Incident Report

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a secondary outbreak of fear, anxiety, and social contagion. Dr. Jud Brewer is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and leading researcher into the science of mindfulness, and we dive DEEP into how we can fight anxiety and panic. Once we get warmed up, we discuss how ancient Buddhist psychology relates to modern ideas around positive and negative reinforcement and addictive behavior the role of dopamine in etching context-dependent memories the challenge of social media and smartphone addiction recognizing addiction to news during the COVID-19 crisis the phenomenon of “social contagion” in relation to the current pandemic and social media the nature of primitive limbic fear versus the higher reasoning of the prefrontal cortex (elephant and rider) what happens when worry becomes a habit the relationship of worry to anxiety how we can hack our brain with the BBO (Bigger Better Offer) approach with regards to habit and addiction insights around panic disorder the nature a