News=Donuts for your brain
Hi guys! Welcome to the 80th episode of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast.
I’m super excited you’re listening and I want to say thank you because it makes me happy that I get to connect with you while you’re driving or doing your makeup or exercising. Whatever you’re doing, I am glad to be here with you.
So, I have a question for you. Have you ever eaten really bad for an entire day or weekend or week and your body just felt so lethargic and kind of slow and maybe in some cases your joints hurt on top of it? I have. I know how that feels and I don’t like it. But as I’m sure most of you know it can be hard at first to stop eating the things your body is craving. In fact, I remember a few years ago, I saw they were building a new Dunkin Donuts right around the corner from my house (For the record, I love donuts) anyway, my brain was like UH OH. Why’s that? Because I know that the last thing I need is a donuts place right by my house that I have to drive by and consistently not stop. And I know that you might be thinking….lighten up and have a donuts. But you see, the problem is that the dopamine hit you get from one donuts (Because it combines sugar and fat which makes it highly addictive) can give your brain so much pleasure that every time you drive by that donuts shop your brain is going to want that same hit and that’s hard to resist especially if you drive by it every day. This isn’t an episode on junk food for your body….it’s on junk food for your brain!
The reason why I went through all that about the donuts is because what we feed our brain is as important as what we feed our body. It’s increasingly so in my opinion.
If you follow me on Instagram. You know that I love doing these little videos, they call them reels. So anyway, I did a reel about feeding your brain with uplifting messages and equated it to “spinach for your brain”. So if uplifting messages are spinach then what would be the equivalent of a donuts for your brain? I think it is probably different for different people. But studies are showing that certain aspects of social media, the news, video games, pornography give you the same dopamine hit as a drug or basically a donuts.
And look if I carried a box of donuts around with me everywhere I go, I’d be twice my size. Most of us would never even consider keeping donuts around for that reason. But we don’t think one thing about having our phone attached to us at all times. In fact most of us would panic if we thought for one minute we didn’t have it. Without even realizing it, we are allowing ourselves to become addicted to our technology. We have a dopamine hit waiting to happen any time we want just by opening that little phone or even worse on our wrist. It’s worse than having the donuts shop around the corner, it’s having a donuts in your pocket at all times, but for your brain.
A lot of us grab our phone first thing in the morning, carry it in our hand all day, and go to sleep with it at night. How many times are you at dinner with someone and they spend time looking at their apple watch or their phone the whole night? How about grab our phone to start scrolling immediately when we stop at a light or park the car? Is there ever a time you are sitting with nothing to do and don’t think about your phone? I regret to say the answer for me is probably not. Now I am working on that and I am gonna tell you about that in a minute.
In an earlier episode I did with Olesya Wilson, you may remember this, she told me she deletes her social media accounts every night and reinstall them when she is ready to start doing her business on them the next day. This may seem extreme but like not keeping a donuts in your pocket, if it isn’t easily accessed it lowers the chance that you will partake. Making it difficult to access is important. I’ve done this with twitter and TikTok myself. Olesya said deleting these accounts early in the evening allows her to spend quality time with her family instead of thinking about her social media accounts. She just completely removed the temptation.
Edmund Lowman who I interviewed last week for Wednesday Wisdom does the same thing… he goes all day Sunday without any technology at all which has also given him really quality time with his family and the peace of mind makes it worth it. Now says it’s not easy. It will get easier as he continues, in fact my guess is he will eventually look forward to Sunday and the lack of technology. We will see!
I know for me that there are certain things I can just sit and just scroll through and read or watch and just binge on it without realizing how long I’ve been doing it. Remember that lethargic feeling from overeating junk food…. That’s exactly how our brains feel after consuming large amounts of certain things like news, social media.
And as human nature goes, I would justify it by saying I don’t want to stick my head in the sand so I NEED to keep up with current events, which just isn’t true. I was simply addicted to the drama and trying to distract myself. Sticking your head in the sand is very different from protecting your mindset. Sticking your head in the sand is ignoring something that affects you and you could control it by addressing it. Protecting your mindset means guarding what you feed your brain. Just like you feed your body healthy food. You want to feed your brain with empowering thoughts and messages.
It all starts with recognizing where you are right now. Are you addicted to your technology? Do you feel anxiety when watching the news? Do you feel bad about yourself when scrolling through social media? Do you subconsciously reach for your phone when you have even 1 minute of free time?
I’ve started leaving my phone at home if I’m going to dinner with my husband and friends, because I don’t even want the temptation. I’ve deleted certain apps and muted certain accounts on social media. The Brain Coach that I interviewed from Canada said it can be healthy to mute certain accounts if they make you feel bad. I have also arranged the apps that can be distracting to be on the last page of my iPhone so it isn’t always in front of my face and the ones that are empowering like my calm app or my podcast app are on the front page. The new upgrade we just had makes it really easy to do that.
So my challenge to you this week:
Notice or be aware the amount of times you distract yourself by grabbing for your technology
Once this week, Turn your phone off or leave it in another room when you are meeting with another person
And finally avoid your phone for the first 30 minute when you wake up and instead grateful journal/ meditate. And then turn off all technology a minimum of one hour before you plan to go to sleep.
And while I’m on that topic….YOU DON’T want to miss my Wednesday Wisdom this week because I interview Dr Breus the sleep dr from Dr Oz and Good morning America we will be talking about how to set yourself up for the best sleep and some of the things are gonna blow your mind!
I love you guys and will talk to you in a few days!
