June 24, 2020
Anxiety as a Habit
This “10% Happier” podcast – hosted by Dan Harris – with Dr. Jud Brewer was fascinating. Taught me to think of addictions as being on a spectrum. But it’s the stuff at the 24-minute mark that really grabbed my attention. That discussion involved the possibility of negative emotions serving as the basis for a habit. How our brain can set up anger or anxiety to lead to a behavior that then becomes a habit.
Habits are comprised of three things: the trigger, a behavior and then a reward. The example given – hearing the latest news about the pandemic, then planning something due to that, like a new side hustle gig – with the reward being an anxiety loop over the planning. This habit in turn makes us feel like we’re in control because the “reward” distracts from the root cause – the negative emotion felt when we heard the news that kicked it all off. In other words, we might be using our anxiety as a crutch so we don’t think about what we’re anxious about…
Of course, I also like hearing about the use of meditation to bring your “anxiety” sea levels down so that there won’t be a breach of the sea walls when something small happens…