Understand why doom scrolling impacts your mental health and how to break the cycle of constant negative news consumption.
Constant exposure to negative content keeps our brains in a state of high alert, which can lead to increased anxiety and fatigue. This video explores the psychological impact of doom scrolling, helping you recognize when your digital habits are crossing the line from staying informed to damaging your peace of mind.
We break down the science behind why we get stuck in these patterns and offer actionable strategies to regain control over your screen time habits. By fostering better mental health awareness, you can learn to set healthy boundaries that protect your focus and energy throughout the day.
What is one boundary you have set for your phone usage lately? Share your thoughts below, and subscribe for weekly mental health breakdowns.
We have room for a total of 100 members to start, and then we are closing it until we figure out the next plan. So be sure to become one of the early 100 members.
Here's our digital detox series playlist which includes doom scrolling, bad phone habits, dopamine highs issues.
Sharma, B., Lee, S. S., & Johnson, B. K. (2022). The dark at the end of the tunnel: Doomscrolling on social media newsfeeds. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 3(1). https://tmb.apaopen.org/pub/nn9uaqsz
Satici, S. A., Göçet-Tekin, E., Deniz, M. E., & Satici, B. (2023). Doomscrolling scale: Its association with personality traits, psychological distress, social media use, and wellbeing. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 18(2), 833–847. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-022-10110-7
Soroka, S., Fournier, P., & Nir, L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(38), 18888–18892. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908369116
Reach out to us [email protected] Featured Host: Monica Taing at the end of the video
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Video Summary
AI Generated
This video explains the psychological struggle of quitting high-stimulation habits like doomscrolling. It describes the \"dopamine hangover\" that occurs during withdrawal and provides practical strategies to retrain the brain to tolerate boredom, ultimately helping viewers move from a state of digital addiction to a baseline of calm and presence.
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You quit the doom scrolling.
You stopped the late night fun.
You deleted the apps that were eating your life.
You're doing the right thing.
But now, your brain feels like it's on fire.
You're sitting in a quiet room and the silence is deafening.
You feel like you're going mad.
You're desperate for something, anything, to feel a spark.
If you're feeling this right now, you're not broken.
You're just in withdrawal.
And as one of you recently put it so perfectly,
the brain is going mad for that constant stimulation.
Today, we're going to talk about why your brain is screaming
and how to teach it to be okay with doing absolutely nothing.
First, let's understand the science.
Your brain is an addiction machine.
When you engage in high dopamine activities,
you're flooding your brain with a massive artificial surge
of pleasure over time your
brain down regulates its receptors it builds fewer
and fewer dopamine receptors to compensate for the
constant flood this means you need more stimulation
to feel the same amount of normal when you quit
you don't just lose the fun you lose the ability
to feel pleasure your brain is in a dopamine
hangover it's screaming for a fix
because its reward system is temporarily broken and think
of Saitama from One Punch Man.
He's become so powerful that nothing is a challenge anymore.
Nothing brings him joy.
He's experiencing a form of anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure,
because his brain is no longer stimulated
by the things that used to excite him. That feeling of
going mad, that's your brain's natural biological withdrawal.
Second, your brain is terrified of
boredom. But it wasn't always this way.
Let's take a quick trip back in time, before technology.
Boredom wasn't really a thing.
You had bigger things to worry about, like not getting eaten
by a saber-toothed tiger, or making sure your farm didn't fail.
Your stimulation was good
conversation, or the simple satisfaction of a hard day's work.
Fast forward to today,
our young brains are overwhelmed with ads,
technology, and endless options. It's so easy
for the brain to become addicted to that constant influx
of information. But ironically, the more
stimulation we have in this world,
the more many of us now want the reverse. We want to be in a
city where it's quiet, where there are many greens,
where we can be far away from the high rises,
the ads, and the expensive luxuries, and just relax.
Beaches, farms, parks, they are the best,
aren't they? Speaking of which, this is how you detox,
which we can cover later if mindfulness
and meditation isn't your thing. So how do you fix this?
You don't fight it, you retrain it.
You have to teach your brain that boredom is safe,
and that good boring is actually the
foundation of a healthy life. First, practice the five-minute rule.
When you feel the urge to scroll
or do something to fix the boredom, tell yourself,
I will just sit here for five minutes,
i won't do anything i won't reach
for my phone i will just breathe set a timer for those five
minutes you are not allowed to do anything just sit just
be this teaches your brain that silence
is not a threat you're proving
to your brain i'm safe i can exist without stimulation and usually
by minute four the panic starts to fade
and you might even start to feel interesting a second
embrace the junk food detox your brain is used
to the high sugar high salt high spice of
digital stimulation now it's being served plain healthy
but boring food it's going to reject it
at first you have to be patient you have
to keep showing up read a book even if it's slow go for a
walk even if it's quiet write in a journal even
if it's just i'm bored these are the healthy meals
for your brain they don't give you a quick spike
but they build long-term resilience and a baseline
of calm and third find flow in the mundane flow
is that state of being completely absorbed in
activity you don't need a video game
or a thrill ride to find it you can find it in folding laundry
washing dishes or gardening these are good boring
things they require just enough focus to keep your
your mind occupied, but not so much that they become a distraction.
They give your brain a
chance to rest and reset.
When you do these things, you're not killing time.
You're rebuilding your
ability to be present. When the urge to scroll
or do something stimulating hits, don't fight it,
just acknowledge it. Say to yourself, ah, there's the withdrawal.
My brain is craving a hit,
And that's okay. It'll pass.
And then do one of the good boring things, like read a page or walk
for five minutes. Breathe. The urge will pass.
It always does. Your brain is not going mad.
It's just healing. It's learning to be happy with the quiet.
It's learning that you are enough,
even when you're doing nothing.
The boredom you feel is not a sign of failure. It's a sign of
recovery. It's the feeling of your brain waking up from a long,
artificial coma. Be patient with
yourself. The silence will become your friend.
And one day, you'll look back and realize that
the boring moments were the most valuable ones of all.
If you're struggling with this, you might
find our video, The Psychology of Doomscrolling, really helpful.
And for a daily practice in
finding calm, try our guided meditation
for embracing boredom. You've got this.
You don't need to think so far ahead sometimes,
just start with the first smallest step.
We've been applying this advice
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