Unwinding Anxiety

Unwinding Anxiety

Train Your Brain to Heal Your Mind

Summary

Break free from anxiety and be free to live a full, happy life with internationally renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr Judson Brewer - based on over 20 years of research and his simple habit-breaking programme.

We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic and political upheaval or as personal as having kids at home 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 behaviours and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doomscrolling 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 to 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 programme that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.

Reviews

  • This may be the only book on anxiety you'll ever need. Drawing on his lab's latest neuroscience and clinically proven techniques, Dr. Brewer ingeniously reveals why anxiety loops are so hard to break. Showing clearly how and why worry is so addictive, he guides you how to shift through the gears to break the old habits that keep anxiety going, and to unwind the rope that's been coiled around your life. With new insights on every page, this is evidence-based psychological science at its best.
    Mark Williams, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford, Co-author of Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World

About the author

Judson Brewer

JUDSON BREWER, MD, PhD, is an internationally renowned addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is the director of research and innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center, as well as an associate professor in both the School of Public Health and the Medical School at Brown. His 2016 TED talk, 'A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit', has been viewed more than sixteen million times. He has trained Olympic athletes and coaches, government ministers and business leaders. His first book, The Craving Mind, has been published in fifteen languages.
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