How To Stop The Doomscrolling- Mindful Consumption of News and Negative Media

Have you found yourself droomscrolling a lot lately?

All of us have been stuck in that negative loop our fair share this year. Doomscrolling is the name that has been given to the compulsion to scroll through and consume negative news on social media.

When you keep refreshing and going through your feed to see what other bad news pops up, it becomes a behaviour that we reactively want to repeat even though it negatively impacts our feelings of well-being through leading to a greater risk of anxiety and depression.

So what can we do about it?

Here are some ways that we can stop the doomscrolling and work on consuming the news on social media in a way that won’t have such a negative impact on us.

Stopping the Doomscrolling

First off, it’s important to recognize the problem. When COVID-19 first hit back in the spring and as all the certainty in the world started to shift, I found myself constantly watching the news for updates and refreshing my Facebook feed. I didn’t realize it at first, you never do, but this was leading me to a heightened state of anxiety and generally not feeling very good.

When I finally came to the realization of what I had been doing, I decided to distance myself from the news and take steps to stay off of social media regularly throughout the day. I figured if there was some urgent information that I needed to know, someone would tell me about it, or I could gather all the info I needed in half an hour or so twice a day.

Almost instantly, I was able to focus better again and felt a lot less of that mental tension.

Recognizing that you’re doomscrolling is a great first step to getting it under control and reducing that stress and tension on yourself.

Now, let’s look at some of the ways we can more appropriately use our digital devices and have them work for us by reducing the temptation to doomscroll.

Time Blocking

The first step will work well if you like to stick to an agenda and have a calendar in place for your day. Time Blocking means deciding ahead of time what you will be doing at certain times throughout the day, usually in blocks of anywhere from 30-120 minutes. During these blocks of time, you focus on a single task that has been predetermined.

To avoid constant doomscrolling throughout the day you would set up time blocks where you allow yourself to check the news and get on social media. I like to do this for myself at 10:30 am and 4:30 pm for half an hour at most.

Time blocking requires a good amount of self-discipline to stick to on its own which is why it helps to combine it with additional restraints.

Set Up Your Time Limits

Just about every device out there now has an app that can notify you when you reach a time limit for access to certain social media apps or websites. With Screen Time on the iPhone for example, you can see exactly how much time is spent on entertainment apps or social media and then set up a Time Limit to block you out of the app at certain times throughout the day as well as after you’ve hit a certain time limit.

To avoid the negative effects of doomscrolling it’s a really good idea to take a few minutes to set this up for yourself. You can be liberal with your access at first and gradually reduce your time limit as you get more used to the constraints. You’ll be surprised how much more productive and happy you’ll feel by not constantly checking the news and social media.

Give Yourself Even More Freedom

You can still get through the barrier of the default time limit apps on phones and tablets with relative ease, so if that doesn’t hold back your desire to check social media, there’s more we can do. An additional step that takes it a bit further is to use software like Freedom, which completely blocks your internet access or locks you out of certain apps during set times that you easily program it for. If you know that you’re going to gloss over any reminder that your time limit is up with an app or website, the power of Freedom is well worth the small cost to buy this software.

I use Freedom to block me out of all email apps and social media sites in the morning so that I can focus on important tasks and projects without the distraction of inboxes. Since I know that there’s no way around Freedom’s block on my internet access, I have no choice but to focus on my work or sit there and twiddle my thumbs. It’s a great name for the software because it really does give you a greater sense of Freedom.

Newsfeed Eradicator

If the negativity of social media is really wearing you down these days, one of the best things you can do is avoid that doomscrolling altogether by eradicating it. With certain desktop browsers like Chrome, you can download extensions like the Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator which takes away your newsfeed and replaces it with an inspirational quote. You can still check your social media for messages and notifications directed towards you and look in on the groups and pages you like at your discretion but you won’t have a news feed compelling you to scroll through relentlessly.

Content Planning Apps

A lot of us use social media as a way to promote our businesses and other creative expressions and if this is important to you, using a content planner like Hootsuite, Buffer, Later, or Publer can help you to spend less time on social media while still sharing your message.

You can batch your content and schedule it to go out when you want so that you’re not needing to load up a social media app and possibly get caught in a doomscroll when you go to share something that you have created. This can save you tons of time and also make managing your social media usage much simpler.

Our brains are hardwired to doomscroll. It comes from a time where we had to be hyper-vigilant to threats in our environment and now that we partly exist in a virtual environment, that’s where our brains turn to seek out threats.

Recognize that this is a perfectly normal response to uncertainty and that there are steps you can take to mitigate the risk and the stress doomscrolling may be causing to your system. Use the apps and the strategies above to create some healthier boundaries with social media and news sites so that you can feel better.

One Simple Tip For Eliminating Distractions and Gaining More Freedom In Your Schedule

We are bombarded by notifications when working on our digital devices - so much so that it’s no wonder we vent frustration at how distracting it can be to get our work done on these gadgets that are supposed to help increase our productivity.

While this is a just cause for the rationalization of using the perfect technology that is a notebook and pen, many things can be only done with proficiency on our computers.

Whether it’s coding, or editing videos, or typing out the manuscript to your bestseller, our computers are undoubtedly better at getting the work done for us for many of the tasks that we do today.

So how do we handle all the incoming swaddle to stay focused and flow with our work?

By giving ourselves more freedom.

First, Why Is This Important?

In Cal Newport’s excellent book Deep Work, he argues that as more and more jobs become automated with robotics, it’s going to be the knowledge work that only humans can do that becomes essential and even more valuable. To really excel with this work though requires sustained focus to both get the work done and also find the creativity that is uniquely human and needed to be masterful at deep work.

Apart from this, we know that becoming more mindful benefits us for a whole host of reasons and that our digital devices are an enticing distraction from practicing more presence and calm.

And if all of that is not enough, being in better control of our work allows us to accomplish more in less time which will allow us the freedom to do what we please with the extra time on our hands.

Discipline Equals Freedom

There are several apps and devices settings that we can use these days to create a more disciplined and controlled environment on our devices.

Instead of having a Swiss Army knife at your disposal, we can control our devices to be more like the simple pocket knife and in doing so have the right tool at the right time.

The best app that I have found for creating more structure from the free-for-all is Freedom. This app works across all devices and platforms to synchronize block times to restrict access to certain apps and websites (or all of it at once).

Freedom works well for developing the habit of staying off of certain apps during work hours or keeping yourself off of the internet at a set time during the day.

The way I use Freedom is to block access to all websites and email for myself from 8 AM to 10:30 AM every morning. Now, I don’t have a problem checking email or going on social media before this time, so I didn’t set up the restriction for any earlier, but if you struggle with that urge yourself, then a morning Deep Work session with no internet access going all the way to your wake up time is the better way to go.

If I’m struggling to stay off of sites in the early afternoon, I will also set up a Freedom session at that time to restrict things like email and social media pages with a little more access to internet searches if I’m looking things up. As a note though, it’s always better to automate this process so that you’re not trying to process the thought of turning off social media at the time you’re already the most distracted.

The Freedom app does cost a little bit - there’s an annual fee or a lifetime purchase option for Freedom but the amount of extra focus and work you get done means you’ll have paid for the app within just a few hours of your deep work time.

I would also point out that taking the cognitive load off of yourself for the first couple of months of using Freedom will ingrain the habit to the point that you’ll no longer feel the urge to jump on the internet during your Freedom time when you’re supposed to be getting into Deep Work. So you could just purchase it for a few months and then stop using Freedom but use your discretion at whether this will work for you or not. On devices that I don’t have freedom set up on I still abide by my no internet rule automatically now when I’m in offline mode after having formed that habit.

Notifications Off and Screen Time Limiting

There are very few notifications that we “need” to have come into our devices and so I would strongly suggest you turn off all notifications other than phone calls and maybe messages (although arguably you don’t need these on either).

A few other notifications you may want to keep on:

• Calendar

• Reminders

• Health and Wellness Pings

Other than those, notifications will pull you out of flow too often to be considered valuable to have on your devices.

The other thing to set up is a screen time limit or a bedtime set up on your device. IOS offers these now and you can set it up similar on Android. When you hit certain limits during the day, like when you’re supposed to wind down before bed, your phone will go into a screen time limit mode where it will ask you to verify that you want to open an app before unlocking it. This can help to give you the pause to think about whether you really need to be on your device anymore or if you should be asleep or getting ready for bed.

Extending this screen time limit is the morning can be a game-changer to not checking your phone right away upon waking if you find that’s something you do a lot. Give yourself at least an hour in the morning with your limit in place to wake up with a more deliberate morning routine.

Giving yourself more freedom on your digital devices comes from deliberate action to restrict the rapid swiping and incoming notifications.

Technology can be incredible for productivity and you can spend most of your day in flow even with these powerfully distracting tools if you just start with a little more discipline and a little more freedom.

What Can We Learn and Apply from Silent Meditation Retreats to Our Everyday Life?

I recently had my friend Tony Francis on the FlowCast where we went in-depth on the story of a virtual silent meditation retreat that he attended during the COVID-19 quarantine. Not only was this a unique style of a meditation retreat, but it also got me thinking about how we all could apply those lessons to our everyday lives. Instead of endlessly flicking through social media what if we paused to listen to the birds chirping and just watch the clouds drifting by us?

Instead of seeing meditation as a bandaid solution to a tightening in our chest what if we made it a part of our daily routine just because?

What would our life be like then?

Today, let's look at what we can learn from the experience of others who have attended silent meditation retreats and see how we can live a little more mindfully by following their lead.

We're Always Chasing The Next Mountain

We face an immense issue in our modern world that is driven by our primitive brains in this hyperstimulated setting. We are so driven and focused by the next milestone or next objective that we never stop to appreciate what's in front of us. You've probably experienced this yourself before. You go on a beautiful hike, seeking out the highest point in the area. You are so focused on reaching that zenith too far away to even see in the distance that you don't take in the forest around you. Or maybe you're on vacation on the Mediterranean coast, and instead of appreciating the breathtaking scenery, you're only thinking about what you're going to have for dinner and where you're going to eat.

Our agendas are meant to guide us towards living more purposefully, not to own us and our every thought.

Silent Retreats Give Us Access To Experiences No Other Humans Have

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist who has found his purpose in teaching meditation, primarily through his Waking Up app where he teaches daily meditations, brings on guest instructors, and has deep discussions with long time practitioners. In his book of the same name, *Waking Up*, Sam talks about his first silent meditation retreat experience which happened when he was only sixteen. Sam talked about the misery of the experience, as part of the retreat included a multi-day fast in the woods alone. Chasing his metaphorical mountain, Sam spent the first few days journaling about all the foods he would eat when he was back home. Despite the challenge of the initial phase of the retreat, over the years Sam has reflected that he believes silent retreats give us access to experiences that no other humans have. There's a transcendence of the primal chase when we exact our willpower to retreat into silence for days at a time. It strips away all the distractions from what is known as "the wound of existence." We recognize that life is entirely made up of NOW. Unlike a prophecy, whatever comes next has not come into existence yet and whatever has already passed may have left a scar but is equally nonexistent in the present moment.

While I have not attended a silent meditation retreat, I am deeply curious about what this exclusive experience Sam Harris talks about might be...

Unlocking Peak Experiences and Flow

Perhaps one part of the silent retreat experience that Sam Harris talked about is what Abraham Maslow called peak experiences and we more intimately know as the flow state. Flow is technically defined as an optimal state of consciousness, one where performance goes through the roof, and we are forced into the present moment.

The conditions of flow are most commonly met in activities with clearly defined goals and a degree of challenge that is ever-so-slightly above your skill level (4% above to be exact). But what happens when we find flow in situations without a definite outcome?

There is no goal of meditation and that's what most people new to the practice get tripped up over.

Am I meditating correctly?

Am I doing it right?

I'm sure that you've had these thoughts before.

To paraphrase what Tony said so eloquently in the podcast, "we often meditate when we are already anxious as a way to try to relieve that anxiety." One thing that he took away from the experience of the silent retreat when meditating for upwards of three hours every day was the feeling of meditation solely the sake of meditating without needing to do so because one is anxious is a profoundly different experience.

When you let yourself meditate for the sake of meditation, you learn to derive joy from the experience itself rather than some expected outcome of your actions, in other words, it becomes autotelic, another keystone of flow. Then there is the action of mindfulness which is like doing bicep curls for your brain, as each fleeting thought gets flexed away to bring yourself back to open awareness. You experience progress in real-time which when you do for the pure pleasure of the act, keeps you perfectly aligned in that flow channel where challenge meets skill.

All of this culminates in one of the most intoxicating effects of flow; we experience time differently as it becomes distorted. This is very common in the float tank where the dials on all sensory inputs are turned way down. It feels like forever and then it's over. When meditating for prolonged periods and stripping away all temptations of distraction, we come to experience it in a very similar way in finding flow.

Can a Digital Detox Be an Entry Point to a Silent Retreat?

Maybe like me, you are left a little more curious about what experiences are invited into your being when you set out on a silent meditation retreat so I want to leave you with an idea of how we can incorporate some of this mindfulness into our lives.

Within 24 hours we are hit with over 4,000 advertising messages in our environment. Because a silent retreat is all about stripping away all those distractions, I have a hypothesis that a digital detox could be a great entry point to the experience if you're hesitant to dive in or not at liberty to do so at this point in your life.

A digital detox allows you to get some clarity through turning off all of your devices for a period of freedom. While you can do a 30-day social media fast, as Cal Newport suggests in his book Digital Minimalism, a more realistic starting point for you may be starting with a digital Shabbath as Tiffany Shlain describes in 24/6. Having a "screen off Saturday" makes it very easy to unplug without an overwhelming amount of stress and anxiety around feeling like your work life may be falling apart while you step away.

By turning off your devices for 24 hours on the weekend, you can take a step back and look at your life a little more clearly from a vantage point that is away from the frontline of battle.

So what are you waiting for? I encourage you to figure out a way to make this happen right away because you just don't know the depth of experience that is waiting on the other side for you.

Whether you want to venture out into the wilderness on a silent meditation retreat to explore the nature of your reality deeply or take an afternoon to hike through the local woods without tech pinging and binging around you, you are bound to discover the wonder that waits for you when you learn to take a pause and breathe.