Let’s delve into one of your most important and longest running relationships – your relationship with food. Like all relationships, it’s emotional. Dr. Jud Brewer joins us to discuss his new book The Hunger Habit:Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop. He shares how to practice mindfulness, replace judgment with curiosity, change your habits and cultivate a healthier relationship with food.

Dr. Jud Brewer joins us from Rhode Island.

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Jud Brewer, MD, Ph.D. (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery,” who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionate about understanding how our brains work, and how to use that knowledge to help people make deep, permanent change in their lives — with the goal of reducing suffering in the world at large.

Dr. Jud is the director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he also serves as an associate professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University. Additionally, he is the executive medical director of behavioral health at Sharecare, the digital health company helping people manage all their health in one place, and a research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously, Dr. Jud held research and teaching positions at Yale University and the University of Massachusetts’ Center for Mindfulness. Read more about his research.

As a psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for treating addictions, Dr. Jud has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for anxiety, emotional eating, and smoking (Unwinding Anxiety, Eat Right Now and Craving to Quit).

Based on the success of these programs in the lab, he co-founded MindSciences, Inc. to create app-based digital therapeutic versions of these programs for a wider audience, working with individuals, corporations, and health systems to put effective, evidence-based behavior change guidance in the hands of people struggling with unwanted behaviors and “everyday addictions.” Sharecare, Inc. acquired MindSciences in 2020.

Dr. Jud has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI and EEG neurofeedback, adding to the understanding of the brain’s “Default Mode Network” and the role of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in self-referential thinking.  He regularly gives talks on the intersection of modern science and ancient meditative practices, helping to expose a modern audience to specific techniques and insights first discovered 2,500 years ago.

He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, trained US Olympic athletes and coaches, foreign government ministers and corporate leaders. His work has been featured on 60 Minutes, TED, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Today Show, TIME, The Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, BBC, NPR, and more.

His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association, among others.

In addition to The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop, he is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017) and the New York Times best-seller, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2021).

Dr. Jud and his wife Mahri live in Massachusetts where they enjoy biking, hiking, and meditating with their cats, Samson, Ananda and Julian of Norwich.

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For More on Dr. Jud Brewer

The Hunger Habit:Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop

Dr. Jud.com

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer

Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

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See our recommended Best Books for retirement here

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Wise Quotes

On Habit Loops

“And the way it works is we get people to map out these habit loops. What type of food am I reaching for because I’m hungry or because I’m bored, sad, angry, tired, lonely? And just to put these into categories, the hunger out of true physiologic need is called homeostatic hunger. We’re out of homeostasis, out of balance. And that which is coming out of emotion. It’s a misnomer. I love the term because it’s a misnomer. It’s called hedonic hunger. We’re not hungry, but we’re eating because of an emotion. So when it comes to the latter, well, when it comes to either, we can start paying attention. And so we can just ask the question, why am I eating? Am I hungry or is it something else?”

On Mindfulness

“Here is how we break bad habits. And how this works is one simple ingredient which is paying attention. We have to pay attention to see that it’s really good or it’s really not so good. And in fact, my lab did a study so we could actually have people pay attention as they overeat. Are you ready for this? It only takes 10 to 15 times of somebody overeating for that reward value to drop below zero, and they start to shift that behavior. Notice how he didn’t mention the word willpower at all. This is about awareness and it doesn’t take that long, which is really good news.So mindfulness is a concept, and it can mean many things to many people…So here, mindfulness is like salt. It’s made up of different elements. The element of awareness is one, and the element of curiosity is another. So maybe salt’s a good analogy here. So you’ve got to be aware, but you also have to bring this attitude of curiosity for it to equal the compound of mindfulness. And so really it’s about this curious awareness…  So it’s really about paying attention.”

On Growth Mindset

“So often we get in the habit of beating ourselves up and judging ourselves, thinking that that’s going to propel us into behavior change. Well, in fact, what it does is it locks us into not being in a place where we can grow. It puts us into a fixed mindset instead of our growth mindset. So bringing kindness to every moment and every step of the journey is really important…I see people struggle with this all the time, change is scary because our brains don’t like change. And so just knowing that our brains going to resist because our brain is set up to say, Oh, this is different. Is it dangerous? And so looking around reminding ourselves, Yeah, this seems scary, but that’s just my survival brain saying, Hey, are you sure you want to do this? And then we can look around and reassure our brains, this isn’t dangerous. It might actually be anti-dangerous, it might be helpful and healthy. That can help us lean in. And the curiosity can go a long way for that as well. So we move into our growth zone instead of getting stuck in our panic zone.”

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About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.