That Anxiety Youre Feeling? Its a Habit You Can Unlearn.
This has been a bad year for the anxious among us \u2014 myself very much included. The pandemic was objectively terrifying. And many of us were trapped inside, with nothing we could do about it, severed from social connection and routine, with plenty of time to fret.\n\nBut that almost gives anxiety, at least as I experience it, too much credit. This year, anyway, being anxious made sense. It so often doesn\u2019t. Your mind has so much power and capacity, and there are so many real problems to solve or wonders to contemplate, and instead you\u2019re obsessively ruminating over something that happened three years ago or might happen three years from now.\n\nSo, what is anxiety? How do we learn it as a behavior? And more to the point, how do we unlearn it?\n\nJud Brewer is an associate professor of psychiatry at Brown University, where he is the director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center. I\u2019ve followed his work on meditation and addiction for years, and his new book, \u201cUnwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind\u201d applies that research to anxiety, which he understands as a kind of addiction. And just like with any addiction, you have to understand its rewards in order to begin addressing it.\n\nIt\u2019s a powerful framework, and one I\u2019ve found useful in my own life. I\u2019m not saying his book, or this conversation, cured me of anxiety. But it helped me understand it better. I hope it\u2019ll do the same for you\n\nRecommendations: \n\n"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein\n\n"Barbarian Days" by William Finnegan\n\n"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\n\n\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d is produced by Rog\xe9 Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.