10% Happier with Dan Harris

The Neuroscience of Reducing Chronic Pain and Everyday Addictions | Eric Garland

March 9, 2026

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • The MORE (Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement) protocol is an evidence-based mind-body therapy that simultaneously addresses addictive habits, emotional distress, and chronic pain by integrating mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring. 
  • Mindfulness functions as a de-automatization skill, making unconscious addictive habits conscious, which is crucial for gaining control over behaviors like excessive phone use. 
  • Savoring—the practice of focusing mindful attention on positive inner feelings arising from pleasant experiences—is essential for retraining the brain's reward system to regain sensitivity to natural, healthy pleasures, thereby weakening the pull of addictive behaviors. 

Segments

Introduction to Dr. Eric Garland
Copied to clipboard!
(00:00:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Dr. Eric Garland developed the MORE protocol, which integrates mindfulness, CBT, and counter-programming against negativity bias.
  • Summary: The episode introduces Dr. Eric Garland, creator of the MORE protocol (Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement). This protocol was initially for severe addictions but has practical applications for everyday issues. It weaves together mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and addresses the brain’s wired negativity bias.
Origin Story of MORE Protocol
Copied to clipboard!
(00:06:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Dr. Garland’s career path shifted from comparative religion to clinical research after a mentor suggested studying mindfulness for pain and addiction.
  • Summary: Dr. Garland’s early interest in meditative states led him toward contemplative traditions, but after being rejected from religion programs, he entered mental health. A pivotal moment occurred when his planned PhD mentor dropped him, leading to an unexpected opportunity to study mindfulness, which shaped his subsequent 20-year research career.
Elevator Pitch for MORE Therapy
Copied to clipboard!
(00:11:13)
  • Key Takeaway: MORE therapy significantly reduces opioid misuse (45% at nine months) and simultaneously addresses addictive habits, emotional distress, and chronic pain.
  • Summary: Backed by extensive federal research, MORE therapy shows powerful clinical results, including a 45% reduction in opioid misuse nine months post-treatment. Its integrated approach is vital for the opioid crisis as it treats overlapping conditions like addiction, pain, and depression concurrently. The protocol is applicable to everyday addictions like doom scrolling or unhealthy eating.
Mindfulness: De-Automatization Skill
Copied to clipboard!
(00:13:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Mindfulness cultivates meta-awareness, allowing individuals to observe automatic behaviors, such as addictive habits, as an objective witness.
  • Summary: The first component of MORE is mindfulness, defined as observing present moment experiences without judgment. This practice generates meta-awareness, the awareness of awareness, which counters the brain’s tendency toward autopilot. By repeatedly noticing when the mind wanders during meditation, one practices de-automatizing unhealthy, unconscious behaviors.
Modified Mindfulness Practices in MORE
Copied to clipboard!
(00:20:45)
  • Key Takeaway: MORE extends standard mindfulness by guiding attention toward the space enveloping the body and savoring positive mental states at the practice’s conclusion.
  • Summary: MORE utilizes standard techniques like mindful breathing and body scans but adds unique elements. Body scans conclude by extending awareness outward into surrounding space, aiming for non-dual awareness. Practices also end by guiding attention inward to immerse in any positive feelings that arose, which helps retrain the brain’s reward system.
Non-Dual Awareness and Self-Transcendence
Copied to clipboard!
(00:23:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Self-transcendence involves experiencing oneness, quieting the default mode network, and interrupting the fusion of identity with suffering like pain or addiction.
  • Summary: Non-dual awareness is the fading of the subject-object duality, experienced as interconnectedness or self-transcendence, which is the opposite of normative dual awareness. This state can be accessed through concerts, nature, or meditation, and it may interrupt the default mode network activity associated with rumination on pain or addiction. Experiencing this inherent well-being reduces the need to seek external rewards via addictive behaviors.
STOP Practice for Addictive Habits
Copied to clipboard!
(00:34:46)
  • Key Takeaway: The STOP practice interrupts automatic addictive urges by pausing, taking mindful breaths, observing the craving, and then proceeding with intention.
  • Summary: The STOP technique is a brief, off-the-cushion practice to manage immediate addictive urges. It requires stopping just before the behavior, taking mindful breaths to calm physiology, observing the craving sensation without acting on it, and finally proceeding with intention, which may mean consciously choosing the behavior or noticing the craving has faded.
Mindfulness Techniques for Pain
Copied to clipboard!
(00:37:51)
  • Key Takeaway: Mindful zooming in and out breaks down pain into component sensations, which can reduce acute pain by about 30% in the moment.
  • Summary: Pain is decoded in higher-order brain regions that act as a volume knob, meaning stress can increase pain intensity. The zooming technique involves intensely focusing on the pain to break it into sub-sensations (heat, tingling) and noticing spaces between them. This practice, toggling between intense focus and returning to the breath, can provide immediate pain relief comparable to a low dose of oxycontin.
Reappraisal Challenges Negative Thoughts
Copied to clipboard!
(00:43:16)
  • Key Takeaway: Reappraisal, the cornerstone of CBT, involves challenging stress-inducing threat appraisals to decrease negative emotions and the resulting physiological stress response.
  • Summary: Reappraisal challenges the rapid, automatic stress appraisal that views events as overwhelming threats, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. By using questions (e.g., ‘What is a more helpful way to see this?’), individuals reframe challenges as opportunities for growth, which dampens activity in emotional brain regions like the amygdala. This process is formalized in the ABCDE model: Activating Event, Beliefs, Consequences, Dispute, and Evaluation.
Savoring Reverses Reward System Damage
Copied to clipboard!
(00:55:25)
  • Key Takeaway: Savoring retrains the brain’s reward system, which becomes desensitized by addiction, by intensely focusing on and immersing oneself in natural, healthy pleasures.
  • Summary: Addictive behaviors rewire the brain to be hypersensitive to stress cues but less sensitive to simple pleasures, leading to emptiness. Savoring reverses this by focusing mindful attention on positive sensory features of an event, then turning attention inward to deeply immerse in the resulting positive inner feeling. This practice acts like ‘weightlifting for your brain’s reward system,’ restoring the capacity for joy.
Integrating Savoring into Daily Life
Copied to clipboard!
(00:59:51)
  • Key Takeaway: Life offers constant, brief opportunities to stop and savor positive moments, which balances the brain’s natural bias toward focusing on stress and pain.
  • Summary: Listeners are encouraged to seize small moments—like feeling the sun or seeing a child smile—as opportunities for savoring. By consciously focusing on the pleasure and breathing that positive feeling into one’s being for even 20 seconds, one expands awareness beyond stressors. This balances the brain’s evolutionary survival bias toward threat detection, leading to a more appreciative and less painful overall experience.