Interview: Judson Brewer.
I was very pleased to get the chance to talk to Judson Brewer, because he and I are interested in so many of the same subjects.
He’s a leading figure in the “science of self-mastery” — oh, self-mastery! How I love that subject; it so appeals to my Upholder side.
He wears many hats and has many balls in the air (to mix metaphors horribly): Director of Research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in Medicine and Psychiatry at UMass Medical School; adjunct faculty at Yale University; research affiliate at MIT.
One of his specialties is using mindfulness programs to address addiction. He’s developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments (e.g. http://ift.tt/2kjRETj, http://ift.tt/1MEmPCR). He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI. In 2012, he founded Claritas MindSciences to move his discoveries of clinical evidence behind mindfulness for eating, smoking and other behavior change into the marketplace.
In just a few weeks, his new book will hit the shelves — The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits.
I was so interested to hear what Jud had to say about habits.
Gretchen: You’ve done fascinating research. What’s the most significant thing you’ve concluded on the subject of habits?
Jud: I’ve been blown away by how habits are the basis for so much of our lives – from smartphones to romantic love to getting caught up in our own thinking to even how we judge “right” and “wrong” in the world. Now I understand more where the phrase “we are creatures of…” comes from. And it’s amazing how much our modern scientific tools such as probing people in their natural environments via smartphone technology and detecting brain changes using fMRI machines have helped fill in the picture of what’s going on. All of these seem to repeatedly point to the same end: that we are tapping into a very evolutionarily conserved process that was set up for survival (trigger, behavior, reward).
Perhaps the most fascinating part of my research and clinical work was a paradoxical discovery: that we can tap into this natural reward-based learning process and by simply paying careful attention to different habit loops, we can learn to step out of them (paying careful attention to the “reward” is critical here).
In our clinical and brain studies, my lab has found that simple mindfulness trainings to help us pay attention and build awareness around our habits can have big effects on changing them (e.g. smoking, stress and emotional eating); our research has shown that these practices can not only help us quit smoking and change eating habits but literally change how our brains fire and wire.
What are some simple habits that consistently make you happier?
Practicing simple acts of kindness. Being curious. Smiling.
What’s something you know now about forming healthy habits that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
That changing habits is less an act of force or will than focusing on seeing the “reward” more clearly. I’ve also learned that curiosity is a key ingredient here.
Do you have any habits that continually get in the way of your happiness?
Judgment (of myself and others).
Which habits are most important to you? (for health, for creativity, for productivity, for leisure, etc.)
Being kind. Listening carefully and completely when in conversation with someone. Exercising (running, mountain biking).
Have you ever managed to gain a challenging healthy habit—or to break an unhealthy habit? If so, how did you do it?
Eating healthfully. Looking back, I think the roots of this started to grow when I was racing BMX bikes in junior high school. I started noticing that when I ate donuts and drank soda before a race, I’d quickly run out of steam – which I later learned was probably due to getting a sugar rush and subsequent crash. As an adult, I’ve really started noticing how my body and mind feel after eating junk food (especially refined sugar) as compared to healthy food. It’s amazing how much wisdom comes from simply paying attention to the process! I couldn’t maintain a “don’t eat ice cream because it’s bad for you” mindset (which was totally cognitive/thinking in nature), but now when a craving comes on to pig out, can more easily remember what it felt like last time I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. This helps me stop with a small serving, while at the same time enjoy what I’m eating even more because I’m not mentally leaning in for the next bite.
Would you describe yourself as an Upholder, a Questioner, a Rebel, or an Obliger?
Definitely a Questioner!
Do you embrace habits or resist them?
Both – it is wonderful that we don’t have to relearn how to tie our shoes every day, and also great to pay attention to how much of our lives we spend on “autopilot” so that we can step out of old habits that no longer serve us, or may get in the way of really embracing life. I know that sounds hokey, but its true. Zombie mode is not nearly as delicious as diving deeply into and fully living life every day, no matter what is happening.
If you’d like to hear more from Jud Brewer, you can watch his TED talk, “A simple way to break a bad habit”:
The post “Zombie Mode Is Not Nearly as Delicious as Diving Deeply into Fully Living Life Every Day.” appeared first on Gretchen Rubin.
Self Help Gurus etc
Do negative emotions affect your health? Conditions such as depression and anxiety have been shown to affect how we manage and treat our other chronic conditions but, even if one does not suffer from these conditions, unresolved emotions can pave the way for chronic diseases to manifest. These unresolved emotions include grief, anger, jealousy, hatred, guilt and shame to name a few. Now I am not saying that there is anything wrong with experiencing these emotions. What I am saying is that when these emotions are not allowed to percolate through our being but are repressed and ignored, emotional blocks can arise leading to physical symptoms which eventually manifest as illness. But how does one know if they have emotional blocks? Emotional blocks can be identified by situations in our lives where we get triggered and have intense negative feelings which keep us from handling the situation effectively. Usually the situations that trigger these emotions are similar to emotionally traumatic or distressing similar situations that we have experienced in the past in our infancy, childhood and early adolescence. For example, if we were left to cry in the crib frequently when we were seeking attention and physical touch, this could be interpreted as abandonment by the subconscious mind. Similar situations in our adult life could trigger those same feelings such as being stood up on a date. There are many experiences we have when we are young which, if not processed emotionally, can lead to issues later in life. These do not have to be major emotionally traumatic events such as physical or sexual abuse. They could be subtle and unrecognizable by those around us. For example, if, as a child, your sibling was offered a treat such as ice cream and you weren't, this could be interpreted as neglect even if this was not your parent’s intention. If the parent does not recognize their child’s interpretation of this event as neglect, it will go ignored by the parent and perpetuate the feeling of neglect in the child’s viewpoint. Most children do not have the courage or the maturity to confront such feelings to see if there is any external validation for them, in which case they become lodged in the subconscious mind. In our example, the feeling of neglect will be translated as unworthiness by the child and can affect his or her future experiences such as whether he or she applies to the university of his or her choice, strives to obtain the job he or she desires or pursues his or her lifelong dream or ambition. Over time the feelings of neglect and unworthiness can result in depression and physical symptoms which can manifest as illness. How do these negative feelings lead to illness? Suppressed negative emotions lead to chronic stress which leads to overstimulation of the adrenal glands with an increase in cortisol release. Over time, the adrenal glands will burnout leading to a decrease in cortisol secretion, so-called adrenal fatigue. This will result in a decrease in the inflammatory effect of cortisol, with rampant inflammation, eventually, leading to chronic disease. So how does on prevent this from happening? Like I mentioned before, the problem is not the negative emotions themselves as we are all bound to experience these at various points in our lives. The problem is not allowing ourselves to experience them fully and allow them to pass right through us. The truth is that we are multi-dimensional beings, mental, emotional, vibrational and spiritual, who take on a physical form for our journey here on earth. Our physical form, here on earth, has to and will experience the full spectrum of human emotion which is needed to experience ourselves as whole beings including the so-called negative emotions or the shadow self. It is only through the full human experience that we can know ourselves as whole. The problem is that negative emotions are often too painful to bear and we block and suppress them which results in chronic disease as I have already described. The main driving force for suppressing these emotions is fear of pain. However, our fears are often unwarranted. There are two types of fear, psychological fear and actual fear. Actual fear is a real danger to our lives such as encountering a jaguar in the jungle. Psychological fear is those circumstances, conditions and feelings which our ego tells us will bring us pain. The problem is that the ego is only looking out for its own sustainability with no thought of our greater growth and development. Therefore, it often keeps us stuck in old paradigms and ways of thinking and being which keep us from growing which can only happen when we lean outside our comfort zones. One of the ways we can lean outside our comfort zones is to not resist our negative emotions and allow ourselves to experience them fully and completely. If we do this, we will realize that the feeling is simply our soul’s experience of a specific moment in the physical body and not to be feared as all feelings, at their core, lead us to inner peace and unconditional love. We can then gain clarity about what action we need to take in our lives to deal with the situation which led to the negative emotion. This is how negative emotions can be transmuted and fuel our journey to experiencing our higher consciousness which is our true nature. This is how we can also prevent negative emotions from leading to chronic stress and, eventually, to chronic disease. Here is a case study to illustrate this point. I had a patient, who I will call Lisa, who came to me for shortness of breath and chest pain. She had multiple investigations including a CT scan of her chest which showed inflammation in her lungs and lymph nodes. I did a bronchoscopy, which is a test where I take a long flexible device with a camera and a light to go into her lungs and do a biopsy. This did not reveal any specific diagnosis and her symptoms persisted. I eventually referred her to a thoracic surgeon for a lung biopsy. Before this happened, she had planned a vacation to Trinidad, where she is originally from. While she was there her symptoms had, miraculously, completely disappeared but when she got back they returned. I then started to question her further about stresses in her life and it was then that she revealed to me that her marriage was not working and there was a lot of tension and conflict with her husband, who had not gone with her on the trip. This was proof that her symptoms were a direct result of her grief over her failing marriage because when she was away from him for sometime her symptoms resolved. She did not require much convincing that her symptoms were related to the grief and stress caused by her husband and she resolved to leave the situation immediately.
