Books we recommend
Unwinding Anxiety: Train your Brain to Heal Your Mind
Judson Brewer
Published 2021
Self-care
- Anxiety is a habit loop—trigger, behavior, reward—rather than a fixed personality trait, which means it can be unwound.
- Curiosity and mindful awareness interrupt anxiety loops more effectively than willpower or self-criticism.
- Noticing the real rewards of anxious behaviors (worrying, checking, avoiding) helps the brain naturally lose interest in them.
- Replacing old habits with small, kind, and rewarding actions—like pausing, feeling the body, and naming emotions—builds new neural pathways.
- Change happens through repeated practice in real moments of anxiety, not through intellectual insight alone.
- Short, frequent mindfulness practices are more sustainable and powerful than occasional long sessions.
- Learning to relate differently to anxious thoughts (seeing them as mental events, not facts) reduces their grip over time.
- Self-compassion is a core ingredient: treating yourself like a friend makes it safer to explore and release anxiety patterns.