identified successful business woman, what that would look like or feel like, or am I even capable of any of that?
Yeah. Yeah, so is that what you’re asking me? It kind of went off on a tangent. Well, just, so if you take the planning piece of that, ah, and then you take the worrying about the future piece of that, how would you describe each of those and what the difference between those is? About the planning and the worry.
Yeah. The planning is the actions I’m going to take, which feels like creative and exciting. And then the other part of actually doing it, I feel so much anxiety around that. Ain’t like I’m a, I’m scared. Yeah. So that I’m scared. Feels very different than planning. Right? Yeah. And that’s where those two, the fear plus.
Planning equal [00:34:00] anxiety. That’s fear of the future and it, yeah. And does that anxiety help you get stuff done? No. Yeah. It doesn’t make me wanna do anything. Anxiety freezes us in our tracks at the bar of the spectrum is panic. Yeah. It feels panicky. Like I can feel panicky right now. Yeah, yeah.
So not a good evolutionary strategy. Panic is not a good one. No. Yeah. So we become that lemming that runs off the cliff with all the rest of the, uh, the lemmings. Not a good strategy, you know? No, no. So we’re high. I’m highlighting that because this, it’s important to be able to see, for anybody, to be able to see what’s helpful and what’s not helpful, and that’s where the asking simple questions like, what am I getting from this?
Is a really good place to help us move forward, which is the second step in our process. So if we look at, you know, the first step is being able to identify what the [00:35:00] behavior is. Is that the first gear? Yeah, that’s first gear. And you mentioned earlier I. You might judge yourself so quickly and so automatically that you don’t even notice it.
It’s a habit, right? Yeah. So we have to bring these habits back into our conscious awareness. Otherwise we can’t work with them. They’re just gonna keep running us, right? Yeah. Once they become, so once we get into first gear, that’s about just seeing the behavior, then we can shift into second gear and ask, what am I getting from this?
Right. Not in a way that we can judge ourselves more, but really in a curious way. Like, well, what is this truly getting me? If I’ve set up this whole plan for success in 26 or whatever, what do I get when I’m panicked that I can’t do it or I can’t succeed? What do I get when I’m just anxiously looking at the plan and then checking my social media?
We get to step back and see how rewarding it is. [00:36:00] To do these habitual behaviors that are getting in the way. It’s important to do that because this helps us step back from the myth of willpower thinking, oh, I just don’t have enough willpower, and really step into what’s happening, which is, well, I’m getting distracted by this stuff that in the moment feels better.
But when I look at it, even in the moment, it doesn’t feel that great. Yeah, yeah. Team scrolling is terrible. Yeah. So we become disenchanted with those behaviors, and that’s the really critical and counterintuitive step for moving forward. It’s the question, uh, what do I get from this? That’s sort of during indulgence.
Yes. So to speak. Yes. Yeah. I mean, my answer to that would be like, safety. Like I don’t have to feel like a failure. I don’t have to feel bad about not being good enough. Like if I just do nothing, there’s really no risk there. I get to be safe. Yeah. Yeah. [00:37:00] And so safe doesn’t get us very far, right? We’re stuck.
No. Yes. We’d go hiding out in the cave for the rest of our lives. Yeah. That’s the analysis. Yeah. Analysis paralysis, the mm-hmm. Yeah. So the, so getting out of stuck is first the awareness, the, is that first gear Aware. Of the habit. Of the habit there. Mm-hmm. And then what is the, we mentioned retrospective second gear.
Is that like learning from your experience or is there a just second gear? Well, second gear writ large is asking the simple question, what am I getting from this behavior? Okay, that’s second gear. Yeah. Okay. But we, and I use retrospective especially in people who struggle with addiction with intoxicants say, yeah.
Because if we’re intoxicated. By definition, it’s gonna be very hard to be asking that question [00:38:00] without slurring our words, so to speak. Right? Yeah. You can’t think straight. Yeah, right. We can’t think straight. So we can look at it afterwards. Afterwards and ask ourselves and look back on typically the wreckage, right?
Yeah. Sometimes literally, and ask, what did I get from that? You know? That really is helpful to remind us that we don’t have to go and do the thing again to learn. Okay. If we’ve done it a thousand times before, we’ve collected a lot of data, a lot of evidence. Yeah. We’ve got all that evidence so we can look back on it and say, okay, what’s the common result of all this evidence?
Well, typically we can see that it’s not very good. This is where, what is it? I, I always forget the steps. This is the fourth step where somebody takes, uh, inventory. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Searching moral or less, uh, searching and fearless moral inventory. Yeah, and if you look at one of the results of doing that inventory, it’s really looking back and asking what did I get [00:39:00] from all the stuff that I did?
Kind of, i, I like the, uh, so in the, like, for those who are listening who are not familiar, it’s like, who am I resentful at? What was this? Get really specific about the cause, how am I affected and what is my part? So I, one of the, one of this I’m curious there’s a lot of controversy is like, do you put yourself on your inventory list?
Hmm. Like, are you resentful at yourself? Like, some people are like, oh, don’t put yourself on there. You’ve already been beating yourself up enough. You don’t need to do that. But I wonder if there is an appropriate use for, is this like where retrospective second gear might be helpful? Where you just you go, okay, I’m resentful at myself.
’cause I drank at that company dinner. I made an ass on myself. How has I affected, it’s like, well, I am probably gonna lose my all right. You know, I embarrassed myself, ruined my reputation, whatever. And then what is my part in it? And I think, well, I drank, [00:40:00] you know, so it’s mm-hmm. Sort of a, it’s like my fault, like I think the tempation would be to go into shame.
How do you think about that? About the shame piece or the, and I’m also thinking, is there another step bef, maybe it’s the third step where we’re really looking very clearly and very soberly at all the results of our actions. Yeah, that’s, that’s, it’s sort of like in the fourth column of the inventory.
Okay. Like when, like, so for instance, where it was helpful for me was, um, uh. Like, I felt like a victim, so I was mad at somebody because of how they treated me and got specific about the cause and realized, you know, my personal relationship was affected, my self-esteem was affected. But then we get to the fourth column, it’s like, oh, I did something to provoke them.
So it’s like, oh, I’m the jerk in this situation. And so it’s like, oh, I can take responsibility and maybe not be so reactive or angry or blamey or victimy [00:41:00] to provoke that response. So it kind of unwinds all that. Yeah. Yeah. And then even looking specifically at the results, let’s say drinking. Right? Okay.
If we make a column for, I drank in all these situations. Mm-hmm. And then we look at the do another column for what are all the results of Yeah. Those situations in which I drank or used or whatever. Yeah. Then we can see, start to draw straight lines to be able to see very clearly how rewarding that behavior was.
Right. So, I don’t know, simple example, not to oversimplify it, but somebody has social anxiety. And they drink in social situations to Yes. Numb themselves or alleviate that anxiety. Very common. Yeah. And then they drink too much and, you know, list all the things, you know, make an ass on themselves. Do something worse, drive drunk.
Yep. All those things get into fights. Yeah. I’m thinking of one of my [00:42:00] patients who she had so much social anxiety as she described it. She used to pre-party to go to the grocery store. Oh yeah. That bad. Wow. Starting in her twenties and she was in her late forties when we started working together, and she was totally embarrassed about all the things she did.
With her teenagers. I’m thinking of another two of two patients, very similar, similar ages. And the seeing, looking at those results retrospectively Right. To really Okay. Own that behavior. Mm-hmm. Was really helpful for both of them in being able to step out of the cycle. And so when they would wake up in the morning.
I would have them compare what it was like to wake up and look back on the night before and feel guilty and ashamed of themselves. Mm-hmm. What it would feel like to wake up with the hangover, which also is anxiety pro producing because it doesn’t feel good. And then compare that to what it was like to wake up.
When [00:43:00] they didn’t drink the night before and how they, their interactions with their children went, how they felt in the moment and all of that. And it’s a no brainer. It feels so much better to wake up sober. And so to go back to this retrospective second gear, once we have some distance between ourselves and the behavior, we can then look back and say, okay, what did I really get from that behavior?
You know, drinking of, you know, shaming, beating ourselves up, judging ourselves, any of these things. Mm-hmm. When we can see that clearly, we can see first that those things were not actually helping us live a good life. Yeah. And then also we’re living a much better life right now, even if it’s not the Instagram perfect life, which there is no such thing.
It’s all carry in office, right? It’s all ps, but which is also gives more social anxiety and FOMO and all that stuff. Yeah. Uh, but we can see, you know, this is better than that. What it was, and [00:44:00] this, I, this is the third gear, is finding that bigger, better offer oh. Being sober, being not judging myself is better.
It feels better than drinking, than judging myself, and it also helps us be able to wake up and meet our needs. So if we have anxiety, we can actually work with the anxiety itself instead of numbing it with whatever behaviors we do to distract ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that is the key. You know, we, we call it like emotion management.
Mm-hmm. It’s like we have these cravings, this anxiety, like you said, it feels like it’s going to last forever. Or maybe just the intensity is people feel the intensity of the shame, or the guilt or the anxiety and the intensity feels so strong that’s when the compulsion habit hap happens. Mm-hmm. [00:45:00] So how do I, I feel like maybe we need a little recap.
’cause I, I feel like I’m all over the place today. How do we sort of begin the process? Just sort of as a little recap? Yeah. The first step is really just recognizing whatever the behavior or behaviors are. Is that where the mind mapping comes in? The Absolutely. I, by the way, I did download the worksheet of the trigger habit outcome, and it’s been, yeah, I’m gonna keep doing it ’cause it’s super good.
Oh great. Yeah. That was so helpful for my patients. We just put together a free website. I think it’s on my Dr. Judd website, but it’s also, it is, yeah. Yeah, I think it’s, I downloaded the PDF right off the website, which was Oh, yeah, yeah. Plug for the website was amazing. Yeah. So I’m, I’m still working with that because I feel like.
It like, as I go through my day, it takes a lot of conscious awareness to be like, okay, I am feeling the tightness in my chest. I’m feeling the panic rising. I’m feeling the urge to go on [00:46:00] TikTok or, you know, go do something else other than what I feel like I think I wanna do. Yeah. And then so to, uh, maybe this is a good time to talk about the rain.
I, I, it’s, uh, yes. Was it recognize, allow notice. Investigate and note. Mm-hmm. Investigate and note. Yeah, so just going back to the recap piece, so if we recognize what the behavior is, that’s the first gear. The second gear is spending a little bit of time asking, what did I get from this, whether it’s right now or last time.
That helps us become disenchanted and then we can bring in this rain practice. And the rain practice is really helpful as. To help us learn to relate to our experience differently. Oh, okay. Yeah. This relate to the experience differently. Yes. Yeah. That’s changing the story of like, instead of identifying, I, like I have a bad experience and then I go, oh, I’m broken.
I’m not good enough, blah, [00:47:00] blah. So it’s, that’s where it starts to change Yes. The identity piece. Okay. So it helps us be less identified with our experience. Whether it’s. Trauma or somebody who’s no good or whatever, whatever story we have of ourselves. We see that that story’s not helping us live a good life.
And so we recognize, oh, here’s the story again. That’s the R in rain, we allow ourselves. To acknowledge or even acknowledge, right? It, it’s as simple as acknowledging, okay, here’s this story, right? Instead of ignoring it or running away from it or pushing it away so that we can B with our experience, B with our thoughts, B, with our physical sensations and the A.
So that’s the A for allow or acknowledge the I is for investigating. This is where we bring in our superpower of curiosity, so we get, oh, thank you. Oh, what does this feel like in my body right now? And then the N is for note [00:48:00] where we can note our experience from moment to moment. I’ll give an example with my patient who came in and said, doc, my head’s going to explode.
I actually walked him through this practice kind of in real time. And I had him describe out loud what his physical sensations of head exploding were like, you know, we’re gonna capture this. If his head was gonna explode, at least we’d know exactly what caused his head to explode. So he started describing his physical sensations, tightness, tension burning, heat, restlessness, all this stuff.
And the intensity went up and I was drawing this on my whiteboard in terms of the level of intensity. And then at some point it peaked and then it started to go down and his eyes got really wide. And I said, what did you just notice? And he said, well, I always smoke before my head explodes. Right? ’cause for obvious reasons, nobody wants their head to explode.
But he realized he didn’t have to smoke. It was like the first time he had not smoked and noticed that the [00:49:00] craving started to go away on its own. Right. This is probably five minutes into the process if we’re looking at this as a, 10 minute craving. Yeah. And he started to see, just by noting his experience, he could relate to it differently.
It’s, uh, you think of it as the observer effector in psychology. They call it the Hawthorne Effect, where Oh, yeah. By observing our experience, we’re changing our relationship to it. We can no longer be identified or at least as identified with our experience if we’re naming it, if we’re noting it, and the naming helps us frame it so we see, oh, this is a physical sensation, this is not who I am.
Or if we go back to anxiety. I am anxious is very different than I’m a person who feels anxious right now. Yeah. There is. So something, there is something so powerful about the I am. That’s so closely relate. So, so I have instead of I am. Yes. [00:50:00] Yeah. I could see how that puts a little bit of distance between the physical sensation and the need to do something about it.
Mm-hmm. That makes a lot of sense. On top of that, when we notice that our physical sensations come and go on our own without doing anything, that’s pretty powerful. Oh, I don’t need to do anything but be with my experience. Okay. Wow. I get it. Yeah. Yes. Thanks for the three free therapy today.
Yeah. Yeah. My, my knee jerk, my compulsion is to try to do something about it, like get rid of it. Usually with the intention. Yeah. Do something with the intention of getting rid instead of allowing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s really good. Um, I just wanna be respectful of your time. I think I kept you a little longer than I had intended.
Listen, this was [00:51:00] so helpful. Thank you so much for your time. I’m going to leave links to your book. I’m gonna continue to study the book the Unwinding anxiety app. I’m gonna be doing a dive into that, so by the time this comes out, I’ll be able to do a little sort of action outcome report. Oh, great.
And also we, we actually have a new program, which is the next generation of the unwaning anxiety. It’s, uh, going beyond anxiety. So it’s just going beyond anxiety.com. Drop me an email. I can give you more. Information on it, but it’s, anybody can go to the website and take a look. But the idea is with a lot of my patients, they were getting back to baseline and then they were saying, what’s next?
And so we’ve now developed more of a rapid induction of the three gears methodology. Okay. We don’t stop there. Ah, that is so exciting. That really does feed my. Self-help junkie. So, but it’s [00:52:00] all evidence-based. And the nice thing is you can actually leverage the same three gear process that we’ve been talking about, okay.
To really move into self-kindness, to generosity, to really let go of these self-judgment loops. So really getting at the heart of the things that often drive the anxiety and the addiction in the first place. That’s, that’s really exciting to hear. Yeah. It makes sense that, you know, this is a problem not can be solved, but a different way to allow and relate.
And then people are like, okay, they’re ready for the next step. So this is really exciting. Thank you so much for your time. I’ll leave links to everything. I’ll be in touch to let you know how it goes and when the podcast comes out, but it was such a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me.
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