Breaking the
anxiety cycle
Brown University
To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGz92Oe-sp0&feature=emb_title
As coronavirus continues to reach new corners of the globe, it has inspired countless conversations among medical practitioners, public health officials and political authorities about how to stop its biological spread.
But the disease has also created
what Dr. Jud Brewer, director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown, calls a
“second contagion” — a far-reaching sense of anxiety that is infecting personal
habits and social interactions.
“Anxiety is that feeling of worry or
unease that comes when we face an uncertain outcome,” Brewer said.
“You can imagine how this feeling would increase when we are smack dab in the middle of an uncertain situation like we are now.”
“You can imagine how this feeling would increase when we are smack dab in the middle of an uncertain situation like we are now.”
As a researcher and clinical
psychiatrist, Brewer uses mindfulness — which he describes as the practice of
cultivating a “curious awareness” about how one’s own mind works — to help patients prevent worrying from becoming a habit.
“When worry goes up, anxiety goes
up, and when anxiety goes up, worry goes up,” he said.
“Mindfulness can help our brains let go of this habit that isn’t helping us.”
“Mindfulness can help our brains let go of this habit that isn’t helping us.”
To help people break this anxiety
cycle in the midst of COVID-induced uncertainty, Brewer has used his YouTube
channel to teach people how mindfulness can reduce worry
arising from the coronavirus pandemic.
Each day, Brewer posts a brief video focused on a specific issue arising from coronavirus anxiety, such as news addiction or how anxiety becomes panic. He also hosts an interactive livestream, called “Office Hours with Dr. Jud,” during which he answers questions from listeners from around the world.
Each day, Brewer posts a brief video focused on a specific issue arising from coronavirus anxiety, such as news addiction or how anxiety becomes panic. He also hosts an interactive livestream, called “Office Hours with Dr. Jud,” during which he answers questions from listeners from around the world.
“As a practicing psychiatrist who
studies habit change and anxiety, I happen to have a skill set that’s really
needed right now,” Brewer said. “There are so many aspects of mental hygiene
that are relevant to what’s currently happening.”
In this Q&A, Brewer draws upon
his clinical research to explain what mindfulness is and how it can help to
curb the spread of anxiety in individuals’ personal lives and social circles —
even during this uniquely anxious time.
Q: How do you describe what
mindfulness is?
Some describe mindfulness as seeing
clearly and particularly focusing on seeing how we’re pushed and pulled by
circumstances. But I really understand mindfulness as being aware of how our mind
works. If we can see what’s driving us, then we can get back in the driver’s
seat and drive ourselves.
If we don’t know how our minds work, there’s no way we’re going to be able to work with them. If our car is misaligned, and we just keep yanking at the steering wheel to keep it going straight — not only do we get fatigued, but we wear out our tires.
Similarly, a lot of the coping mechanisms that we develop don’t really reduce anxiety — we distract ourselves, we eat food, we do all sorts of things that might feel like they’re doing something, but they’re actually making things worse in the long term.
Q: How does practicing mindfulness
help patients manage typical anxiety?
You’re really putting people back in
the driver’s seat with mindfulness. Being aware of how our mind works in a
moment of anxiousness helps us see how unrewarding a behavior like worrying is.
Worrying just perpetuates anxiety, because worrying doesn’t actually fix whatever the problem is, and it feels bad, which just feeds more anxiety, which in turn feeds more worry.
Worrying just perpetuates anxiety, because worrying doesn’t actually fix whatever the problem is, and it feels bad, which just feeds more anxiety, which in turn feeds more worry.
Practicing mindfulness also helps us
see how awareness itself can be rewarding. Curious awareness is the ability to
focus on what you are experiencing instead of trying to understand why it’s
happening.
Because curious awareness feels better than getting caught in worry, it then becomes a new habit that replaces the old, harmful one. I actually give my patients the mantra, “hmm,” because it’s a great way to engender curiosity in the moment you feel worry.
Because curious awareness feels better than getting caught in worry, it then becomes a new habit that replaces the old, harmful one. I actually give my patients the mantra, “hmm,” because it’s a great way to engender curiosity in the moment you feel worry.
Q: Is there anything unique about
how anxiety is manifesting in this moment?
There are three ways that it’s
unique. First of all, nobody alive has experience with a pandemic of this
magnitude, which makes it difficult for other people to reassure us. Secondly,
we don’t know the contagion level for this particular coronavirus because we
don’t have enough testing in place yet. So that’s a crazy big unknown in the
current situation.
Add to these factors another
contagion — social media, which is magnifying our sense of threat, thus
increasing the anxiety we’re already feeling. With people sneezing on your
brain from anywhere in the world, with us not knowing how widespread this is
yet, with nobody having had experience to say, “I know what to do,” the current
situation is not necessarily reassuring.
Q: How can people practice
mindfulness to manage anxiety in this COVID moment?
I would start by having them pay
attention to and map out habit loops surrounding worry. Every time they start
to get anxious or get worried, they can map out: What’s the trigger for this
worry? What’s the result of it? What do I get from this?
My wife was talking about this this
morning. She’s been using this when she wakes up in the middle of the night
worried about something. She asks herself, “What do I get from this?” And that
helps her brain see that her worry isn’t actually helping her solve anything.
It’s just making hard for her to sleep. And so her brain naturally becomes less
excited to do it in the future.
Q: What inspired you to begin
publishing daily COVID updates on your YouTube channel?
I’ve been seeing a lot of people
focused on the physical manifestations of coronavirus — how not to get infected
— but no one really has been talking about coronavirus anxiety, the mental
hygiene aspect of things. So I thought, well, why don’t I put together short
videos every morning based on what’s actually happening?
These videos are pragmatic — they
provide short practices that viewers can use right away. As a clinician, I
always ask, “What can I do to help my patient today?” I was moved to help. I
still am every day. I wake up early and am just motivated because this work
needs to be done.