The Craving Mind, From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits

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Mindfulness and associate professor in Medicine and Psychiatry at UMass Medical School. Last year, he published, The Craving Mind, From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits. The forward to the book is by the founder of mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn. Thus, we have two of the world’s heavyweights in mind research teaming up to share their ideas. According to the website for the publisher, Yale University Press, “We are all vulnerable to addiction. Whether it’s a compulsion to constantly check social medical, binge eating, smoking, excessive drinking, or any other behaviors, we may find ourselves uncontrollably repeating. Why are bad habits so hard to overcome? Is there a key to conquering the cravings we know are unhealthy for us?”

Brewer explained reward-based learning, otherwise known as operant condition (positive and negative reinforcement) and how that applied not only to substance misuse, but also various forms of obsessional thinking. For 20 years, Brewer has been using mindfulness meditation as a means of helping his patients overcome various forms of addiction. With the use of fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging), he explained the changes in brain chemistry that occurs with substances, thoughts, and meditation. His research and clinical data is very impressive. There is now ample evidence that meditation is an important element in behavioral change, but I’ll let Brewer convince you about that. If you’d rather watch rather than read, you can search for him in TED Talks. This is impressive data with regard to a very specific way that anyone can heal malfunctioning cognitions. Have a look!