Judson Brewer MD, PhD is a renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist and Associate Professor at the Brown University School of Public Health. His extensive research into anxiety and the addictive behaviors it drives spans two decades.

In Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind (March 9, 2021), Dr. Jud teaches readers how to deal with anxieties head on.

Anxiety is a complex, deeply rooted emotion that exerts a stronger force in our lives than we ever imagined. Anxiety drives anxiety, and is often masked by addictions and bad habits that we cannot break. The brain gets stuck in anxiety habit loops: we continue to procrastinate, we eat the extra cookie, we binge watch Netflix. And it goes without saying that in the year of COVID our anxieties have played a starring role.

Our best attempts to break anxiety loops using willpower or change our mindset ultimately fail because anxiety lives in a deeper part of the brain than rational thinking and decision making – what Jud calls the “old brain.

"It has an unconscious power over our actions. You cannot consciously think your way out of anxiety any more than you can wish away a bad habit. Willpower is just not that strong. The only antidote to anxiety is offering the brain a bigger, better alternative to the way it currently feels.