attention to my breath and when my mind wandered to bring it back sounded simple

enough yet I'd sit on these silent retreats sweating through t-shirts in

the middle of winter I take naps every chance I got because it was really hard

work actually it was exhausting the instruction was simple enough but I was

missing something really important so why is it so hard to pay attention well

studies show that even when we're really trying to pay attention to something

like maybe this talk at some point about half of us will drift off into a

daydream or have this urge to check our Twitter feed so what's going on here it

turns out that we're fighting one of the most evolutionarily conserved learning

processes currently known in science one that's conserved back to the most basic

nervous systems known to man there's forward based learning process is called

positive and negative reinforcement and basically goes like this we see some

food that looks good our brain says calories survival we eat the food we

tasted it tastes good and especially with sugar our body sent a signal to our

brain that says remember what you're eating and where you found it we lay

down this context-dependent memory and learn to repeat the process next time

see food eat food feel good repeat trigger behavior reward simple right

well after while our creative brain say you know what you can use this for more

than just remembering where food is you know next time you feel bad why don't

you try eating something good so you'll feel better we think our brains for the

great idea try this and quickly learn that if we eat chocolate or ice cream

when we're mad or sad we feel better same process just a different trigger

instead of this hunger signal coming from our stomach this emotional signal

feeling sad triggers that our to eat maybe in our teenage years we

were a nerd at school and we see those rebel kids outside smoking we think hey

I want to be cool so we start smoking the Marlboro Man wasn't a dork and that

was no accident see cool smoke to be cool

feel good repeat trigger behavior reward and each time we do this we learn to

repeat the process and it becomes a habit

so later feeling stressed out triggers that urge to smoke a cigarette or to eat

something sweet now with these same brain processes

we've gone from learning to survive to literally killing ourselves with these

habits obesity and smoking are among the elite event about causes of morbidity

and mortality in the world so back to my breath what if instead of fighting our

brains are trying to force ourselves to pay attention we instead tapped into

this natural reward based learning process but added a twist what if

instead we just got really curious about what was happening in our momentary

experience I'll give you an example in my lab we studied whether mindfulness

training could help people quit smoking now just like trying to force myself to

pay attention on my breath they could try to force themselves to quit smoking

and the majority of them had tried this before and failed on average six times

now with mindfulness training we dropped a bit about forcing and instead focused

on being curious in fact we even told them to smoke what yeah we said go ahead

and smoke just be really curious about what it's like when you do and what did

they notice well here's an example from one of our smokers she said mindful

smoking smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals yuck

now she knew cognitively that smoking was bad for her that's why she joined

our program what she discovered just by being curiously aware when she smoked

was that smoking tastes like shit

now she moved from knowledge to wisdom she moved from knowing in her head that

smoking was bad for her to knowing it in her bones and this spell of smoking was

broken she started to become disenchanted with her behavior now the

prefrontal cortex that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary

perspective it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't

smoke and it tries its hardest to help us change our behavior to help us stop

smoking to help us stop eating that second that third that fourth cookie we

call this cognitive control we're using cognition to control our behavior

unfortunately this is also the first part of a brain that goes offline when

we get stressed out which isn't that helpful now we can all relate to this in

our own experience we're much more likely to do things like yell at our

spouse or kids when we're stressed out or tired even though we know it's not

going to be helpful we just can't help ourselves

now when the prefrontal cortex goes offline we fall back into our hold

habits which is why this disenchantment is so important seeing what we get from

our habits helps us understand them in a deeper level to know in our bones so we

don't have to force ourselves to hold back or restrain ourselves from behavior

we're just less interested in doing it in the first place and this is what

mindfulness is all about seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught

up in our behaviors becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and

from this disenchanted stance naturally letting go this isn't to say that proof

magically we quit smoking but over time as we learn to see more and more clearly

the results of our actions we let go of old habits and form new ones the paradox

here is that mindfulness is just about being really interested in getting close

and personal with what's actually happening in our bodies and minds from

moment to moment this willingness to turn toward our experience rather than

trying to make unpleasant cravings go away as quickly as possible and this

willingness to turn toward our experience is supported by curiosity

which is naturally rewarding what does curiosity feel like it feels good

and what happens when we get curious we start to notice that cravings are simply

made up of body sensations oh there's tightness there's tension

there's restlessness and that these body sensations come and go these are

bite-size pieces of experiences that we can manage from moment to moment rather

than getting clobbered by this huge scary craving that we choke on in other

words when we get curious we step out of our old fear-based reactive habit

patterns and we step into being we've become this inner scientist where we're

eagerly awaiting that next data point know this might sound too simplistic to

affect behavior but in one study we found that mindfulness training was

twice as good as gold standard therapy at helping people quit smoking so it

actually works and when we studied the brains of experienced meditators we

found that parts of a neural network of deaf self-referential processing called

the default mode network we're at play now one current hypothesis is that a

region of this network called the posterior cingulate cortex is activated

not necessarily by craving itself but when we get caught up in it when we get

sucked in and it takes us for a ride in contrast when we let go step out of the

process just by being curiously aware of what's happening this same brain region

quiets down now we're testing app and online based mindfulness training

programs that target these core mechanisms and ironically use the same

technology that's driving us to distraction to help us step out of our

unhealthy habit patterns of smoking of stress eating and other addictive

behaviors now remember that bit about context dependent memory we can deliver

these tools to people's fingertips in the context that matter most so we can

help them tap into their inherent capacity to be curiously aware right

when that urge to smoke or stress eat or whatever arises so if you don't smoke or

stress eat maybe the next time you feel this urge to check your email when

you're bored or you're trying to distract yourself from work or maybe to

compulsively respond to that text message when you're driving

see if you can tap into this natural capacity just be curiously aware of

what's happening in your body in mind in that moment it will just be another

chance to perpetuate one of our endless and exhaustive habit loops or step out

of it instead of see text message compulsively text back feel a little bit

better notice the urge get curious feel the joy

of letting go and repeat thank you