Dr. Jud on the Ezra Klein Show: That Anxiety You're Feeling? It's a Habit You Can Unlearn.

Overview

What if anxiety isn’t a character flaw or a chemical imbalance you’re stuck with, but a habit your brain has learned — and can unlearn? That’s the central question Dr. Jud explores with Ezra Klein in this episode of The Ezra Klein Show.

Dr. Jud, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Brown University, walks Klein through the mechanics of how the brain turns worry into a default coping strategy. Using the habit loop framework — trigger, behavior, reward — he explains that anxiety follows the same reward-based learning process as any other habit. When you face uncertainty, your brain reaches for worry because it feels like you’re doing something, even though worrying rarely solves anything. That false sense of productivity creates a feedback loop that strengthens over time.

The conversation gets practical: rather than fighting anxiety with willpower (which Dr. Jud’s research shows doesn’t work), he makes the case for curiosity as the tool that actually disrupts the cycle. By getting curious about what anxiety feels like in the body and what it’s really offering you, you can start to loosen its grip. Dr. Jud draws on clinical research behind his book Unwinding Anxiety and the app-based programs his lab has developed and tested at Brown.

Key Takeaways

• Anxiety is learned through reward-based learning: Your brain treats worry as a reward because it feels productive — even when it’s not. This creates an anxiety habit loop that strengthens every time you engage it.
• Willpower is the wrong tool for anxiety: Dr. Jud’s neuroimaging research shows that the prefrontal cortex (the brain region behind willpower) goes offline under stress — exactly when you need it most. Trying to think your way out of anxiety often makes it worse.
• Curiosity breaks the loop: When you bring genuine curiosity to the physical sensations of anxiety — noticing tightness, heat, or tension without judgment — you activate a different brain network that naturally interrupts the worry cycle.
• Worry is a substitution for action: Anxiety often develops as a replacement behavior when we face situations where no clear action is available. Recognizing this pattern is the first step toward breaking the habit.

So, what is anxiety? How do we learn it as a behavior? And more to the point, how do we unlearn it?

Dr. Jud provides a powerful framework for understanding and managing anxiety in his conversation with Ezra Klein. Listen to the 20th episode of The Ezra Klein Show.

Listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or online here.

Related Resources

• What Is the Habit Loop? — The framework behind Dr. Jud’s approach to anxiety
• How Anxiety Becomes a Habit — A deeper look at the anxiety habit loop
• Unwinding Anxiety — Dr. Jud’s book on breaking the worry cycle
• Mindfulness Exercises — Practices for working with anxiety in the body
• A Simple Way to Break Bad Habits — Dr. Jud’s TED talk on the science of habit change