ALL SUCCESSFUL People Break THESE BAD HABITS |Dr. Jud Brewer & Lewis Howes

our experience is really the mover and at the driver and the mover with changing things so we really have to experience something ourselves we can't just say oh yeah that guy said it's true we have to actually experience it [Music] welcome back in one at school Green's podcast we've got dr. Judd in the house my man good seeing you could say excited about this we're talking about habits overcoming addiction and how our minds think about these things and you've been studying flow habits addiction neuroscience for how many years now 20 20 years of research you've done a lot of content materials on this you know TED talk that blew up top 5 most watched TED talk of the year on the power of habit and really ought to change addiction and all these different things I'm curious why do you obsess over this in the first place did you have some type of addiction yourself or did you feel like you were never having to get into flow or something was always distracting you or what was the the main cause I had no idea how many addictions I had until I started studying this really like give me a few thinking self-love exercise yeah so the addiction what were the addictions like were you over the addictive to working out and too much love or was it you didn't know how to love yourself the right way and you didn't work out well the love piece was around romance I just love that excited you know like romance piece of the relationship so the first six months so you were good at like starting a relationship but not staying in a relationship you know my mom used to say don't tell me her name for the first three months because it was just like always another one huh well I don't know you know that I don't want to peed myself in a certain way but let's just say those first three months my mom called that the the infatuation stage and that's that's really sticky it's really addictive yeah how come why does that eventually fade well our brains a wait you know our brains actually are set up all these things whether it's being addicted to thinking or addicted to distraction with social media or whatnot all these things are actually based on a very basic learning principle which is setup for survival we have this caveman brain that says I need to remember where food is and I need to avoid danger and it's actually relatively simple there are these three elements there's a trigger of behavior and a reward or a result of that behavior and that drives a huge amount of behavior so for example like with the survival piece you see food you eat food and then your stomach sends this dopamine signal to your brain that says remember what you ate and where you found it do the same thing for you know avoiding danger so that we can you know the reward is that you don't get eaten by the saber-tooth Tiger okay so you've got when you're in a pattern of why do we if our brains are designed to do that then why are we what about to fight against it so much as opposed to say well I'm gonna jump from relationship to relationship to have that feeling that's my the way my brain is designed why fight against that well the there's there are a lot of benefits to setting up habits so you can even think of this as a habit we can get addicted to the to the chase for example a lot of people they're really excited about a relationship for the pursuit piece and then as soon as they land it they're like ah you know this isn't you know it's not you it's me and it's me because I'm addicted to the chase which is the part that they don't even know but that piece is set up to actually help us set up habits so we don't have to relearn everything everyday so think of getting up in the morning and if you had to relearn how to walk how to put on your clothes how to tie your shoes how to eat food you'd be exhausted by breakfast right so it's it's set up to help us learn things I think if this is like set and forget like set up this habit and then forget about it and if you can forget about it then you it fries your brain enough to learn things sure and that that process just gets carried along evolutionarily we're in modern day when food is plentiful and there's tinder and whatnot that I can get that can become problematic sure because the addiction to junk food feels amazing in the moment but then you feel bad later the addition to the chase feels great for three months then it feels bad when you have to do it all you know when you lose the connection you become disconnected I'm sure the same thing with cigarettes or drinking or whatever maybe yes these all follow that same basic habit pattern gotcha so what was the hardest addiction for you to overcome yourself that's a great one I think and it's not like I am let's say I'm a recovering thinker the addiction to thinking is a big one for me in ways because you're an academic researcher a teacher so you have to think I do then so it doesn't mean that thinking is a problem but when I get it and addicted to my own thoughts for example as a scientist you know if I have a great idea or what my brain thinks is a great idea and I lock it in and I'm like this is the world's greatest idea this is you know and I start telling everybody that's the best idea you know I might not get a great reputation for being humble for one thing and if somebody does a scientific experiment that says you know your idea is wrong and I rail against that I'm actually no longer a scientist because you haven't done as a scientist you're actually saying here's a hypothesis right everyone else go prove me wrong right that's the whole that's the beauty of science is that we don't believe our own hype we set a hypothesis and we're just as happy to have it disproven as we already have it proven because then what someone finds a solution to whatever the hypothesis is and the actual answer yeah and that's what science is all about is helping move humanity forward as compared to preserving a legacy which is me you know there's always right recked I have the answer right right that's how fun would that be to hang out with that type of person so are all scientists super humble then there's a joke in physics that physics progresses one funeral time this is back in the early 1900s when there were a lot of really big names and physics and you know the young folks were like well I don't know you know this and the old guys had so much clout that basically had to wait until they died off to put new ideas for WoW okay so the addiction to thought thoughts you had mostly or what Oh name I mean it's just the thinking process itself can be really exciting it's like oh what about this what about this what about this and I think it's stem somewhat from just a natural curiosity oh they're probably always had curiosity great thing we can certainly talk more about that but also is curiosity can kind of morph into oh that's moving from like that's a great idea to that's my great idea and that addiction to self like Oh check me out ego yeah the ego is problematic gotcha so you had that for how long do you think oh my whole life you know until well I don't know it's still there but you're now where how did you learn to break that addiction well it's interesting of it yeah when you look when I started looking and I started doing a lot of meditation practice myself would go on silent meditation retreats and things like that to really start to look inward and look at my own mind and to see what was causing me suffering and one of the big things that was causing me suffering was being addicted to my own thinking addicted to myself you know it's like your own hype yeah yeah it's it doesn't when I really looked at it carefully it doesn't feel very good to be addicted to your hive yeah because what why doesn't it feel good to be right to be have a good an ego where people say you're amazing and you're so smart and talented why does that not feel good because egos need to be fed and so what if we can find something that steps out of that process that keeps the loop going you know so if the trigger is that you know somebody says oh that's a great idea and I start you know the behaviors that I get all puffy chested like yeah that is a great idea there's that reward that comes in the form of excitement and that needs feeding you know it you I need more compliments or I need more people saying that's a great idea or come up with more great ideas it's a lot of pressure you know for the ego to keep itself going in that way and what I found was that we can actually step out of that process and find something that is more rewarding so this actually relates to habits the only way with that we can change habits is to update that reward value and that there are two two pieces to updating the reward value but it's helpful to kind of understand how they get set up in the first place so think of you know a lot of people are trying to lose weight for example and maybe they're in middle age and their metabolism isn't what they what it was when they were six but think of all the birthday parties that they went to where they associated cake and ice cream with presents fun friends and all that so they're their minds sets up this habit around cake has this cake and ice cream have a certain value and we have a part of our brain called the orbital frontal cortex it actually stores this whole hierarchy of reward values so when we're presented with cake it's back in our six-year-old brain that says this is great when we're in our 40 or 50 year old body that's like you know my metabolism can we slow down on this cake and we can't use our thinking brain our thinking part of our brain which is the youngest and the weakest part of the brain from an evolutionary perspective to overcome the feeling body but because that old part of the brain says this is great do it but it's really just our you know our six year old brain in our forty year old body and that's that's problematic sure so these things get set up and laid down and the only way to change those habits is to give our brains accurate and updated information now like what well literally paying attention to the results of the behavior so I'll give you an example from some of the science that we've done we do a lot of work with helping people quit smoking for example and the one of the first things that we did in our first studies here was that we had people pay attention as they smoked so there's one guy that I'm thinking of who was smoking 40 years okay so a pack a day for 40 years that's 20 cigarettes a day we calculated it out it was about he'd reinforced that habit loop 293,000 time my gosh okay smoking a cigarette yep smoking a cigarette 200 almost 300,000 times 300,000 times so that was a pretty ingrained habit for him so we said okay pay attention as you smoke what does that mean pay attention so what does it taste like what is it's the smoke smell like and all this stuff right just really pay attention to the process in this moment to give his brain accurate and updated information see how good is this really not your 13 year old brain that was rebelling or trying to be cool or whatever then got laid down as a habit and then you just smoke you don't pay and most people are looking at their phone they're not paying attention well he paid attention I'm thinking of somebody who just described this beautifully who said you know smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals yeah when he actually paid attack yeah yeah so they start to see wait a minute cigarettes actually tastes like he's good that's why that's why e cigarettes have flavors right to make to mass more addictive now yes yes yes my brother was smoking for probably 20 years and we 5 how I shouldn't say I that's in credit but trying to get him off of it for 20 years he finally stopped smoking great victory starts smoking and justifies how it's better for you and this and that but we can go into science there but it's a different addiction I guess the same additional nicotine yes yeah and still hooked on the Lu yeah so so that back to that story this guy started paying attention seeing that cigarettes didn't taste very good and helped his brain get that accurate updated information that sees oh the rewards value of smoking is not actually that great which actually opens up the space for what I think of as the B Bo a bigger better offer give another example I'm a guy who who came into my clinic was referred to me for panic you know a panic disorder he came in who's who's actually looked pretty nervous when when he walked in the door and when I took his history it turns out that he had such bad fear of driving he was terrified that he would get in car accident on the highway that he would barely drive you basically isolate him to his house so just driving a couple of miles to my clinic was already tough for him the other thing I noticed about him was that he was he was very overweight okay and so for him the first thing that we need to do is just map out what his habits were and what his habit loops were and it turns out that you know he had this habit around being afraid of things he gave an example of going out to dinner with his girlfriend and then having this thought like maybe I'm allergic to fish they were at a sushi restaurant and he got so freaked out his rational brain was saying you're not you're not allergic to fish and he knew this rationally but his his feeling body was like get let's get out of here and they had to leave so we we developed these these app based mindfulness training programs to just help people pay attention and map out their habit loop so I gave him we have one for anxiety called unwinding anxiety I gave him this app sent him home two weeks later he came back and he said he had this big smile on his face and I said what's up but he said I lost 14 pounds and I said wait I thought we were working on anxiety you know he had panic disorder yet generalized anxiety and he said you know I realized that I would eat as a way to work with my anxiety I'd feel a little bit better by eating but I realized that the reward wasn't actually that great so I just stopped stressing I was like wow I don't feel good about my body because I'm overweight and it's not helping my anxiety so he just like stopped he lost 14 pounds in two weeks he came back what four three four months later he'd lost 50 pounds Wow he came back a couple of months later and his anxiety was so much better so he lost 84 pounds I think at this point his blood pressure was back to normal where it was high he was an uber driver now oh my god so this guy that guy was afraid of driving now an uber driver because so that highlights the key element of how we actually change habits when we map out these habit loops and he was able to map his out so clearly that he could see okay this is exactly what's happening but the second piece is seeing how unrewarding they are right eating to work with his anxiety wasn't helping him so he stopped stress eating along he lost a bunch of weight but he also realized that he could start to get curious about his and that that could actually provide that bigger better offer so curiosity itself is kind of like this superpower that goes with awareness that it can actually help us break a bunch of different habits so when someone comes to you and is struggling with addiction what is the first thing that you would have someone do if they were self assessing themselves yeah they don't have the time to talk to you or therapist or an addiction specialist or a habit specialist is it let's create a list of all your fears and anxieties and addictions currently or habits well what is the process I would have them map out what their top habit loop is positive and negative habits any habit any of them I think get up at 6:00 a.m. every morning yeah I brush my teeth I go to the gym every day yeah and I smoke I say red during lunch or whatever it is everything yeah and I would say start with the the biggest ones especially the ones that are causing problems we can come to the positive ones in a little bit because those we can actually foster by bringing awareness in as well but the negative habits the ones that are causing problems those are a great place to map things out because those it's it's much easier to see them because it's causing yeah I'm a smoker I smoke I drink I drink up you know i junk food every day yeah what is the five or six common addictions that most people have I guess in America that you see that I see well I work a lot with not only with addictions but also with anxiety and overeating so I would say and the top hits one of the big ones is worrying worrying about the future that's a habit that is a habit loop it's negatively reinforced okay cuz you're constantly wor I guess our brain is designed to worry yeah well keep us alive right so worrying doesn't necessarily keep us alive but our brain is designed to plan for the future so what our brains trying to do is minimize uncertainty so it's trying to map out okay how is this gonna play out and if I can know exactly how it's gonna play out either good or bad my brain I feel better right even if I know it's gonna suck at least I know it's gonna suck that uncertainty is worse than knowing it okay so worrying is a top top one top one there yeah some of the common ones I mean smoking is still one of the key killers there yeah yes it is and cigarettes aren't helping with this this poor teen population that's getting addicted teens are now pop addicted to e-cigarettes more than anything it seems like yeah I just saw a study that found it was like 27% of high schoolers had used an e-cigarette in the last month which is like the rates are going in the wrong direction right that that's yes they're going up it's terrible hi is it because of worry and stress and anxiety is it because it's everyone's doing it so you pick it up well and and nicotine now tastes like mango and mint right you've got this cool futuristic looking thing that looks like a USB Drive that gives you this crazy cloud of stuff that you can you know puff out of your mouth it looks futuristic cool and tastes like a mango I mean what teenager wouldn't want to try that and great marketing just bad product yes I'm not sure how this big sleep at night I don't know it's crazy but they market to get people addicted to something negative yes some aspect is lost right especially if you can mask all of the negative aspects to it so with cigarettes because nicotine is a toxin right so with cigarettes it back in the old days kids had to get overcome the nausea that comes with therefore a cigarette right in your parents caught you smoking they'd make you smoke up ten cigarettes so you throw up so you'd see the throwing up with smoke you say all right why do people get nauseated because nicotine is a toxic so they can mask all that stuff and make it taste like mango and then 27% of high school students so we got the smoking we've got whirring what are some other additions or habits a drinking has always been a big one and you can see I remember a patient that was referred to me for alcoholism actually and it turns out that he would drink as a way to mask his anxiety so there are a lot of people that socially drink for to help with social anxiety there like so it's a double addiction worry is the addiction is the car is like the main addiction hearing but then drinking is like another addiction to mask one addiction yes often drinking has a comorbidity or something that comes along with it and anxiety is one of the big ones that I see so this guy for example was anxious he would drink to make himself not feel anxious and then it took him a while so when he came in to see me I first had him map out those loops and he realized oh I was I'm drinking to work with my anxiety why don't I just work with my anxiety itself and he was able to quit drinking it's because he's like wow this is you know too many calories it's expensive I get a hangover I can't work in the morning all these things he's all the negative aspects to that which is the second piece right map it out see how unrewarding that old habit is and then you can replace it with something that's better whose that'd be a better offer that bigger better offer the BB oh I guess cuz there's always a reward for the habit there's some type of feeling reward relieve yes yes pay off for the price you pay there is that's how reward based learning works I'm glad you bring that up because a lot of people think oh if I'm gonna change a behavior I need to focus on the behavior I'll just use my willpower and you know grit my teeth and you know white knuckles I know do it every day right but that's not how our brains learn our brains learn based on the Lord how rewarding something is so if we can focus on that part we can actually hack that process and help our brain see oh if it's a cigarette or over you know drinking too much or whatever it's not that rewarding that's what helps us start to change the behavior without having to force ourselves to do it because our brain just says why would I do that that's not that's not so good so step one is the assessment of one of the bad habits yes step two is the figuring out what's the reward you're getting for this what do I get from this so we have the people who using our app based programs whether it's eating or anxiety or smoking to ask the simple question what do I get from this not in a thinking way right like oh I could get cancer because that that thinking part of our brain doesn't hold the candle to like oh what's this feel like do I feel yeah so what's it feel like when I overeat you know oh my stomach gets this gut bomb I feel you know I get a sugar rush and crash if I eat junk food or whatever we can that's that second piece is really diving into our dry to experience and that's what either reinforces or unreinforced old habits okay and then what's the step after that that Beach it were cured you think about it we understand it we're we're and then we stop doing it well our brains often think you know okay this isn't so good but until you give me something better I'm gonna keep we need a bigger better offering otherwise it's almost impossible to just cut something cold turkey and our brain says it can be much more challenging a people Donald I'm sure they're just like okay I realized I don't want to do this anymore not smoking not drinking not whatever the addiction but do we know the percentages of when someone tries willpower cold turkey without a bigger better offer versus when someone has a bigger better offer the percentages of its shifting I don't know anybody that's done that experiment yes but I hadn't said yeah that'd be a great experiment but we do know that willpower really doesn't help that much the the average person last time I looked at these statistics the average person that quit smoking the likelihood that they're gonna stay quit a year later is 5% off willpower yes well in the general orange and everything like quit I did the patch I said no I'm that's overall 5% even with a better bigger better awesome well that's the piece that hasn't been added in yet so this is where the new science competitions we're bringing you something new you can try now like this well we've actually been studying this a bit so for example knowing so we've mapped out these these habit loop processes and really zoomed in on this this reward evaluation piece so there have been these formulas that have been around since the 1970s this these researchers Rescorla and wagner so there's this Rescorla wagner curve basically which sounds kind of fancy but basically they said you know it that devaluation piece if you can devalue something that's gonna really change behavior and they've lined this up you know people have lined this up in an animal behavior experiments they've lined this up with dopamine firing they've lined this up in a bunch of basic science models but I really don't know of anybody that's lined this up with habit behaviors yet so we actually built a tool right into our eat right now app this app that helps people work with overeating or stress eating to see if we could map out that process and what we do is we have people first just imagine the whatever the type of food is or the amount of food is that they typically are struggling with right and so we have them go through this this exercise where they remember the last time they ate it and they just go through that and then we ask them well how's your craving now and if they're really still excited about it their cravings these are gonna stay the same or go up right because they're like how ice cream um thank you now I really want ice cream dude where's the ice cream right so that helps us get a sense for how strong the reward value is now and then we have them do a mindful eating exercise where we say okay go and eat that amount of food right so if they overeat or whatever but we have them pay attention in their mind no no we have them actually do it get the burger get the ice yeah he goes all do it now yep yep go for it okay and then we ask them afterwards how was it how do you I feel sick my stomach hurts I'm getting a migraine yeah yeah so our brains learn from what's called a positive or a negative prediction error as in their brain was predicting that it's gonna be this rewarding remember that five year old brain with birthday cake and if they're like wait a minute this doesn't taste as good as I thought or eating this amount of ice cream gives me the gut bomb there's this negative prediction error where their brain says hey wait a minute there's new information here you need to update this reward value and what we found we just finished a study where what we found was it takes about 10 times on average for somebody really dive into this with eating that the reward value starts to change and over and with a few more uses it actually is associated with the change in their behavior so you do this ten times where you are where you're reflecting on it you're noticing the feeling the energy that everything how you feel after ten times of doing this you start your body starts to click and you say actually I don't want this anymore that's what it seems now this is also in conjunction with learning mindfulness as they go through the chat based training program you've got to do that for the same time possibly but one of the key elements may be helping our brains just really see the actual reward value but as part of that as I you know with the with the training we also give them the bbo that bigger better offer so what would the bigger better offer be for someone who's maybe overweight and eats poorly concen to mask anxiety or warrior okay self-doubt so you told tell me what would what feels better for you craving or curiosity if you're curious about something what feels better yeah in your body even curious about this question curiosity feels better because craving feels like you're a slave to some yes it's like you're a prisoner to this craving I need it now I'll do whatever I take to fulfill this emptiness yes I need to fulfill give me the M&Ms give me the ice cream I want the pizza now post mates let's go yeah who breeds door - I'm in right right and we can we can have food instantaneously almost show up at our door yeah right and so we can reinforce those habit the curiosity feels better because you're exploring a different part of your brain you're you're interested in something different you're like wondering what could it something else be like but even that momentary experience you used with your hand you clenched your hand us so there's this Clint contracted close down quality to a craving does curiosity feel contracted answers yes what's the possibility yes so which if you just took closed versus open or contracted versus expanded which one feels better expanded yes so right there we can give our brain a very clear bigger better offer expanded so for example when we're caught up in ego and we're waiting for that next complement does it feel closed or open closed yes how about when you're in flow like when you're just totally killing it in sport or playing music or having a great conversation feel closed or open open yes big a better offer boom okay so your reflect on the bigger better offer of giving expansive feeling healthier happier more fulfilled well it's not even on what could be it's right in that moment we can tap into that superpower of curiosity with the curiosity be well it was as opposed to the craving what are you curious about we can get curious about the craving Oh what does this craving feel like in my body and we flip the valence from this closed down feeling of craving caught up in a craving - oh wow this feels like tightness or tension or you know I'm feeling my hand to move to my phone to click on you know click on the food to the eating app or whatever oh wow we can just explore our experience in that moment so we can actually hack craving with curiosity just by bringing it in okay and what if the craving is still there then we can get curious about that mmm how long is this gonna last is it changing is it moving in my body we actually have had people on our program saying you know I actually had a guy walk into my office as I was working at the VA hospital and he walked my office and he said doc I feel like my head's gonna explode if I don't smoke and you know young diction it's like hi she's a bit like what do I do so I was like well if your head explodes just put the pieces back together and call me he politely laughed you know it's like that joke but we actually got up and mapped out what head exploding felt like for him what does it feel like so he described it as like tightness or heat or clenching and things like this and we mapped it out on my remember mapping this out with it on my whiteboard where we watched that wave go up and then over so typically what somebody does is they'll smoke to make it go away but he realized it goes up and it actually goes away on its own and that was a big AHA for him mm-hmm and I feel like I feel like everything comes back to mindfulness and meditation it's like that to solve anything in life there's mindfulness and meditation it's what it all seems like it comes back down to over the last few years I've done so I've done so much research on meditation myself I've been in diannemurray retreats headspace calm had all the meditation teachers on and it feels like it's the solution to so many things is that true well I would say especially for habits we can see how mindfulness helps teach us that awareness piece that can help our brains get that updated and accurate information there's actually a pretty good scientific basis around mindfulness helping us with habits okay so and those habits can extend beyond eating and anxiety and smoking they can extend - getting caught up in you know in ego as we talked about things a little bit yeah they can also extend to being attached to certain views right so if there are political parties where one side says I'm right and the other part side says they're right and they just spend all their time fighting how are we gonna do anything so what does fighting feel like closed or open closed how does it feel when people actually collaborate and cross the aisle and say hey I want to understand your point of view I really want to understand it so we can work together over feels pretty good yeah so we can even see how mindfulness can help with these things where you know people are not having a good relationship or or societies are fighting with each other we can stop notice how unrewarding the fighting is and how rewarding it is just to remember each other's humanity yeah what is the likeliness then of changing a negative habit without the use of mindfulness meditation well the the Rescorla Wagner curves suggest that you really have to get that updated information to devalue the old things so there isn't anything else scientifically suggesting that we can change things it's you know it's not about willpower it's not about magical thinking you know it's not positive thinking and hoping and wishing hoping and wishing doesn't fit into the math the only research says meditation mindfulness awareness however it looks for you that type of awareness is the only solution that's what the math is suggesting so mindfulness helps teach us to be aware and awareness is what helps our brain get get that updated now we have a bigger better offer yeah well that so the bigger better offer can come in the form of curiosity or connection or kindness which are all heart Todd yeah those are often taught as part of a part of mindfulness practices but even feeling physically healthy mentally healthy feels good and so that's gonna reinforce those have those positive habits so eating healthfully feels better than eating a bunch of junk food I certainly know this myself so when we can really clearly see that cause-and-effect relationship it's just much easier to stay on a healthy happy what is what is the root of addiction in your mind you know I like this really simple definition of addiction continued use despite adverse consequences so I would say the root of addiction because that you know have continued just the despite adverse consequences can be anything from self being addicted to social media to a point of view so that I think the root actually comes in this survival mechanism that's just trying to help us remember where food is but in modern-day when food is plentiful you know most of us have a refrigerator and restaurants are open 20 years in the restaurant over in 80 times a day that mechanism that survival mechanism eken isms still in place so I think that the root of addictions actually I mean you're paradoxically there's a survival mechanism yet in modern day we refine you know coca leaves into cocaine we make we make synthetic opioids so that we can pop pills we we go on Instagram to look at keep pictures of puppies when we're bored you know all these different things that are and food is literally engineered to be addictive now so that process that's natural survival process has gotten hijacked what is the amount of time it takes to break an addiction that's 10 20 30 years old is it possible to break it in a moment a day is it take 30 days to break the habit or start a habit what is the scientific research saying is it the longer you've been doing something the longer it takes to break or you can still break it in 10 days once you hit that rhythm yeah yeah it really depends I'm remembering a guy that came into one of our early studies who was smoking 30 cigarettes a day and we started with the pay attention when you smoke see where you get from it two days later he came back and he'd cut 20 cigarettes and he realized you know I get up and I drink coffee and I don't like the bitter taste of coffee so I smoke a cigarette to cover the taste I could just brush my teeth instead so you know so for some people you know really clearly mapping it out and seeing how unrewarding the old behavior is helps them change a lot of the hab pretty quickly okay so and as I mentioned in some of our now preliminary research we're seeing and with using these mindfulness apps like that you right now out for the craving to quit up that I mentioned we're seeing after people are using these these craving tools about you know 10 to 15 times that significantly changes the value of that reward right 10 to 15 times where's that yes 15 days it's it really so depends on what the behavior is so somebody could have their their ice cream craving and so they can't just like eat ice cream 15 times in one day and do the thing and have it I mean they probably feel pretty sick but it really has to come as part of their natural experience so so you have that that when the craving comes up and you're about to do the addiction you open up the app there's a guided meditation there's uh steps the apps actually start with helping people map out their habit loops and so this is some of my you know well I learned the most when I fall on my face so when I was first starting this research I had this hypothesis that it would be you know these formal meditation practices that would help people change their behavior you know I've been meditating for a while I've gone on long retreats and you know would sit and meditate for a long time I was like this is it it was great for me but it turns out when we looked at our data that these informal practices these in the moment practices where people were paying attention as they were smoking or paying attention as they were eating were that's what was really helping to change the behavior itself in the moment not before the moment when you wake up in the morning at night in the moment right so the formal meditation practices can certainly be helpful but we actually start by helping people map these things out cuz I didn't know you know when I first started learning to meditate was like pay attention to your breath and when your mind wanders bring it back I was like okay this makes sense but when I went out you know I went on my first meditation weird seven-day silent meditation retreat by like day three I was crying uncontrollably on the shoulder of the retreat manager because I couldn't pay I was like I made it through college I mean in a medical school and now I can't there get pay attention so I thought I was a failure and it turns out it's not about forcing ourselves to pay attention right that grid that will power doesn't certainly didn't work for me it's really about understanding our minds so instead of like telling people pay attention to your breath or something like that we first start by helping them map out how their mind works and map out those habit loops then we layer in in formal practices and give them like these short bite-sized trainings every day so like 10 minutes a day short video some animation some in the moment exercises so people can actually layer this right into their busy day so they can't say I don't have time to do this anybody that has 5 or 10 minutes a day can actually do the training in the morning and then build that throughout their day then we layer in the formal practices as people start to understand how their habits work how they're you know what they're getting from these old habits and how they can actually you know start to bring in that space for that bigger better offer so the aware the kindness the curiosity the awareness we layer that in afterwards and we've seen some pretty significant results we just finished two studies with our unwinding anxiety program one with anxious physicians I can speak from present a pain in the ass to work with right and we don't learn any tools at least we didn't in medical school learn any tools to to work with all the difficulty you know we're expected to you know be you always alert and always people so for example that when you watch a television show or movie about doctors do you ever see them going to the bathroom no because we're not even supposed to go to the bathroom we're supposed to just be totally helping everybody else and not worrying about ourselves so that's what we call school and always put together and always have the answer right noise and the way code is always clean right know everything everything so if you look at that you know tons of anxious physicians out there burnout rates or sky-high you know some describe this even in epidemic proportions so we actually have them use our own rating anxiety program just to see if we can get physicians to engage with this within three months we got a 57 percent reduction in clinically validating SIA T scores and without teaching them anything about burnout we got a 50% reduction in some measures of burnout because there's a correlation between like becoming callous toward other people and and anxiety in burnout so we were saying that and then we just did a randomized control trial to make sure you know this this was actually legit with people with generalized anxiety disorder so people with moderate to severe anxiety after two months we got a 60 percent sixty three percent reduction in these clinically validated anxiety scores whereas a control group no change at all we viewed map this on to the brain where with our smoking program the carribean to quit up we can actually target specific brain regions and show that as those brain regions change in activity they predict clinical outcomes so we're seeing everything from behavioral mechanism you know with these were score low Agner curves to the brain mechanisms where we're targeting these brain regions that get caught up when we get or get activated when we get caught up in anxiety or craving or whatnot and all of this and surprisingly we can actually apply these digital therapeutics you know the basically app based training programs which wasn't even a term several years ago when we started doing this work you know the the iPhone was just being rolled out and the the Android phones looks like a big clunky Texas Instruments so we were we were like well can we use this and I had this aha moment where I realized you know this is these processes are set up for survival helping people remember where to find food people don't learn to smoke in my office they don't learn to get anxious in my office hopefully so can I actually package my office and bring it to them and so that's where we started taking these manualized these evidence-based training cutting them into bite-sized pieces and delivering them via an app is there any addictions that you have not been able to overcome herself being the one helping people overcome these addictions through all this training and teaching and you still have an addiction let's just say that my addictions are much better I wrote it I wrote a whole book about all my different addictions from thinking to love to distraction to what I I and certainly over the last 20 years I feel like they are in in much better control I have a much better life I don't feel like I'm a slave to my dick really so that so they're not a hot ever saying God but you manage them like they're not in control of me anymore that's good so they're not like you're not a prisoner to your addiction it's not a I'm not in prison anymore do you feel like everyone has addictions we all do maybe I'll do we all do and you can think of it as any habit that's kind of gotten a little off the rails a little out of control right continued use despite adverse consequences what about positive addiction like reading every day or going to work out every day right taking care of your health every day so let's let's talk about working out so that was one of one of the ones that I worked with in terms of being addicted to running to run every day and I would get irritable if I you know if I couldn't fit a run in and you know folks would kind of avoid me until I've gotten my exercise so exercise obviously healthy and helpful for promoting health I'd you know I'd like to X still like to exercise every day but when it becomes continued use despite adverse consequences so if we exercise even when were injured because we have to get that exercise in that's a problem we were just I was just leading a co-leading a retreat with the Olympic women's water polo team and he was talking to some of the athletes and one of them talked about how you know she could really almost basically get into flow through exercise but has was really struggling to get you know to find that mindset outside of outside of sport outside of exercise and so the idea here is I'll be like B and flow in her life not just for the two hours of the gym or right tool right so there you know imagine somebody is in that in that state and they get injured you know it can be really devastating and we see this I've heard about especially in surfing when folks get injured in that like they were so addicted to that adrenaline rush which is kind of different than flow but let's just say that can be even more addictive what do they do when they you know they're injured and they can't surf anymore a lot of them turn to drugs because they need the rush yes yeah so what was once a positive addition now you substitute for a negative addiction to have which is the alternate bigger better offer because you can't do the thing you loved yeah and I'm not sure you know the positive addiction I don't know how many positive addictions are actually out there because anytime we're a slave to anything that's problematic what if it's a habit that adds value to your life great habits are good Tyler having to relearn how to tie our shoes every morning that wouldn't be so great right it's a tying our shoes good habit so what's the difference between a habit in addiction continued use despite adverse consequences okay right telling my shoes doesn't provide adverse consequences for me it actually helps me from tripping there's a positive running every day helps you stay healthier but being obsessed with running every day otherwise you're an angry person problem he's a problem yeah so addiction not yeah so if I listen to my body and I say okay maybe I need a rest day and I take a rest day that's much better than pushing through that and potentially getting injured what if someone feels like you know what my life is just kind of I don't feel fulfilled I feel like I've got a little worried here I've got some stress some uncertainty about the future and relationships are good but they're not great I'm not out of shape but I'm not in shape do you teach people how to develop positive habits that would get their life into a place of more fulfillment as well yes so what should they do yeah I think one of the simplest ways to start to explore that for folks and to start to explore their own lives is through curiosity really just developing that I would say even just awakening curiosity because we all even we all were great at curiosity when we were three you know we can steer a blade of grass for hours turn to the lock so that curiosity piece helps us tap into what it feels like to be open and that openness we can start to realize that this is actually everywhere we have a good conversation with somebody we're just resting blocking outside in nature you know just looking at the trees looking at the leaves looking at the grass whatever we can actually realize there's a ton of of positive feeling that you know that openness that actually is always available we've just been ignoring it so we kind of awaken that peace through fostering curiosity curiosity is step one mm-hmm curiosity curious about your life about what's possible taking a breath looking at things in a different way yeah doing that approach yes and so it's critical here because there are two types of curiosity when's this deprivation curiosity where it's like oh who is that how I saw that person in a movie what was that what was her name I can't and then you know we we frantically pull out our phone you're like oh thank now i remember this person is named you know nice trivia but not gonna be a life changer for us in terms of you know helping us you know have these aha moments sure so deprivation curiosity feels very much like an addiction there's that itch I'm gonna Instagram right now there's this Restless quality that says do something it's like that destination we have to get somewhere so interest curiosity is that open quality that we've been talking about that's really about being curious about the journey like oh you know look at this this grain of wood isn't that you know and not just isn't that interesting intellectually but just really letting our senses rip and just letting that feeling of curiosity come pouring for pointing out mental illness and mental health is a topic that I've been seeing everywhere people are talking about as a struggle that a lot of people are going through and they're opening up about it online and publications do you feel how important is it to focus on our mental health part one and then when someone feels like they are mentally ill is there a way to solve an end mental disease or mental illness so part one critical to focus on a mental health and I think that actually relates to part two as well which is you know disease is often in the eye the beholder how do we define this stuff and so you can think of anxiety being our planning brain you're trying to secure the future kind of going off the rails a little bit so you know can we look at these processes and see what is what is something that was actually there to help us survive that's kind of gone off the rails a little bit and help that tweak that a little bit so it gets back into the normal range so and that brings us into the range of mental health so I think the two is really inextricably linked sure is is mental illness something that you can cure because a lot of I hear people saying like I have a disease it's mental illness I can't be cured but I am accepting of like the disease and who I am and I know how to work with it is that is that possible well if we think of all of life having some elements of it that are out of our control or not satisfactory right there are lots of things that we don't love to have be different sure so think of life as a mental disorder scribing in terms of mental illness so to speak there is a dis ease but we can actually learn to be ok with things not being perfect and in that sense if we're okay with things not being perfect what's the problem we don't have the disease this disease anymore yeah right we don't have that yeah so we can a sense in a sense cure that worry stress this is feeling just as an example with there's a lot of work now in the field of schizophrenia where it's helping people see that oh they're hearing voices and they can actually relate to their voices differently as compared to thinking oh I'm a sick person I need to take medications not that medications aren't helpful I'm not suggesting that but it there's this whole movement that's helping people relate to those voices differently so that they are not fighting against them or thinking there's something wrong with them and start helping them see oh well cure these voices in my head how can I work with them and so there's a dis ease that can much less dis-ease full by helping us just relate to ourselves differently and that's really what mindfulness is all about it's not about changing things it's about changing our relationship to whatever it comes up if we you know what we resist persists yeah now you're talking you're sounding like a personal development guru you're crossing over to the other worlds I like it so what do you suggest everyone start doing to improve their mental health whether they feel like life is pretty good right now but there's gonna be some challenges in the future or I can't even think for a moment does it all tap back into mindfulness and meditation awareness for you I would say it all tops back it all taps back into helping we really have to understand and know how our minds work if we don't know how our minds work we can't work with them so the first step is know your mind know how your mind works how do we know what how our mind works well starts with mapping out a bunch of our habit loops and that's gonna be a big step forward and just once we become familiar with some of these habit lips the other ones start jumping out of the woodwork like oh I didn't notice this I didn't notice this I didn't notice this so we learn a whole lot about how our mind works just by starting with you know think of like some of these cornerstone habits old old habits understand that piece see that they are actually workable because when we understand our mind works we can work with our mind see that they're workable with awareness start to see you know all these aspects around what how rewarding is the old behavior bring in that bigger better offer that comes with kindness and curiosity and we're already way down the road at that point Wow and what is the difference between mindfulness and overthinking curiosity constantly and overthinking yes so overthinking is often what we're caught up in or some some loop it could be perseveration when we're worried about something it could be rumination when we're I can't believe I did that you know it's so passed in future we're often lost in the past and future so mindfulness is about bringing us into the present moment noticing when we're lost in any of those habits and just being aware of them so it's it's really about stepping out of the loop of being caught up and just seeing them for what they are not trying to change them but simply notice oh this is happening this is happening as compared to getting in there and trying to push against them or change them so as a doctor and scientists there's you know thousands of years of ancient wisdom that's been teaching all of us this stuff right but it's taken doctors and scientists like yourself to research to find the true meaning or to find that the facts of it I guess to prove it yes why is that why can't we just listen to our ancestors and say you know it's not that difficult we're over complicating life but why do we struggle so much yeah it's a great the answers have always been here yeah it's a great question so I think there are several aspects to that one is that in the West we tend to be kind of addicted to science so we think oh if it's not scientifically proven it can't be true to our experience is really the mover in at the driver and the mover with changing things so we really have to experience something ourselves we can't just say oh yeah that guy said it's true we have to actually experience this and actually the actually said that - he said don't believe what I say try it see if it's true for you yourself so I think we have to actually experience things in our own you know in our own lives you know and have our own experiences to see what is actually true all of that comes with awareness so I think those two pieces are at play though so how do scientists prove religion God Jesus like as they're a solution and improving this to all these other things just spirituality like science and spirituality how do you prove it that's a great question I'm gonna get really curious about that but that's way beyond my favorite I'm into habits and helping people - habits as far as those things hopefully somebody else is really curious about those questions I'd love to see what they come up with that's great all right yeah it's what's a life worth living you in terms of the habits we can apply to our life mm-hmm I would say the most fulfilling moments of my life are when I'm connected with others when there's some sort of kindness happening when there's you know I just I just love developing programs to help people change their lives it's so fulfilling to have people write in to us and say you know you're you know you're I've changed my life or I've been anxious for 15 years and I've tried everything and this is the only thing that's worked it some guy wrote a review who said you know if I could buy this app for everybody in the world I would because it helped me with my smoking so much that's what's really gratifying for me is just seeing you know that how we can bring simple principles together ancient wisdom together with modern science and make these things really accessible for people because there's a lot of suffering out there and every day you know when I get up in the morning and know that I can help move people in the direction away from suffering that's a fulfilling for me when you're when you're you know that your work is making a difference making impact yeah what if someone's listening or watching has someone close to them a family member a friend a partner that they know has been suffering with an addiction for a long time and they've tried everything they've tried giving them more love rewarding them with a bigger better offer holding them accountable they've tried tough love they've they've called them names you know tried everything which I'm sure people have tried what advice could you give them whether they were to be a part of the app that you have which I'm gonna recommend everyone do but even if they didn't do that what advice would you give them that could potentially help solve the addiction for a loved one yeah I see a lot of people and a lot of people come to me with this very question and the first step there I recommend to them is also understanding their own minds because if they can and their own minds they can see where they might be reactive or where they might have the best intentions but might be feeding something or enabling something that isn't as healthy so if they can understand their own minds a little bit more they can actually understand the mind of their loved one and put themselves in their loved-ones shoes and have compassion and not in guilt and shame yes which I've been I've done in the past many times it's making someone feel bad yeah yeah it's probably doesn't probably makes it more addicted to the thing right shame guilt they are habit loops unto themselves right it probably makes someone want the thing to dissolve the shame and guilt more yeah yeah so taking awareness of our own brains first and having compassion for the addiction is what you would say is the powerful stuff yeah and then have have that help people be able to just hold the suffering of somebody else because when we're not as worried about protecting ourselves you know one thing mindfulness helps us do is to not you know not take things so personally and so often we take things personally we don't even realize that we're doing it in our efforts to help you know it might be painful and so we put up the armor or whatever so as we learn to not take things personally that opens us to be able to be with the suffering of others and as you pointed out that compassion can naturally arise and just being with somebody in holding their suffering can be tremendously healing unto itself so healing that's probably one of the hardest things as a human can do I'm speaking for myself but I'm assuming it's one of the hardest things to not be triggered by your own taking offense miss to something that someone did taking something personally a wall so I want to hardest things to notice the trigger say I'm gonna take my ego out of my chest and put it over here on a table look at it and not let it affect me and be with the suffering of someone yelling or attacking or pushing a button of yours that and just be with them yeah yeah why is that so hard to do that do you find gets hard for you still it's for all this time because for everybody so it's it goes back to these survival mechanisms that say danger danger danger and we have to be able to realize whether something is dangerous or whether something isn't dangerous and if somebody is verbally attacking us or something and we push back then that can just ask escalate things as compared to being with that suffering and not you know not being that yes do you do you notice yourself ever reacting still the situations that maybe trigger you or oh sure really still today even as the guy who's got the answers who's got the research that I still have to practice but I would say every day every moment as I practice and feel the the sweetness that comes with connection with kindness with letting go it gets easier and easier wow you're a sweet scientist you've got a sweet heart and a kind heart it's amazing you're you've got the analytical brain and the emotional side of you which is really nice to see because most not shouldn't say most but sometimes you see a doctor or scientist that's just all analytical and no heart and I really see your heart so I appreciate that this is a question I ask everyone towards the end well before I ask this is there anything else we should under no about habits that I'm missing here that's really important for us to know about about building a positive habit so let's touch on building positive habits a little bit so we've talked about how to unwind some of these old habits and I think noticing the cause and effect relationship helps us see how unrewarding old habits are but it also helps us see how rewarding some of these positive habits are so you just want to highlight that case every time we're truly say generous with somebody and we're not looking for something in return like just true generosity not looking for anything in return how does it feel amazing yeah so if we can really even just reflect on that Wow you know that felt really good that feeds that positive how about Lou st. for kindness same for connection when we put away our phone and really have a conversation with somebody it's compared to having that phone burn a hole in our pocket and we notice what it just feels like to have a good connection it makes it easier to put the phone away in the future yeah okay so how do we build a positive habit it's through the awareness again same thing as anyone yep being aware of how it makes us feel the bigger better offer that we'd get from this and costly doing it that it's a good habit it's a good reward not a negative reward yes yes and we can look for the contracted quality of experience versus the expanded quality of experience to see and sometimes they're mixed you know we might be holding the door for our boss and we're gonna feel like did she actually did she notice that I held the door was she angry what'd she say full yeah so we could look for that closed down piece and then look to see what it feels like when we just hold it just out of pure kindness yeah you're sounding like a personal development guru or you know Tony Robbins would say like the the secret to living is giving you know it's like the more we give the more we feel good about ourselves and not looking for something in return but whatever the whether it's science or the laws of the universe where something's gonna come back in an abundant way when we create when we give when we offer value to other people yeah and and it's beautiful to see how the science is actually backing that up right and so those things you the giving has been around for thousands of years people saying you know it's generosity is good you know as compared to Gordon Gekko in The Wall Street greed is good no he was just addicted to money generosity is good thousands of years now we can see oh the science actually supports this it's you know there's this rewarding quality that feels better when we're open when we're connected as compared to when we're trying to hold on or get more hmm so the science so you've done the research with this habit of giving as well or is that just we haven't yet but I've never be a fun experiment to do amazing yes I love this personal developments nice coming together okay is there the answer I'm positive that we should know about I think that's it okay it's pretty simple this is a great I love this conversation this question is called the three truths okay so imagine it's your last day on earth many years from now you live as long as you want to live to be couple hundred years but eventually you got to go and the physical forms got to leave okay and you have achieved every dream you can think of you have the life of your dreams you find the research to positive giving you find the solutions to spirituality you want to do you find the answers okay and all this research is out there that you've created where your team is created with you for whatever reason you've got to take the research with you you've got to take all the content you've created the TED talks with tens of millions of views they all got to go away and you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life and your experiences that you would leave with all of us three lessons or what I like to call us three truths that's all you could leave behind what would you say are your three truths in no particular order but maybe in this order number one curiosity is key I mean if I had to condense everything that I've learned both personally and scientifically to one word it would be curiosity that carries awareness it's sweet it changes habits just think about curiosity it's number one probably know number one number two and number three but the other may sound a little more like cliches but they're still true for me that the kindness wins every time mm-hmm you know love Trump's hate every time and that also fits with the reward based learning piece so the science of that is beautiful yeah as well you know I'm not I'm gonna leave it at two because I'm not sure what else there is besides curiosity and kindness mm-hmm I mean both of those lead to connections so if I had to put a third in there but as a result of the first two is connection as humans when we connect with each other even connecting with other beings like our animals pets whatever that's pretty darn good mm-hmm so curiosity kindness connection that's powerful how can we support you how can we get a hold of the materials the assessments the apps where can we go to ends the negative addictions and become more complete human beings without negative addictions I have a totally self-referential website called dr. Judd Comdr Ju decom which has information we have a bunch of free resources they're put out courses for healthcare providers that are all free a bunch of videos that we've and animations we put together because it's just really fun to condense the science and is digestible bits and also the apps you know the unwinding anxiety apps the heat right now happened the craving to quit app those are all throwing up store they're only app store but folks can find them directly through my website as well Jeff and then I wrote a book called the craving mind if folks want to read more about that brings in my personal journey with the scientific journey which was funder right as well craving mind what and I'll link all this stuff up on my on the show notes to I'm acknowledging dr. Judd for the ability to see your own addictions and dive into this to help not only yourself but so many other people that you have the curiosity to say why do I have these addictions why am i overthinking why I'm obsessing over this why you know all these things that you talked about so that you could help heal and relieve pain for so many people in the world it's amazing that you had that curiosity and you work so hard over the years to do the research like only imagine how much time that is taking you to find the results and define the research that proves these things scientifically decades of time and energy so I thank you for your service sacrifice whatever you want to call it for showing up and help and the results are you know helping a lot of people heal and feel peace which is what we're all looking to do is figure out how to us how to suffer less and have more peace and love in our heart like you said kindness curiosity so I'm very grateful to acknowledge you for that thank you it's it's an honor and a privilege and it's been a wild ride so far and we're just getting started yes just getting started this is my final question it's what's your definition of greatness egolessness there you go there you go dr. John thanks man appreciate you thank you [Music]

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 60,821

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Keywords: lewishowes, the school of greatness, business, self help, motivation, Dr. Jud Brewer, changing habits, building a life, the craving mind, generosity, kindness, happiness, addiction, ego, mindfulness, meditation, overthinking, change, positive habits, brown university, optimizing habits, breaking addictions, relationships, patterns, inspirational video, lewis howes, self improvement, self development, lewis howes interview, how to break a habit, how to become successful, motivational videos

Id: rP4o8bCiycI

Length: 68min 47sec (4127 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019