Behavior change isn't based on the behavior, it's based on the results or the reward of the behavior. - Dr. Jud Brewer

Can we break bad habits by being more curious about them?

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Wellness Force Radio Episode 319

Neuroscientist, Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, Co-Founder of MindSciences, and Author of The Craving Mind, Dr. Jud Brewer, explains the trigger-reward loop model, why curiosity leads us to greater 'being,' and his app-based programs for eating, anxiety, and smoking.

Discover how being more mindful will help you let go of bad habits and create healthy, sustainable change in 2020.

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Listen To Episode 319 As Dr. Jud Brewer Uncovers: 1:30 Addiction And The Caveman Brain

• Dr. Jud Brewer
• Judson Brewer: A simple way to break a bad habit | TED Talk
• Dr. Jud and Mind Sciences' App-based Behavior Change Programs
• Mind Sciences
• Wellness Force Media's new mission for 2020: Learn how to join us now at wellnessforce.com/team
• Dr. Jud's mission to not only help people break bad habits but also wake up to how wonderful it feels to belong to a community and be kind to others. (11:00)
• Gabor Mate
• How Dr. Jud defines and describes addiction based on his residency training. (12:45)
• The mind-body connection we have to food and how it has impacted his own wellness journey.
• How you can get more curious about how different factors such as food impact your health. (14:00)
• Why the reward or result is what drives all future human behavior.

19:40 Our Never Ending Search For Peace

• His current lab's study around why we are always on the lookout for the feeling of 'peace.'
• How our internal hierarchy of rewards will impact behavior now and in the future.
• Different mental states that the brain naturally categorizes as more rewarding than others and what other qualities they hold.
• Digging deep into the differences between opposite mental states like fear, joy, and peace. (21:00)
• How we approach the mental state of craving and whether it's an open or closed state.
• Vipassana Meditation – A Spartan Race For The Mind
• Josh's past with addiction and the constricting sensation he felt that many others also do in similar experiences.
• How our minds are wired to use cravings as a means to get up and act on them. (24:00)
• The mindfulness app-based programs he has helped create to allow people to better understand how some behaviors are more rewarding than others.

27:00 Better Understanding Our Food Cravings

• Dr. Jud and MindSciences' Eat Right Now app program which trains people in mindful eating.
• The food rules many people have lived with for so long and how to let go of them by following a more 'natural food law.'
• How you can be more mindful during each meal and with every bite.
• LIFEAID CBD
• A specific example of how he helped a patient who began binge eating in connection with emotional abuse from her mother. (33:00)
• Why we validate acting on our human behavior to get to the reward. (36:30)
• The fact that our brains hate uncertainty so much so that we will always go to what we are already familiar with based on our past experiences.

39:00 Our Intolerance For Uncertainty In The Modern Age

• Why we have this need to know instantly when we're going to have access to something.
• The perfect example of our need to know something instantly with the NYC subway system.
• How a greater understanding of ourselves allows us to learn how we're driven, what motivates us, and what needs we have to fulfill.
• Our capitalistic urges and coming to the realization of whether we actually need that money and will it better serve humanity?
• Linking the spiritual and scientific evidence that kindness and compassion greatly impact human behavior. (47:00)
• Why experiences, not things or money, is what will bring us the gift of connection.

48:50 Curiosity Is Our Superpower

• Why curiosity is such a superpower especially when we cultivate it during such difficult moments.
• How we can train our curiosity muscle that it just becomes so natural for us especially during moments of anxious thoughts and feelings.
• Unwinding Your Anxiety app
• His secret mantra: 'Hmmm' to pull us out of our heads and into our direct experiences to get curious and let go of anxiety. (51:00)
• The 7-day silent meditation retreat he has put on for groups including the USA Women's Water Polo team.
• How you can start to cultivate curiosity now and when you find it difficult to do.
• Dr. Jud's own difficulty with meditation during a Vipassana retreat and what his biggest takeaways were from it.
• Why Is It So Hard to Pay Attention? Or Is It? Curiosity May Be Key to Concentrating
• Eat Right Now app
• To Quit app for quitting smoking
• 288 Greg Woodhill
• 137 Dr. Tim Brown
• 201 Micheal Gervais
• Beginning steps for greater mindfulness that we can follow today.
• The Wellness Force M21 Guide

Power Quotes From The Show

Our Relationship With Food In 3 Basic Elements

"We can narrow down our relationship with food to three basic elements: a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. The process of those three combined elements is set up to help us survive from a nutrients standpoint. What we have to stand from a modern standpoint, is why our brains are still set on survival mode when we have a fridge full of food." - Dr. Jud Brewer

The Power Of Mindful Eating

"Our Eat Right Now app program really teaches people step by step how to be more mindful with food. The first step is to just go ahead and eat but that really freaks out a lot of people because they've had these "food rules" forever and they feel like they're going to go to "food jail" if they don't follow them. So, we tell them to just trust themselves and follow the natural law rather than their own rules. At first, they're worried that they'll just keep eating without any self-control but when they pay attention to what they eat, discover what the reward from eating feels like, and think about why they're eating, it helps them work through their old habits and cravings." - Dr. Jud Brewer Dialing In For Greater Emotional and Physical Intelligence "Intelligence has a lot to do with dialing in and sensing these little feelings of contractions vs. expansions that emotions such as fear, joy, and curiosity create. If we can be intelligent around those pieces of subtle sensations that we experience, it's going to help us change bad habits, support the habits that are helpful, and foster greater kindness, connection, compassion, and mindfulness. This can all happen simply by bringing awareness to how painful the contracted emotions feel compared to how the non-painful, rewarding, pleasant ones feel. Knowing our psychophysical being, seeing these elements, and being able to link them up both with mental and physical behaviors will make us tremendously intelligent." - Dr. Jud Brewer Links From Today's Show

• Mindfulness Center at Brown University
• The Craving Mind by Dr. Jud Brewer
• Judson Brewer: A simple way to break a bad habit | TED Talk
• Dr. Jud and MindSciences' App-based Behavior Change Programs
• Wellness Force Media's new mission for 2020
• Gabor Mate
• Vipassana Meditation – A Spartan Race For The Mind
• Eat Right Now app
• LIFEAID CBD
• Unwinding Your Anxiety app
• Why Is It So Hard to Pay Attention? Or Is It? Curiosity May Be Key to Concentrating
• Eat Right Now app
• To Quit app for quitting smoking
• Habit Loops & Everyday Addictions
• Tame Your Feelings of Anxiety
• 288 Greg Woodhill
• 137 Dr. Tim Brown
• 201 Micheal Gervais
• The Wellness Force M21 Guide
• Dr. Jud Brewer
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
• MindSciences
  • Facebook

About Dr. Jud Brewer

Judson Brewer MD PhD is a thought leader in the 'science of self-mastery," having combined nearly 20 years of experience with mindfulness training with his scientific research therein. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, spoken at international conferences, and his work has been featured in 60 Minutes, TEDx, Time Magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes,BBC, NPR, BusinessWeek and others. He is Director of Research at the Center of Mindfulness and an at UMass Medical School and an associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at UMass Medical School. He also is adjunct faculty at Yale University School of Medicine and research affiliate at MIT.

Mindfulness Training For Addictions

A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for addictions, including both in-person and app-based treatments (ex. www.cravingtoquit.com). He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI.

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