Summary
Highlights
Brewer proposes using this natural learning process to our advantage by introducing curiosity. Instead of fighting habits, we become curious about our momentary experience during the habit. He shares an example from his lab where mindfulness training helped smokers quit. Participants were encouraged to smoke but to be keenly aware of the experience. One smoker discovered that smoking tasted terrible, moving from intellectual knowledge that it was bad to a visceral understanding, breaking the spell of the habit.
Judson Brewer recounts his early struggles with meditation, finding it exhausting to simply pay attention. He explains that modern studies show our minds frequently wander. This difficulty stems from an evolutionarily-conserved, reward-based learning process: trigger, behavior, reward. This system helps us learn to survive, like remembering where to find food that tastes good. However, our brains apply this same process to other experiences, leading to habits like emotional eating or smoking, where a feeling like sadness becomes a trigger for a rewarding, yet unhealthy, behavior.
The prefrontal cortex, responsible for cognitive control (trying to stop bad habits intellectually), is the first part of the brain to go offline when stressed. This explains why we often revert to old habits when under pressure. Disenchantment, however, offers a deeper solution. By truly understanding what we gain from our habits, we become less interested in them in the first place, rather than forcing ourselves to abstain. Mindfulness is about clearly seeing the results of our actions and letting go on a visceral level.
Mindfulness involves being interested in what's happening in our bodies and minds, turning towards our experience with curiosity. Curiosity itself is rewarding. When we become curious about cravings, we notice they are just body sensations—tightness, tension, restlessness—which come and go. This makes cravings manageable 'bite-size' experiences, allowing us to step out of reactive habit patterns and into a state of 'being' like an 'inner scientist'. Research shows mindfulness training is highly effective, and studies on meditators' brains indicate that when we let go of cravings through curious awareness, the posterior cingulate cortex, a brain region active when caught up in cravings, quiets down.
Brewer's team is developing app-based mindfulness programs that use technology to help break unhealthy habits like smoking and stress eating. These tools provide support in the moments when urges arise, leveraging context-dependent memory. He encourages viewers to apply this curious awareness to everyday habits, like checking email out of boredom or compulsively responding to texts. By noticing the urge, getting curious about the experience, and feeling the joy of letting go, we can choose to break exhaustive habit loops and foster new, healthier patterns.