Hi, my name's Rachel. I'm from Pennsylvania and I have currently a preschool teacher who is home with her preschooler.

A tip that helped yesterday we found that one of the best things that we did was we went for a walk with a dog

and we called it a letter walk where we had to find different signs outside and find letters on the

spine so we search for the letter A and the letter L because my daughter is obsessed with the letter L currently.

They look all the parents who are home with their young ones. Hopefully you're not watching too much TV. Have a good one.

Today's update is about how to use this situation to set good mental habits instead of creating or adding to unhealthy ones.

I couldn't have said it better myself, Dr. Judd. This is life kit and I'm Shireen Marisol Maraji.

My guest on this episode is Dr. Judd Brewer. He's a neuroscientist and psychiatrist that specializes in anxiety and habit change.

I'm so anxious right now I'm having a hard time sleeping and eating and maintaining a healthy relationship with my husband.

And I don't want to list all the bad things that we have to worry about these days because you know what they are and you're probably just as angry.

I'm anxious as I am about all of this. But what I do want to do is provide you and me a way to find a moment of peace.

Dr. Judd, everyone including me has been saying take a deep breath or I need to take a deep breath way more lately.

To the point where I feel like it's becoming a little bit cliche but you're like no this actually works.

Yes, this is how our brain works.

Fear is a normal adaptive response but fear plus uncertainty makes our brain spin out in anxiety.

And the best way to get our physiology calm down and our thinking brain back online is literally to dig a deep breath.

If we can understand why fear is a helpful adaptive response we can understand how taking a deep breath can help.

And a simple example would be fear helps us learn.

So if we step out into the street we almost get hit by a car.

We step back onto the sidewalk and that fear response says hey remember to look both ways before crossing the street.

Why do we get all revved up?

Well we get revved up when the newer parts of our brain, the thinking and planning parts of the brain don't have accurate information.

...