Bowles Thrives!

Understanding How Stress Becomes an Automatic Response

Your eyes snap open. It’s 3:17 AM. Before you're even fully conscious, your mind is already racing: that legal opinion letter is due tomorrow. Did I catch everything? What if I miss something? Maybe I need to do more research, it’s so complicated . . . Your heart pounds as you lie there, knowing you should sleep but unable to stop the mental churn.

Sound familiar?

If this scenario resonates, you might be caught in what psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Judson Brewer calls an anxiety habit loop — a specific type of mental loop ...