Unwinding Anxiety
New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.
We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.
Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.
*This audiobook includes a PDF of the behavioral tendencies questionnaire from the book.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 9, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593409473
- File size: 211672 KB
- Duration: 07:20:58
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 11, 2021
In this helpful guide, psychiatrist Brewer (The Craving Mind) draws on research on addiction and bad habits to suggest ways to deal with anxiety. Citing the definition of addiction—“continued use despite adverse consequences”—Brewer argues that anxiety and addiction share similar patterns and can be addressed using similar principles: identifying a habit loop, then using mindfulness to change the way one’s brain values the behavior. “If you really pay careful and close attention,” Brewer writes, “...and you see that a behavior is not rewarding right now, I promise you that you will start to get less excited about doing it again.” Instead, one can give the brain a “bigger better offer”: to bring curiosity and mindfulness toward one’s actions. The writing is casual without being simplistic (“This is a pretty neat hack of your brain’s reward-based learning system”) and includes testimonials from patients and users of mindfulness apps developed by Brewer. These evidence-based, structured recommendations will be useful to anyone who feels caught in a negative loop.
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