You know the feeling
You're on social media
and you keep scrolling
and scrolling your feed.
Sometimes you're actually entertained
Other times you're just doing it out of habit
Searching for something to entertain you
for another brief moment.
You have no idea how much time has passed by
and you're starting to feel sluggish.
You're in a daze
and somehow you can't stop scrolling.
When you do stop, you check the time
and one two or even three hours have gone by,
and you're like,
What the heck have I been doing this entire time?
Social media is designed to keep us engaged.
It's designed to make us stay on the app
For as long as possible.
By giving us quick dopamine hits
We've become addicts
to the immediate gratification
that social media provides.
Post after post,
Our brain is exposed to so much information
and a skewed view of reality
via this tiny little screen.
It's amazing the damage that social media
can do to our minds and mental health.
Like breeding insecurities and comparison,
or shortening our attention spans
and making it harder for us to focus on deep work.
If you found yourself spending way too much time
on social media this video is for you.
I'll be sharing six tips to help you kick
your social media habits
and stop "doom" scrolling once and for all.
Before I get into the tips,
I want to shout out today's sponsor.
Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this video.
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I'll also have the link down below
So you can check it out
Alright, let's get into
how to stop your doom scrolling habit.
The first tip I have for you is
to swap out your habit.
So you first want to become aware
of when you find yourself
scrolling on social media.
For me, I tend to do
a lot of scrolling in the morning
That's a bad habit just waking up taking my phone
and you just start scrolling social media
kind of to help you wake up.
Sometimes, I also find myself scrolling
when I'm taking a break from work so
that I just like open a social media app
Hey, I wonder what's there and then
you just end up scrolling for like way too long.
Notice when you're doing this
and then start to swap out the habit
for something just as fun,
just as energizing,
if not, more than what you were searching for.
For example, with the waking up example.
The scrolling is a way for me
to kind of wake up.
If you are in the same boat,
Do something else that also
helps you wake up without social media.
A way that I really enjoy doing is
starting to play good music right when I wake up
and letting the music kind of energize your body.
It just starts your day on such better vibes.
There are so many different wake up
and morning playlists that you can find on Spotify.
I made my own personal
wake-up playlist a few years ago
because I really love listening to big band jazz.
It just makes me feel so like big and fun
and it makes the day feel really grand.
If you also find yourself scrolling
while you're taking a break,
you can also turn to music instead,
or you can do things like take a dance break,
go for a walk.
Find a way to give yourself
what you were originally looking for.
Which was some sort of break,
some way to energize yourself.
kind of switch into a new frame of thinking
and you can do that without social media.
You can do that in so many other ways.
So let's start sharing ideas!
Comment down below with what you plan
to swap out your habit of scrolling for.
Instead of reaching for your phone or social media,
what else are you gonna do instead?
The next tip, out of sight out of mind.
Basically, put your phone away.
If you find yourself reaching for your phone,
spending hours scrolling on social media,
one thing you can do is just put your phone away.
Put it in a drawer, in a different room.
Especially if you need to get work done.
This is really helpful if you need to
study or work or just focus.
Literally put your phone on silent
and place it hidden somewhere,
out of sight out of mind.
If you have the habit of
scrolling your phone in the morning,
another thing you can try is to
put in your phone in another room
when you are sleeping.
So that when you wake up,
your phone is not there,
you don't immediately reach for it
and subconsciously just open your apps
and start scrolling.
Even I don't do this but I have heard
that it's life-changing for some people
and if you're thinking about like,
Oh, what do I use for an alarm?
Just use a traditional alarm
or if you have something like
those smart speakers,
you can tell it to set an alarm at
a certain time for you
so that you don't need
your phone to wake you.
This tip also applies if you are out
If you're out at a restaurant with
your friends or family,
try not to have your phone on the table.
Just put your phone away,
that will help you become more present.
I think a lot of times people
leave their phone in view
and they end up scrolling
and checking it when they feel bored.
Just because they need something to do.
Practice just being present in the real world
You know, don't look at your phone
look at your environment,
pay attention to the sounds,
what's happening?
Just be in real life for a moment.
The next tip is to set app limits
This is something that is a feature on phones now
where you can set limits for how long
you allow yourself to spend on an app
I set an hour maximum per day
that I'm allowed to browse
Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
Just any social media.
Even though it's really easy to cancel this limit
when you want to browse longer,
I feel that the notification is really helpful.
It helps you become aware.
Oh, I've reached my limit of one hour for today
and then it's up to me to decide whether
I want to like stick to my goal or not
and it's okay either way
but at the very least it helps me become aware
of how long I'm on an app.
Another thing that I do on the iPhone,
there's something called "downtime".
Where you can set like certain times,
where everything kind of shuts off my browser,
shuts off my social media apps,
You can choose which apps you want to keep on
and which apps you want to limit.
I turn everything off at 11 PM
because my personal goal is to get off my phone,
get off social media,
and don't look at anything from 11 pm
and onwards because I want to start winding down
and you know getting ready for bed,
I don't want to be all wired
and have all this new information in my brain
before I sleep because social media apps
are designed to keep us on the app
for as long as possible.
We need to put in these limits to
break us out of that system
because it's not as easy as willpower.
You know so you need to have things
that wake you up out of the zone.
So that you can go back to
living your life in the present.
The next tip I have for you is
to delete apps that aren't serving you.
If being on an app is making you
feel worse about yourself,
if you find that it's
really destructive to yourself
and your well-being,
delete it
it's not worth it.
The whole point is our tools are
supposed to enhance our lives
and make our lives better.
If it's not making your life any better,
get rid of it.
See how it feels to live life without the app.
It might be hard because
all your friends are on it,
you want to know what's going on
but just try it out,
go on a social media detox.
I can assure you that
after you get over that hump,
it will feel good and you'll notice
how much more present you can be
with the people in your life
because you don't have
this distraction happening.
I have a few friends that
completely got off social media
and they're just happily living their lives.
All they do is keep in touch with their friends
through texting
and calling
and seeing people in person
kind of like the old days, right?
because social media is a big part of my job,
I can't completely delete the app.
Which is why I have to put those time limits
and stuff
but even for me,
there was a time where I for example
deleted Twitter for like six months
because it was just so bad for my mental health
to keep seeing like news after news
and just like so much information for my brain.
I just started feeling really frazzled,
it became a very bad habit to scroll
that at night.
So deleting that and instead
using that time that I would have spent
scrolling on something healthier
like exercising at home,
that really shifted my life in the past year.
The next tip I have for you is to
go deeper and pinpoint the real issue
why you spend time scrolling.
This gets more reflective,
instead of just blocking things on the surface,
All the tips before this goes deep.
You want to reflect on
why you find yourself scrolling,
why you reach for the phone?
I find that most of the time
it's because we want to avoid something
most of the time we are you know,
distracting ourselves on purpose
because we're running away from something
whether you're running away
from your responsibilities,
whether you're just running away
from your problems in life,
social media is a way
for us to numb ourselves
to escape into another world,
to focus on something
outside of ourselves.
So that we can forget about
our responsibilities and our problems.
This is where "shadow" work comes in
because you want to take a look at your shadow,
what are you running away from?
what do you not like about yourself or your life?
and just see what's really happening.
What is the real issue here?
For example, one of the reasons that I realized
I spent time scrolling so much was because
I was procrastinating,
I was running away from
doing things that were hard.
Scrolling social media is so easy,
it's so comfortable,
there's very little effort I realized
that I was turning to social media
when I was running away from
something that was challenging in my life.
I had to work through that limiting belief
that I was afraid of facing my challenges
and doing hard things.
and I talk about this in my recent video
on how to overcome limiting beliefs.
I'll link that here and down below.
but I basically had to ingrain
this new belief in me,
that I am capable of doing anything
that is hard or challenging.
I can do hard things.
That belief has been so monumental in me
being okay, I know I'm running away
from what's hard, let me like turn it off
and let me just face with hard
because I know I can do it obviously.
It's still hard, right?
but it gives you a little more courage
to be aware and to learn to face your fears,
learn to face what's scary.
Reflect on why you turn to social media
and why you end up scrolling for so long.
The last thing I'll share with you today
to break out of your
"doom" scrolling habits
is to cultivate more mindfulness
and practice being present.
Ultimately, this is the biggest skill you can have
for just becoming powerful in your life.
The more awareness you can have in your life
the more mindful and the more present
you can be in your everyday life.
The more power you have to direct your life
and fine-tune it in any direction you want because
we tend to go off track
when we aren't being that conscious,
when we're just kind of on autopilot
and we're distracted
and we're not paying attention to
what's really happening
but if you can practice being more mindful
and present then you'll have that power
to snap yourself out of it.
If you're in that autopilot mode
and this is especially helpful for things like
doom scrolling on social media
so you build this mindfulness
and this conscious awareness
by doing things like meditating.
Another way is to practice
two tuning into your five senses
just at any point of the day.
What do I see?
What do I hear?
What am I feeling?
or as you're eating,
What am I tasting?
What am I like smelling?
You know our five senses are our gateway
to experience the physical world.
Kind of tapping into
and truly feeling each of those five senses
is a way to be present in the now,
in this place that we are living.
The more you can hone that
and practice that consciousness,
you'll be able to snap back so much faster
and be like, wait, a minute...
this scrolling is not productive,
I'm not even having fun right now
and I think I should be doing something else.
I know I should be doing something else
that's gonna serve me better than scrolling.
Building that mindset is it's a practice
It's not willpower,
it's the practice of being
"the observer" of your life
that the best way I think I can put it.
Alright, I hope you enjoyed my tips today!
Let me know if you have more tips
on how to stop this doom scrolling habit
once and for all.
Please, let's help each other,
share with each other.
Remember that social media is not evil,
it is a tool because there's pros and cons.
There's all these positives that came
with this technology,
there's also negatives but we want to embrace
the positive and then try to protect ourselves
from the negative.
You being in control of your attention
and how you spend your time
because social media is not the boss,
it can't tell you what to do.
You are the boss.
You can tell yourself how
you want to spend your time,
where you want to put your attention.
Definitely build that conscious habit
to spend your time the way you want to spend it.
Before I sign off today,
I want to let you know that
I'll be hosting a live event here on YouTube
it will be a live New Moon ritual on March 21st
and basically it's the new moon in Aries
which is the beginning of
the astrological New Year
so it's the perfect new moon for
new beginnings and manifesting
and it's going to be a really powerful
and potent.
I want to do a live event
and I'll leave the link down below to RSVP
and if you're watching this after the event,
don't worry I'll be doing more events.
I feel like this is something that I want to start
There will be more new moon rituals,
there will be more like live workshops
and things that I'll be hosting.
I'll leave the link down below
so you can check out what events
are coming up next
but I'm super excited about to bringing on
this new project of hosting live events
because you know, with more time
and being live,
I get to share a different part of myself
and I get to interact with you guys live
and I'm excited to kind of build this
new version of our community
called the "Dream Life Club"
In time, you guys will know what that is.
I'll kind of explain it a little later
but to keep this video short,
just wanted to throw that
announcement out there
Hope to see you there!
Sending you so much love.
I will see you in the next one.
Bye.