How To Rewire the Brain’s Response to Pain and Reward | Eric Garland
Mindfulness Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) simultaneously addresses addiction, emotional distress, and chronic pain through three core components: mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring. The most immediately actionable practice is STOP: before engaging in an addictive habit, Stop what you're d
55mKey Takeaway
Mindfulness Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) simultaneously addresses addiction, emotional distress, and chronic pain through three core components: mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring. The most immediately actionable practice is STOP: before engaging in an addictive habit, Stop what you're doing, Take mindful breaths for 30-60 seconds, Observe your thoughts and cravings without judgment, and Proceed with intention. This simple interruption of automatic behavior can weaken cravings over time and help you regain conscious control over habits.
Episode Overview
Dr. Eric Garland shares the origin and science behind MORE (Mindfulness Oriented Recovery Enhancement), an evidence-based therapy backed by $90 million in federal research and 16 clinical trials. MORE integrates mindfulness meditation, cognitive reappraisal, and savoring practices to treat addiction, chronic pain, and emotional distress. The episode explores how mindfulness cultivates meta-awareness—the ability to observe automatic habits and cravings—and how self-transcendent experiences can provide natural sources of reward that reduce dependency on external substances or behaviors. Dr. Garland explains practical techniques like STOP for interrupting addictive habits and zooming in/out for pain management.
Key Insights
Addiction as Automatic Habit
Addiction operates through the same learning mechanism as any habit: behavior followed by reward strengthens neural pathways until actions become automatic and unconscious. The cognitive processing model reveals that addictive behaviors can occur outside conscious intention or awareness—you might find yourself on your phone without remembering pulling it out. This automaticity explains why willpower alone often fails.
Meta-Awareness: The Therapeutic Heart of Mindfulness
Meta-awareness—awareness of awareness itself—is what makes mindfulness therapeutic for addiction and pain. Humans are 'homo sapiens sapiens' (the one who knows and knows they know), but this second level of knowing atrophies without practice. Mindfulness meditation trains you to notice when your mind wanders into autopilot, creating opportunities to consciously redirect attention and behavior.
Self-Transcendence as Natural Reward
Non-dual awareness or self-transcendence—moments when the separation between self and world dissolves—carries inherent reward value with feelings of peace, connection, and even bliss. These experiences provide what Jud Brewer calls a 'bigger better offer' (BBO): if you can make yourself feel good naturally through meditation or connection, you may not need to seek positive feelings through addictive substances or behaviors.
Pain and Addiction Share Neural Pathways
Both chronic pain and addiction involve dysregulation in the brain's default mode network, which creates our sense of self and generates rumination. When you repeatedly think 'I am in pain' or identify with addiction, these conditions become fused with your identity. Self-transcendent practices that quiet the default mode network can interrupt this fusion and create space for healing.
The Impermanence of Cravings
Through mindful observation during the STOP practice, you discover that cravings don't last forever—they are impermanent and change over time. This insight alone can reduce the power cravings hold over you. Rather than immediately acting on a craving, observing it with curiosity reveals it as a temporary mental event rather than a command that must be obeyed.
Notable Quotes
"Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating awareness and acceptance of your present moment thoughts, emotions and body sensations and observing those experiences as if you were a witness, as if you were an objective observer."
"When you practice mindfulness on the breath, we focus our attention on the sensation of the breath moving into the nostrils as we breathe in. And you're noticing the temperature of that air, the warmth and the coolness of the air moving in and out of the nostrils. And then what happens, you know, most people, if you're like any normal human being, after 10 20 seconds, your mind starts to wander."
"The original purpose, the original sotiological purpose of mindfulness in traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism was not to regulate stress and it wasn't to strengthen your attention. The purpose was to recognize to gain insight into the fundamental nature of reality which is this non-dual continuum."
"If addictive behavior can become automatized, fully automatic, then it stands to reason that a practice, a skill set that is designed to increase awareness of automatic behavior would be really useful to regulate it."
"There's more chronic pain than there is diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. So it's just a terribly prevalent condition among adults in this country."
Action Items
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1
Practice STOP Before Engaging Addictive Habits
When you feel compelled to engage in an unhealthy habit (scrolling, snacking, etc.), use the STOP technique: Stop before doing it, Take 30-60 seconds of mindful breathing, Observe your thoughts/cravings without judgment (noticing how your attention keeps getting pulled to the craved object), and Proceed with intention (consciously choosing whether to engage). This interrupts automaticity and often reduces the craving's intensity.
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2
End Meditation Sessions with Savoring
After any mindfulness practice (breathing, body scan), take a moment to turn your attention toward any positive mental states that arose during practice. Immerse yourself in feelings of peace, calm, or connection and truly appreciate them. This trains your brain's reward system to value meditation itself as rewarding, creating a natural alternative to external sources of pleasure.
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3
Cultivate Meta-Awareness Through Mindful Breathing
Set aside 5-10 minutes daily to practice basic mindful breathing. Focus on breath sensations in your nostrils. When your mind wanders (it will), notice where it wandered to, acknowledge it without judgment, let it go, and return to the breath. This loop of noticing → acknowledging → releasing → returning builds your capacity to recognize when you're on autopilot in daily life.
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4
Explore Self-Transcendence Through Spatial Awareness
After a body scan, extend awareness beyond your body: notice the space around you, then progressively expand outward—to the room, building, neighborhood, city, and as far as you can conceive. Rest awareness in that vastness. This practice can induce brief experiences of self-transcendence that provide natural feelings of peace and connection.