Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind

Brewer defines addictions as habits that have adverse consequences. These habits do not have to be catastrophic, such as drug addiction, but could manifest as everyday dependencies such as overeating, or compulsively shopping or gaming. The author emphasizes how people can inadvertently form an addiction to anxiety itself when they allow their anxiety to trigger feel-good distractions such as eating or internet scrolling.

These factors maximize addictive behavior by prompting more cravings and rewarding addiction more intensely. Brewer identifies two addiction maximizers: Intermittent Reinforcement and Immediate Availability.

The Default Mode Network is a neural network that supports automatic thinking. This network is also responsible for maintaining repeated, ruminative thoughts. Brewer explains that mindfulness allows people to become more aware of how the DMN’s thought patterns are entrenching certain habits into their lives, thereby breaking the old cycles of automatic thinking.

Dopamine is a chemical famous for its pleasurable effect on the human brain. Brewer discusses how experiencing the pleasures of dopamine is an essential part of human learning, because it helps people commit good experiences to memory. For instance, when our ancestors successfully foraged for food, feeling the dopamine rush of eating it would help them remember the particulars of the experience, thereby aiding their survival. Brewer argues that in modern life, people have so many immediate ways to obtain a dopamine rush, making addictive behavior harder to avoid.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a mental health condition. People with GAD often feel nervous and worried for no particular reason throughout everyday life. Brewer discusses GAD as one possible manifestation of anxiety that many people experience, especially when their anxiety has become a pernicious habit loop.

A habit loop is an entrenched habit that functions predictably, beginning with a trigger, followed by a behavior, and then a reward. Experiencing the “reward” entrenches the habit loop further by giving the brain the impression that the habit loop is helpful. Brewer believes that anxiety can easily become a “habit loop” in people’s minds, making it difficult to identify and stop. He provides the example of a negative emotion as a trigger, which prompts the behavior of worried thinking, which propels people to distract themselves with something pleasurable, accidentally rewarding their brains for worrying and creating an escapist dependency at the same time.

Immediate availability is when a craving can be immediately satisfied. For instance, someone with a dependency on shopping could immediately fulfill their craving by ordering something online. Brewer considers this an “addiction maximizer” because it makes addictive behavior easier to act on and reduces the time people spend engaging rationally with their choices.

Rewards that are intermittent, or irregular, create a larger dopamine rush in the brain than those that are predictable. Addictive experiences such as casinos and social media provide intermittent reinforcement in the form of winnings or “likes,” which causes people to become more hooked.

If a trait or behavior is maladaptive, this means it is harmful to our health. For example, chronic anxiety is a maladaptive use of the brain’s ability to generate worry and fear responses because ultimately this stress takes a toll on people’s mental and physical health without providing any real solutions.

Meditation is one facet of mindfulness. When meditating people observe their thoughts without judgment, becoming more aware of their thoughts as well as other physical sensations. Brewer explains that meditation is proven to help mitigate the runaway ruminative thoughts of the Default Mode Network.

Mindfulness is awareness of one’s own thoughts and actions. Brewer argues that becoming more mindful helps people learn how to identify the triggers and habits they have developed that perpetuate their anxiety.

Brewer defines the Orbitofrontal Cortex, or OFC, as “the crossroads in the brain where emotional, sensory, and previous behavioral information gets integrated” (108). As such, the OFC plays a large role in how the brain registers “rewards” for certain behaviors, helping humans remember certain experiences as highly rewarding.

To perseverate is to do something repeatedly, usually for no reason. Brewer notes that people with anxiety or depression are likely to perseverate mentally about the past or future, cementing rumination as a mental habit.

The Prefrontal Cortex, or PFC, is a more recently evolved region of the human brain. This brain area helps humans think creatively and plan ahead, allowing us to draw on previous experiences to consider hypothetical scenarios. This area also contributes to rational thinking. However, if people engage their PFC to constantly worry, this can decrease their ability to think rationally, and it can trigger physiological fear responses from the older brain system. Brewer discusses the role of the PFC in adaptive and maladaptive brain behavior to educate the reader on the neuroscience of anxiety.