One Day at a Time
‘Fear Is Healthy. Anxiety and Panic Are the Opposite.’
Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty, by psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer
Welcome to One Day At A Time — a daily column offering science-backed help for living through uncertainty.
I’m an addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist specializing in anxiety and habit change. Each day, I’ll cover a new topic to help us all stay mentally healthy, calm, and connected as we navigate our new world order.
We’re all experiencing some level of fear and anxiety right now. Let’s start by talking about what’s going on inside our brains. Do you wonder why people have been buying what seems like a decade’s worth of toilet paper at the grocery store? What’s more, do you wonder why witnessing this gives you the sudden urge to do the same?
Here’s the science.
Our most basic survival mechanisms are based on fear. When something scary happens to us, we note the experience and learn to avoid it in the future. We inherited this from our ancient ancestors. It is called reward-based learning and it has three elements: a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. We see the saber-toothed tiger — that’s the trigger. We run…
