That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn.
About this episode
Jud Brewer presents anxiety as a learned habit built on trigger-behavior-reward loops, reinforced because worrying feels like doing something and occasionally yields a plan. Klein and Brewer map Klein's own worry patterns live and discuss why willpower fails — the prefrontal cortex goes offline under stress — and why the feeling body trumps the thinking mind. Brewer's method has three steps: map habit loops, pay close attention to how unrewarding worry actually feels, and replace it with a 'bigger, better offer' — curiosity and kindness, which feel open rather than contracted. They discuss mindfulness research on meditators' brains, why identifying as 'an anxious person' entrenches anxiety, and how borrowing Alcoholics Anonymous's 'one day at a time' framing can shrink fear of the future into the present moment.