Supporting well-being, together: Insights from Brown's staff development day

Rather than focusing on why people experience anxiety, he began asking a different question: How does anxiety become self-reinforcing, and what helps the brain learn a different response?

That shift in perspective carries an important implication. Many of life's greatest sources of stress and anxiety cannot be immediately solved, fixed or controlled. When faced with that reality, the mind naturally tries to think its way toward certainty. But if anxiety operates through learned patterns, then repeatedly trying to think one's way out of it may simply reinforce the habit rather than change it. Under stress, the brain becomes less able to rely on reflective thinking, making willpower an unreliable strategy for changing deeply ingrained habits.

Awareness as a starting point

Brewer offered a different starting point: awareness.

Not awareness as passive observation, but rather active, present-moment awareness as a way of gathering new information. Before habits can change, they first have to be seen. Rather than trying to change or suppress an experience, Brewer encouraged the audience to become curious about it. What thoughts begin to arise? What emotions or physical sensations accompany them? What happens just before the cycle takes hold? Is the mind responding in a way that is actually helpful, or simply repeating a familiar pattern?

In Brewer's framework, curiosity becomes more than a mindset — it becomes part of the brain's learning process. Every moment of genuine curiosity offers an opportunity to update what the brain has come to expect.

One of the keynote's most memorable moments came when Brewer asked the audience, "What feels better, worrying or curiosity?" 

His answer drew a smile from many in the room. 

Yet, as Brewer noted, most people have spent a lifetime strengthening habits of worry rather than habits of curiosity. Learning to meet difficult experiences with curiosity instead of automatic reaction takes practice, but it also creates the conditions for new learning, and ultimately, behavior change. Rather than fighting anxiety, Brewer suggested that curiosity creates the space to observe experience more clearly. Over time, that shift in awareness can begin to change one's relationship with stress and support the development of new patterns.

From habit to possibility

Part of what resonated throughout Brewer's keynote was not the novelty of the experiences he described, but their familiarity. The habits he explored — worrying about uncertainty, reacting automatically, seeking certainty where none exists — are deeply human. The neuroscience helped explain why those patterns persist, but it also offered something equally important: the possibility that what has been learned can also be relearned.

That idea extends well beyond a single keynote.

The evidence-based mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) offered through Brown are grounded in the same understanding that awareness can change the relationship people have with their thoughts, emotions and habitual patterns of behavior. Each applies these principles with a different focus. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) develops greater awareness of thoughts, emotions and behaviors across the range of everyday experience; Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) focuses more specifically on habitual patterns associated with depression, anxiety and difficult mood states; and Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP) applies mindfulness to behavioral risk factors that contribute to hypertension and cardiovascular health. 

Across these programs, awareness creates an opportunity to recognize familiar patterns, relate to them differently and support meaningful change. Rather than attempting to eliminate difficult experiences, mindfulness-based approaches cultivate the ability to recognize them more clearly, respond with greater curiosity and gradually create new patterns of relating and responding.

Brewer's keynote illustrated these principles in action, connecting decades of neuroscience research with practices that continue to shape clinical care, mindfulness education and workplace well-being.

Supporting well-being in the workplace

Beginning Staff Development Day with this conversation aligned with the event's broader emphasis on community, learning and well-being.

In opening the day, Brown acknowledged both the challenges the community had navigated over the past year and the importance of moving forward together. Choosing a keynote centered on the science of stress, anxiety and habit formation reflected the idea that supporting well-being is not separate from professional development, but an integral part of it. It also reflected a broader shift toward more human-centered approaches to leadership and organizational development, where understanding how people learn, adapt and respond to challenges is recognized as foundational to individual and collective success.

As organizations continue to explore new ways of supporting employee well-being, Brown's Staff Development Day offered a thoughtful example of how evidence-based mindfulness can contribute to that conversation. Rather than presenting well-being as another item on a professional development checklist, the keynote invited participants to understand stress through a different lens — one grounded in an understanding of what drives the brain and behavior, and how awareness, curiosity and learning can create the conditions for meaningful change. In doing so, it suggested that cultivating awareness may be as important to thriving at work as the knowledge and skills people develop throughout their careers.

Brewer concluded with a hopeful reminder: if the brain is constantly learning, then change remains possible. Every moment of awareness offers an opportunity to reinforce a different pattern, respond in a different way and begin writing a different story.