Craving and Curiosity

Please join us for a lecture by Dr. Judson Brewer on how habits form, why they are so hard to overcome, and the research that gives us hope they can be changed.


From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Cupcakes: How mindfulness can hack the mind to move from craving to curiosity 

Friday, November 2, 11:20 am – 12:35 pm
Mary Graydon Center Room 200

We are all vulnerable to addiction. Whether it’s a compulsion to constantly check social media, 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?

Dr. Brewer will provide answers to the most important questions about addiction. Having studied the science of addictions for twenty years, he will reveal how we can tap into the very processes that encourage addictive behaviors in order to step out of them. By elaborating on the mechanisms of habit and addiction formation, he will explain how the practice of mindfulness can interrupt these habits. Come join us to witness Dr. Brewer weave together patient stories, his own experience with mindfulness practice, and current scientific findings from his own lab and others, to offer a path for moving beyond our cravings, reducing stress, and ultimately living a fuller life.

 


Dr. Judson Brewer is Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center, associate professor in psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University, and a research affiliate at MIT. A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He is author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love—Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits(2018). His work has been featured on 60 Minutes, TED (4th most viewed talk of 2016, with 10+ Million views), Time magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera (documentary about his research), Businessweek, etc.

 

 


This Lecture is presented by The Humanities Lab Working Group on Curiosity, Mindfulness, and Education, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Department of Psychology, School of Education