Jud Brewer Speaks about Addiction at Assembly
By Maya Cohen, Otto Do, Jeannie Eom and Evan Gonzalez
Psychiatrist and mindful addiction doctor Judson Brewer shared thoughts from his over twenty years of mindfulness experience to the Academy last Tuesday.
Brewer specializes in addiction studies and has developed novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including in-person and app-based treatments. Assembly Committee Chair Alex Myers introduced Brewer and the importance of Brewer’s work during isolation in the pandemic.
Brewer began his career with mouse research while working towards an immunology degree. Later, however, this experience informed Brewer of his interest in being “direct,” in which he hoped that his research could be directly relevant to the human body. “So, I decided to give up doing mouse research during residency and retool to do human research because I wanted to ask questions that were directly relevant to humans,” he said. Brewer’s experience in immunology helped him see the interests he was missing while it also helped him explore the links between the mind and the body.
During the assembly, Brewer offered ways to combat anxiety and panic. He first explained the evolutionary functions of anxiety and panic, observing that they are “close cousins.” Using the pandemic as an example, he explained their adverse effects on a global level. “Scientists raced to study the characteristics of the virus so that we can know precisely how contagious and deadly it is and act accordingly . . . [but] it is easy for our brains to spin stories of fear and dread,” Brewer said.
However, not all social contagions are negative. “Kindness is a different type of virus,” Brewer said. “The spread of emotion from one person to another wearing a face mask and socially distancing can prevent the spread of a physical virus . . . Kindness is more infectious than COVID-19. Think about it: How does it feel when someone genuinely and spontaneously is kind to you or kind of someone else?”
Brewer also introduced the idea of habit loops. When something positive happens, like watching a funny video, our brain wants it to happen again. Positive habit loops, if left unchecked, can lead to addiction. When something negative happens, like a school deadline, we reach for that funny video to counteract the negative feelings, creating a loop of behavior and reward.
Social media is a “neutral player” in this cycle. Brewer observed that social media companies craft their outreach in order to be addictive. Addiction leads to tangible change in a person: “they become focused on themselves, and depending on the severity, they may commit unethical acts to fulfill their desires.” Brewer urged the Exeter community to be more aware of the positive or negative effects of their habit loops.
When asked whether or not teenagers should abandon social media, Brewer replied, “I wouldn’t say abandon them, but ask yourself, what do I get from this? It’s not that social media is a bad thing; It’s not that technology is a bad thing; when we get caught up in things and we find ourselves lost in them for hours at a time, we literally lose our lives.”
Negative habit loops, such as the social media example Brewer referenced, can have adverse long-term effects. According to Brewer, negative reinforcement drives anger and causes people to search for an outlet. “If somebody sees something that they don’t like they focus their energy and anger and do something,” he said. “They might [comment] something outrageous, which might have an disadvantageous effect on both them and others. This might make them feel that they’re in control of the situation and help them simmer down.”
However, this calm can be dangerous to others, causing viewers to become enraged and search for an outlet. Another unfortunate response is agreement, which reinforces the negative emotions they are expressing.
During the question and answer portion of the assembly, a student asked for meditative advice as someone who has tried and failed meditation before. Brewer sympathized and replied that he once faced the same challenge. “I started meditating trying to shut my brain down and stop thinking,” Brewer said. “I would actually sweat through t-shirts . . . because I was working too hard. It took me over 10 years to figure this out myself. And then another 10 years of research to understand why this was the case, but it’s not actually about shutting our minds down at all. I actually find thinking to be pretty helpful.”
Brewer said that mindfulness is about “... changing our relationship to our thoughts and emotions and body sensations,” concluding that “... if we can learn to relate to them differently, then that’s where we actually have much more control than shutting anything down.”
For those who also struggle with meditation, Brewer suggested that they first understand the purpose of meditation. “[Tt] help[s] us see when we’re reacting, getting caught up in certain thoughts that we like, pushing away other thoughts that we don’t like; notice how we can start to change that relationship and see where our thoughts come and go,” he said.
Brewer encouraged students to substitute worry for other responses. “What if we substituted curiosity as that new behavior? [Mindfulness] is about fostering a curious awareness, not prejudging things, not assuming things are going to happen, but simply being curious,” Brewer said.
As another example, Brewer shared how he has changed his reactions to others, specifically in the presidential debate. “I grounded myself in my body and focused on my physiologic reactions, especially when the candidates talked over each other. I looked to see where I was getting riled up or closing down and tried to bring some curiosity to that,” Brewer said.
After reprogramming his mind in a similar way, Brewer said that when panicked, he no longer feels dread or fear, instead saying: “Hmm. That’s interesting. I wasn’t just saying it was interesting. I actually felt it,” he said.
This rewiring taps into “reward-based learning,” Brewer said. “We can use what I call BBO—Bigger, Better Offers—are, and they’re right at the right in front of us. For example, curiosity.”
Mindful behaviors become core tenets of mindfulness, “... helping us live better lives, more connected lives. Be kinder to each other and all of these things, rather than trying to make yourself more productive automatons of society,” Brewer said.
Upper and Co-Head of Active Minds Celine Gu commended the Academy’s willingness to highlight mental health. “A lot of the stigma surrounding mental health issues comes from a lack of understanding of what causes them, and he did a great job laying down the logic and brain processes behind anxiety. We often think about anxiety abstractly, so it was helpful approaching it from a more concrete perspective,” Gu said.
Additionally, Gu appreciated the specific steps Brewer articulated. “The curiosity and mindfulness tactics he mentioned were feasible to incorporate into students’ lives, a great reminder that confronting anxiety doesn’t have to be daunting,” she said.
“I would like to delve more into helping people really see clearly a feeling of closed down versus opened-up, and what it is that can help us see that clearly very quickly,” Brewer said.
Brewer feels that these closed-down qualities of experience underlie everything from frustration to anger, to greed, to everything, while the opened-up qualities of experience underlie kindness, connection, and curiosity. By exploring how to most efficiently help people tap into those qualities from their direct experiences, Brewer hopes to “... link up the cause and effect relationship between X behavior leading to either closed or open feelings,” which helps train the brains to become more aware of one’s actions and how it feels. “I think that will naturally help move society toward being more kind and connected, and that’s what motivates me.”
“If Psychiatry is something that you’re really passionate about, I would just say follow that because the authenticity and passion is going to help you get everywhere that you need to go,” Brewer said. “I would add for everyone; if you’re not sure what you want to do in college… or what you wanna do after that, just be curious and open. Don’t lock yourself into anything, but really just follow that interest and follow that curiosity.”