Unwinding Anxiety summary

What comes to mind when you think of addiction? People huddling in doorways, shooting up heroin? Gamblers playing slot machines until they’ve blown through all their savings? 

These stereotypical images of addiction make it seem like something unusual, or something that only happens to people in extreme circumstances. But addiction is actually a part of all our daily lives. Think of the extra pair of shoes you couldn’t help buying even though you’re short on cash. Or the fact that you can’t stop scrolling through social media even though you have an assignment due. 

John had what seemed like a drinking problem. Every night he’d drink six to eight shots of whiskey, pass out, and begin again the next evening. But when he looked more closely at his addictive habits, John realized that, in fact, anxiety was fueling his drinking. He was anxious about his workload, so he drank to experience temporary numbness and distraction. But, of course, the drinking only made things worse. He was stuck in a destructive cycle known as a habit loop.

When John started to mindmap his habit loops, he began to understand his own mind much more clearly and get more perspective on his life. 

Imagine waking up every day and having to learn how to eat breakfast or use your phone all over again, with all your knowledge wiped out overnight. It would make life completely untenable.

Our brains are skilled at committing behaviors to our muscle memory, so that we can do them without thinking. In fact, a 2010 Harvard University study found that we live on autopilot about 50 percent of the time. While this can be useful, it also means that we lose awareness of our thought processes. That means that we can’t interrupt destructive habit loops – because we don’t even know they’re happening! 

Imagine someone offered you the option of eating either a plate of boiled broccoli or a slice of cream cake. Your brain would probably be screaming at you to take the cake.

That's because the cake has more calories. That means your brain gets a bigger dopamine “reward” when you eat it. And there’s also an emotional reward. Most of us associate cake with fun and parties and celebration. We have countless associations etched into our neural pathways. 

Focusing on our habit loops can be a very uncomfortable process. After all, we’ve spent years trying to numb ourselves against difficult feelings and distract ourselves from them. Now we’re giving them our full attention, and examining them under a microscope. 

It can be even more discouraging if you feel like you’re not making progress. After all, you can see clearly that your behaviors don’t have real rewards. So why do you keep indulging them? This impatience is natural, but it’s not helpful. After all, you may have had these habit loops for decades. You can’t expect them to disappear overnight. 

Children famously have a stage in which they ask questions about everything they observe in the world. Why do cats have long tails? Why do their parents drink wine, but they can’t? They’re naturally curious about everything they see. 

But as adults, we start to restrict our curiosity to filling information gaps – like when we’re stuck in traffic and need to know how long it will take to clear. Seeking specific information that we’re missing is known as deprivation curiosity. Childlike curiosity about everything and anything is called interest-based curiosity. This is the kind we need to cultivate. 

Participants in Alcoholics Anonymous programs who want to get sober are taught to take it one day at a time. Instead of casting their minds forward to a lifetime of sobriety, they ask themselves, “Can I stay sober today?” 

Anxiety sobriety requires a similar approach. The future is full of uncertainty. Thinking about how to break your future anxious habit loops will only make you anxious right now. Instead, you need to ask yourself, “Can I do my mindfulness exercises and cultivate curiosity today? Or in the next hour?”