You've come to this video because you're just sick and tired of watching reels or TikTok or whatever and letting it eat your time while you have looming deadlines and work piling on you.
Maybe you're watching this at 2am and maybe you're done.
You're done with it.
I want to change my life.
I want to start taking my school and life seriously.
I want to take my responsibilities.
I just want to stop fucking scrolling.
Well, what if I told you that I trained my brain to the point where I started literally hating scrolling?
This is literally my screen time.
And as you can see, I barely open TikTok.
It's literally just less than an hour for an entire week.
And this is my screen time on Instagram as well.
I barely use it.
I mostly just chat with my friends there or I post the occasional story once in a blue moon.
Now, don't get me wrong, I still watch TikTok or Instagram from time to time.
However, I adopted one mindset shift that literally changed the way I view doing scrolling.
And no, I'm not going to tell you to delete your apps or shut off your phone or literally chuck your phone in the trash, which I'm sure a lot of you have, because I'm sure you've already tried that.
But here you are again.
In this video, I want to share the literal mindset shift that literally saved me from endless doom scrolling.
Now, what is that one simple change that would literally stop you from doom scrolling?
And, like I said, I'm not talking about deleting everything, because I noticed that even if you delete the apps, you start scrolling somewhere else or on a different app, your distraction just latches on to another habit and by deleting those apps you're not dealing with the core problem, you're just shifting your doom scrolling to somewhere else.
If deleting the apps works for you, then of course by mean go for it.
I'm not stopping you, but instead i want to introduce a simple mindset shift that literally can make you avoid doom scrolling, even if you have instagram and tick, tock or whatever on your phone.
And that mindset has worked for so long for me now, and it's essentially to normalize feeling uncomfortable.
Basically, start delaying your gratification.
The problem when trying to chase our goals or at least trying to chase literally anything that's somewhat meaningful and something difficult is that it's hard.
And there isn't really an immediate reward experience whenever we try to do those things.
So of course your brain will be like, why do I have to do this in my task?
If I can literally just use my phone to just get the same amount of dopamine or even more.
It's kind of like choosing healthy food over junk food.
It's very easy for us to eat junk food because it immediately rewards us with good taste, even though it's unhealthy.
However, it is much more difficult for people to eat things like vegetables or any other healthy foods, because those foods do not provide immediate results.
However, I'm sure you guys all know that long-term eating healthy food is always the better option.
And that goes the same way with how our goals work compared to easy access rewards like scrolling on social media.
We have a specific goal, but the means to get there is painful.
And the more pain and suffering it requires you to get to a specific goal, your mind will start to shift towards an easier source of dopamine, which is doom scrolling.
The thing you need to do is to get used to feeling uncomfortable throughout the day.
And what do I mean by that?
You need to feel comfortable without any stimulation.
Every time I go throughout my day.
If I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable, I know that I'm on the right track, which motivates me to at least show up and do the work that I can and that I need to do.
Now, if you're at a point where you really cannot control your focus and you just really just end up doom scrolling on Instagram, TikTok or whatever, then I have a practical step for you, which you may not like it, but if it's really gone that bad, then you might have to use this practical step because unfortunately, this is what you really have to do if you want to reset the reward pathways on your brain.
And I know I said that you didn't have to do this, but if it's that bad, then you have to delete the apps.
Delete apps for seven days.
I'm not telling you to delete them forever, but remove them.
The reason why I'm recommending you to delete them for seven days is that over the next seven days, I want you to start delaying your gratification and I want you to try to work what you can towards a more meaningful source of dopamine, like actual work or responsibilities, and to get used to the feeling of being uncomfortable.
Because the problem with work is that it's uncomfortable to us.
Studying is uncomfortable.
But if we start to get used to that fact, we will start slowly enjoying the work, because there is no other source of dopamine.
You've deleted all the apps.
And as you continue this seven-day detox, you will start to feel more fulfilled in your responsibilities at work, even if it's not a grand process.
That's pretty much all you have to do.
You just have to show up.
You don't have to do anything grand.
You don't have to do anything big.
For example, when my screen addiction got so bad, I went on a detox.
I started studying little by little and I didn't even study that long.
Like let's say I just studied for a couple minutes or 10 to 15 minutes.
Like I know that's very short.
Even though I felt uncomfortable, I knew I was doing the right thing, because I was feeling uncomfortable.
And throughout those seven days, I started studying more and more.
And I just felt better about myself because, while I didn't expect myself to do big things, I just chose to do what I can.
And because I was getting used to getting uncomfortable, I didn't have to scroll to cope with whatever negative feelings I'm having about responsibilities, work or even studying.
Even now I still have apps on my phone and I scroll from time to time, but I don't doom scroll anymore because I don't have a reason to doom scroll.
I have literally other things that give me a deeper sense of purpose and accomplishment, rather than just scrolling on social media.
So literally, if you start thinking about the self-development part, or at least improving yourself, you kind of get turned off by Reels and TikTok because you realize that it's not really going to put you anywhere.
So for the next seven days, I want you to detox.
I want you to at least delete the apps.
And I'm not even talking about limiting them.
I'm talking about deleting them.
Trust me, if you're going to keep them, you're going to try to find a way around the restriction that you set yourself.
So I would recommend just going cold turkey and deleting them.
Now, after seven days, you could pretty much reinstall the apps that you want.
But within that detox you have to rewrite your reward pathways by first embracing the feeling of being uncomfortable.
So what is the main takeaway from this video?
I think a lot of people don't realize why people watch reels.
I'm someone who watches reels until now.
I don't condone like the life of just being disconnected with everything.
Although I would say it's a very healthy life to be away from social media and everything.
Obviously, it's not realistic for me to just tell you to disconnect from everything.
However, what I'm trying to say here is that in a sense, people don't realize doom scrolling is actually a way to cope with negative feelings.
And I want people to realize that if you try to at least deal with the inner reasons of why you're feeling certain ways for example, you feel uncomfortable with life, you feel stressed with life the way to truly fix this doom scrolling addiction is to find a way to solve that inner problem in your mind.
I'm pointing to my heart for some reason.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
If you're going to take away anything from this, make sure that you're feeling uncomfortable without any stimulation, and that's how you know you're on the path of actually rewiring your brain.
Anyway, don't forget to drink your water.
I'll see you in the next one.
Bye!
