Dr. Jud Brewer, a Brown University neuroscientist and Yale-trained addiction psychiatrist, joins Richard to lay out a habit-loop model of anxiety. From his own residency panic attacks to the smoking-cessation work that produced five times the standard quit rate, to a randomized trial of his anxiety program, the throughline is one mechanism: pay attention to what a behavior actually does, and the brain stops finding it rewarding. We close on a thirty-second practice for the next time anxiety shows up.

Guest: Dr. Jud Brewer, Director of Research and Innovation at the Brown University Mindfulness Center. Author of The Craving Mind (2017), Unwinding Anxiety (2021, NYT bestseller), and The Hunger Habit (2024). drjud.com

00:00 Opening, the epidemic of anxiety and depression

01:56 Jud's own anxiety story

06:46 Choosing mindfulness as a career in 2006

11:38 Coke Enders and the academic hazing pattern

15:10 Reinforcement learning, pay attention as you smoke

20:28 The anxiety habit loop

23:28 The default mode network and the posterior cingulate cortex

25:49 The mind is a tool, not the boss

29:46 Richard's Vipassana origin with Goldstein and Kornfield

31:07 Conscious breathing and five-finger breathing

32:42 Anxiety travels in clusters

34:40 If these tools work, why are we prescribing

36:42 Could this be taught in high schools

38:19 Going Beyond Anxiety, the AI-paired digital therapeutic

41:52 Mid-episode break

43:32 Curiosity will conquer fear, flip the NO to WHAT

45:27 Feelings are just feelings

47:15 Off-air closing

In this episode — Carl Honoré, the journalist whose 2004 book In Praise of Slow named the global Slow Movement, returns with the thesis sharpened. He and Richard work through what “slow” actually means, why busyness has become a measurable chemical addiction, the myth of multitasking, loneliness as a mortality risk, the acceleration that precedes burnout, and the four prescriptions any of us can start today.

Guest: Carl Honoré — journalist and author of In Praise of Slow (2004), Under Pressure (2008), The Slow Fix (2013), and Bolder (2018). His TED talk has more than 3 million views. He writes Tempo on Substack. More at carlhonore.com.

Chapters

[00:00] The case for connection

[02:34] What slow is, and what it isn’t

[04:28] The cost of a speed-driven culture

[07:31] Where the drive to speed comes from

[12:29] Busyness as addiction

[15:59] The digital detox

[19:12] What young people are getting right

[27:21] The multitasking myth

[30:09] Loneliness, longevity, and connection

[34:22] Burnout and the last burst of speed

[42:20] Carl’s four prescriptions

[51:58] Two quotes to close

In this episode—Dr. Ellen Langer, the Harvard psychologist who has studied mindfulness and mind-body unity for nearly fifty years, joins Richard to explain why mindfulness is not meditation, what the counterclockwise study revealed about aging, why the placebo is our strongest medicine, and how a diagnosis can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Richard shares his own recovery from two terminal diagnoses at 82.

Guest: Dr. Ellen Langer—Professor of Psychology at Harvard (the first woman tenured in the department), author of Mindfulness, Counterclockwise, and The Mindful Body. More at ellenlanger.com.

Chapters

[00:00] The mission—connection as antidote to isolation

[02:23] Welcome, Dr. Ellen Langer

[03:03] Mindfulness is not meditation

[04:30] The horse and the hot dog—everything I knew could be wrong

[06:00] How to become mindful: notice three new things

[10:00] Noticing makes others feel cared for—and it’s enlivening

[17:50] Mind-body unity since 1977

[20:15] The counterclockwise study

[30:01] Imagined exercise builds real muscle

[31:21] The borderline effect—69 vs. 70

[35:18] ADHD, labels, and pharmaceutical collusion

[40:05] Placebo, sham surgery, and “you’re making yourself well”

[45:40] Richard’s two terminal diagnoses—and recovery

[52:30] Add life to your years

[55:20] Make the decision right, not the right decision