If you have the same concern, you might want to continue reading this.

Welcome to the doctor, Overthinker!

The Waiting Room: what we may notice

So, in the past years, I'm not a doomscroller because I didn't have tech to access any social media, it's one of my dorm regulations. Then once i graduated, I had my own phone, I created my social media account, and boom. Things start to change.

It might not as much as first, then it’s become excessive, its become an addiction.

i cannot stop, i do it everywhere, in lecture, in conversation, everywhere. Is like what a smoker will say when they didn’t have cigs in their mouth
”its feel like something missing that i have to fill it”

I’ve mentioned in my previous article, not only has it changed my mood alongside the content, its also become my coping mechanism , in that effect, a coping to not use my brain.

“So you saying that I don't use my brain when im scrolling? I'm thinking too, you know.”

Well, it's not necessarily what I mean by using your brain.

THE DIAGNOSIS: Behind the doom

We have brain, Inside it are neurons, like an engine, basically, for our body and our entire existence.

Your brain is made of billions of neurons connected by pathways. When you repeat something, those pathways get easier to access, like sliding in the thick snow. When you stop using something, those pathways weaken or disappear.

Your brain DO NOT CARE, if you do something good or bad, they only know if you do something multiple times every day. That means “we need to get better at doing this”

So, in other words

• If you check your phone 100 times a day = You train to be distracted

• If you write every day = You train to think in structure

• If you avoid doing hard things = You train procrastination

This is what neuroplasticity is:

whatever you repeat, your brain wires itself to get better at.

From here you start to see the pattern, right?

There’s something else,

Our brain likes reward, Like rare, valuable things (Treasure, a mate, useful info) it used to require effort like walking, hunting, searching. The “reward” was tied to the “challenge.”

Because it was hard, your brain built a system:

Where effort → reward → level up.

That loop is neuroplasticity working as intended. Its like playing a game and moving to the next level and facing a new challenge every time. is a good thing to experience and gain reward and to feel satisfied after.

Social media removes the effort but keeps the reward feeling, same like finding the “treasure” feeling, but zero hunting required. Once reward stops requiring effort, your brain doesn’t level up anymore. It just... expects the reward, instantly, always.

if you watch Wall-E its a good picture, metaphorically of what happen to our brain.

Everyone doesn’t need to walk, doesn’t need to hold a spoon to eat, don’t need to do anything unless sit and stare at the screen. Everything becomes automated. That’s how social media treats us.

Those humans didn't get smarter or happier from the ease, they got weaker, both physically and mentally, and didn't even notice until it was pointed out to them. That's the actual scary part of the metaphor.

I’m not saying you have to delete all of social media, because some of you may still need it for communication or work. This was just a reflection for us to be mindful of everything we consume, because we know nothing is free in this world and our attention is the cost of what we call the algorithm.

Facebook's own former exec admitted it outright: Tim Kendall, ex-director of monetization at Facebook, told Congress the company intentionally made its product as addictive as cigarettes.

so as the doctor here (I’m actually just a humble patient)

I have to help you heal, because the brain is flexible, everything is possible, including brainmaxxing,

So, i will give you…

The Prescription

1. Limiting or Blocking it

   I always say this, if you want to change, you have to subtract a bad habit, in this case (doomscrolling) or anything you know its bad. Me personally, i’ve tried limiting my screen time, and only opening social media in specific time, well its not really working for me.

   So I completely blocking the reel section, instagram and youtube.

2. Mindful Consumption

   This is actually my favorite part, when you know that you go to a place and have a list what you should do, you will not wasting time. Lack of purpose basically make doomscrolling essier to happend.

   So instead of using your “Consumer” mindset use “Creator” Mindset. “What i should make as the result of what i consume?” and post it or write it out on your journal.

3. Move or do nothing at all

   Everytime i have an urge, what the most effective things i do is either walk outside, jump, dance or basically moving my body or stare at the wall, lay on the floor for 10 minutes and do nothing. it will help reset your brain.

   ---

Homework:

Pick ONE thing from the Prescription and do it for the next 7 days and see how something start to change:

1. Block one app completely (block the short content especially)

2. Before opening your phone, ask: “What am I about to make or do?”

3. When the urge hits, move your body for 60 seconds before deciding whether to scroll or just stay and stare at the ceiling or wall for 1 minute.

Here’s the thing

I don’t think you need to find it, I think it’s already there, in the form of your instincts, your taste, the things you keep circling back to even when you try not to.

Noticing that stuff is step one. But noticing isn’t the finish line. What you do with it, that’s where the self actually gets made.

The question is: You sure its really you?

Everyone’s curating themselves like a Pinterest board.

But is that really who you are, or are you just a walking template ??

the same aesthetic, the same captions, the same “healing era” language as everyone else in your algorithm?

I noticed this in myself first.

Before Substack, I was a reel doomscroller (my screentime is above average 💔) and without realizing it, everything I consumed started dictating my mood, and my mood started dictating who I was that day. Like one positive video, and the algorithm feeds me nothing but positive content. Click one sad reel because I was feeling something, and suddenly my whole feed is grief.

It sounds small, but it’s not , even emotion, one of the most “mine” things I have, was being outsourced to a feed.

After I put the phone down, I wasn’t fully myself. I was something assembled by what I’d just consumed.

I think that’s the actual danger: we become attached to the algorithm the way we get attached to a place we belong. Our minds get quietly rewired to forget who we were before we opened the app. I’m not saying this happens to everyone exactly the way it happened to me but I’d bet most people recognize some version of it.

We’re all, to some degree, consuming the same things without choosing to. And if we don’t choose what we consume, we don’t choose what we become either.

That’s the part that scares me. Not the doomscrolling itself, but the fact that it has quiet veto power over who I turn into.

That’s why I’m writing this to start choosing on purpose. Not to find some pre-existing “real me,” but to actually build one.

So where do you start?

There’s a line I keep coming back to, though I honestly can’t remember where I first read it

the cost of becoming your fullest self is letting the old version of you die.

A little dramatic, sure. but you’re never going to arrive somewhere new if you’re not willing to leave somewhere behind.

1. Detach

This is the purge phase. Archive old posts, restart your socials, go ghost for a while if you need to. Detaching isn’t about being dramatic for its own sake it’s about cutting ties with what no longer fits.

You can do this slowly, one thing at a time. That’s what I did.

I used to be a pure consumer obsessed with taking things in. Then one day I decided to become a creator instead.

I still open Instagram, I still scroll, but now it’s with intention: looking for things I actually want to learn, not just whatever’s next in the feed. I limit myself too, because it’s still easy to drown in it even with good intentions.

What changed most is where my attention went.

• I started spending more time thinking about what I actually wanted to write, wanted to make.

• I stopped having spare time to compare myself to other people, because I was too absorbed in my own interests to notice theirs.

That’s the strange power of detachment one small shift in mindset, and you start becoming someone else almost without trying.

2. Redesign

This is the harder part, but also the more exciting one.

Asking never felt right to me, it always framed me as a problem to solve, when deep down I already knew who I was. I just didn’t always like what I saw.

But that’s when it clicked, if a bad habit can make you a worse version of yourself, a good habit can build a better one.

Identity isn’t just discovered in a moment of clarity it’s assembled, day by day, out of what you repeatedly choose to do.

So it starts with habits.

Ask yourself: what can I do every day that actually makes me feel like me? Not what you’re “supposed” to do.

Find what actually works for you, not what works on Pinterest. Start choosing on purpose, because what you want, genuinely underneath the noise, is already pointing you toward who you’re building yourself into.

Homework !!!

Reading this WONT CHANGE ANYTHING. Doing one small thing will. Pick whichever you feel like it. ( Dont overthingking it)

1. Name it. Give yourself a title you haven’t earned yet

   “writer,” “CEO,” “person who finishes things” and act like that person for the next 24 hours.

2. Face it. Pick one thing you avoid because you’re not confident at it. Do a version of it today, badly if you have to.

3. Shrink it. Choose one habit small enough you can’t talk yourself out of it.

   Your goal is to write your novel? start with 5 sentences

   your goal is to finish your assignments? start with writing the step you need to finish it.

   do it before you sleep tonight.

You don’t find yourself sitting there waiting to be discovered. You notice what’s underneath the noise, then you prove it with one small action. That’s the whole method.

“What have you tried?” You ask

I tried time blocking, the menu energy, the identity based activity, big paper planning day etc.

if i can count it, i literally planning my whole life 3 times this year, and im only committed to it at least a month-

for disclaimer, i’m also have a habit of uprooting (starting over before finishing it) thats why i have so many trial and error.

well since i dont want you to do the same mistake as me, because im so kind like that, i will tell you what my mistakes are, so you dont have to do it. (please dont)

1. Do everything all at once

   I know you guys so ambitious with your goals and wanted to making every aspect of life priorities, but trust me, you’ll ended up performing really bad at all aspect. No workout, no creavity time, no start a bussines. none. you’ll get so exhausted and overstimulated without even doing it.

2. Long Planning, Short Execution

   If you are a perfectionist, i have to tell you to stop planning everything perfectly by date. I used to spent so much in the planning stage, matching my class schedule and every second of my life. i’m exhausted first before even executing it.

3. Planning too far ahead

   5 year? 1 year planning? don’t ever think to do that, because it can lead you to the planning fallacy, where you underestimate the time and resources needed for tasks, or procrastination planning, where over-scheduling creates a false sense of productivity without taking real action.

so whats the solution?

There is something about just doing it

Try to imagine this:

You are thirsty, you need water, but the water is far away from your position. you try to think and planning what route and what kind of walk you want to do to get the water. Everything have to be perfect and elegance.

should i crawling? jumping? riding a bike? run? cat walking?

you started to open a big paper making a map to reach the water.

then what? you spend the day planning to get the water instead of just walk and drink the water. Its save a lot of time and you get the result faster.

The art of doing it anyway is

• in how you embrace the imperfection, because action trigger momentum and clarity. not when you sit and be afraid of the “what if” that doesnt even happend.

• in how you stop believing and waiting for the perfect moment of “im ready” because is just you romanticize procrastination.

• in how you reframe the word “failure” as a process of experiment not the final result.

This advice come from someone who fail so many time, who is currently writing her first page while facing the fear of being seen and decide to just doing it anyway because for someone who thought about the idea a lot, not doing it start to kill her.

so, whoever you are, you got this 🫶🏻✨

🎀