One Day at a Time
How to Use Your Curiosity to Help You Feel Better
Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty by psychiatrist and habit-change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer
Do you ever wonder why it’s so hard to stop scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? Notice that restless, ever-present itch to see what’s next, to get all of the information you need? That itch is curiosity. But not all curiosity is created equal, and by understanding how curiosity works, you can use it to change habits and feel better — at any time.
As I’ve talked about in earlier columns, our brains need accurate information to plan for the future. One vehicle that drives many of us to get information is that restless, need-to-know itch that comes when we don’t know something.
Curiosity comes in two flavors: pleasant and unpleasant
In 2005, the psychologist Jordan Litman named two main “flavors” of curiosity, which he called I-curiosity and D-curiosity. I-curiosity stands for “interest,” the pleasurable aspects of the hunger for knowledge. D-curiosity stands for “deprivation,” the idea that if we have a gap in information, we enter a restless, unpleasant, need-to-know state. In other words, curiosity —…
