(HS 059554 Brewer 2023) Lunch Address: From Anxiety to Smartphones to Snacking

Course overview

Join Jud Brewer, New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change, for this thought-provoking keynote. Drawing on his clinical work, research studies, and development of next-generation digital therapeutics for habit change, Dr. Brewer will discuss the underlying behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms of why habits are formed and how mindfulness can paradoxically tap into these very processes to uproot them. Dr. Brewer struggled for years to help his patients overcome anxiety, overeating and severe addictions. After over a decade of laboratory research on habit change, someone using a digital therapeutic that he had developed for habitual eating innocently asked him to develop a program for anxiety. This led to a lightbulb moment for him that forever changed is clinical practice and his research, leading to new (and now evidence-based) treatment paradigms and a New York Times best-selling book on treating anxiety as a habit. After this talk, you will have a simple, pragmatic, 3-step process that you can use with clients and patients to help them unwind unhealthy habits and build healthy habits without willpower.