The antidote to brainrot doomscrolling
How to not become retarded when everyone else is becoming dumber by the day
It might not seem obvious right now, but 99% of people are literally becoming more retarded by the day because of small habits and things they do throughout the day.
They wake up, immediately pick up their phone to get a dopamine spike and scroll through bits and pieces of brainrot content before they get out of bed.
Then they go on to check their phone 500 more times throughout the day, before they finish off the day with a bullshit netflix show and a little more doomscrolling.
When you do this over and over again, every single day, it’s only a matter of time before you actually end up retarded.
Studies already show that short form content worsens your attention, focus and just overall cognitive function. It literally shrinks the grey matter in your brain, which is really important for cognitive function, memory, and so on.
So here is the antidote to becoming retarded. So you can actually end up as the 1% of people that will be able to sit down and 25 pages in a book without checking their phone a million times or feeling like it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done.
Don’t be an NPC
Most people live their life on autopilot. They do the same things every day and don’t really engage in anything that requires their brain to actually work.
It’s like with muscles. If you don’t use them, you lose them. The same goes for your brain, yet most people don’t think about their brain that way.
Like I said, most people live life on autopilot and don’t do anything stimulating for their brain.
The best thing they got going for them is their job. Hopefully they’re getting some stimulation there and actually using their brain. But besides that, most people just run on autopilot. Doomscrolling, binge watching netflix and so on. Maybe going to the gym a couple times per week, but watching tiktok in between every set…
When this is all you do, no wonder you end up dumber every year.
This is the NPC life. Mindlessly, passively consuming, living on autopilot. At no point throughout the day did you allow your brain to have an original thought. At no point did you “create” anything.
The NPC life slowly just creeps up on you without you noticing. You end up living like a zombie, absent from your own mind (maybe a bit of an over exaggeration but you get the point).
If you ask me, that’s a no bueno.
The flex in the near future isn’t how much money you got in your bank account. It’s if you can actually sit down and read 20 pages in a book without doing a thousand other things. If you can watch a high quality movie without picking up your phone. If you can go for a walk without your phone. If you can eat a meal without watching youtube.
You get the picture.
And what it’s really about is just doing shit in your life. The opposite of running on autopilot like most people do. Having hobbies, being interested in shit, actually taking time out of the day to read books and do stuff you know is good for you.
And even before all that, it’s about actually recognizing it. Most people never do, because they’re too busy scrolling.
Be a renaissance man
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
— Leonardo Da Vinci
You need to start living like Leonardo Da Vinci. The symbol of a true renaissance man. Always doing shit, having a million different hobbies, actually using the brain, experimenting, living life to the fullest.
Being a modern renaissance man is the opposite of being a doomscroller just living life on autopilot.
It’s about just being interested in multiple different things. Not because it’s efficient, but because it’s a life lived to the fullest. Because it’s fun.
Seek knowledge for it’s own sake. Just because you’re curious. A lot of people will tell you to avoid having multiple interests, hobbies or whatever because you can’t give all of them 100% of your effort.
In buddhism theres the old saying: “The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
Fuck that.
You need to pursue excellence in multiple aspects of life. You aren’t doing all these things because you need to be the absolute best, you are doing them because it’s the antidote to being an NPC.
And just to finish the point, Leonardo was the best painter of his time even though he focused more time on science, engineering, anatomy, etc.
So don’t tell me you can’t focus on multiple things at once.
NPC’s consume. Renaissance people create. Have multiple different interests at the same time. Learn things. Build things. DO COOL SHIT WITH YOUR LIFE.
I ain’t telling you to start painting like Leonardo did. But learn a new language, be good at a sport, play an instrument, run a business, stuff like that. Have multiple projects going at the same time. Multiple interests. Multiple skills developing simultaneously.
Pursuing different things out of pure curiosity.
Action steps
Okay, I’ve told you all this stuff, but you might be wondering: “well what do I actually need to do to not become retarded?”
No doomscrolling
This is probably the most important thing you can do. First up, it destroys your mind, so it’s a no bueno. Second of all, stopping it will give you hours every day to do the things that will actually move the needle.
So let’s just be honest about what doomscrolling is. Short form content designed to make you emotional, promote anxiety and keep you on the app for as long as possible.
These companies obviously don’t care about you, they just care about keeping you glued to the screen so they can make more money. And the best way to do that is by making you emotional. Bad news, controversy, outrage, conflicts, etc.
Sooner or later you’re gonna start seeing the world through that lens. You feel more stressed. Your baseline anxiety rises. You can’t focus for more than 30 seconds. No more deep thoughts. No more creativity. No nothing except BRAINROT.
But the good news is that the fix isn’t complicated. It’s just about putting the phone down.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
— Lao Tzu
It might sound impossible right know but like Lao Tzu said it’s just about taking the first step. Leaving the phone out of your bedroom so you don’t scroll before bed or after you wake up. Not bringing it to the bathroom. Going for walks without your phone. Deleting social media.
It’s just about gradually using your phone less and less, and before you know it your screen time is 1 hour per day.
Another thing that really help me not use my phone that much is the brick device. It’s this little thing that you scan (nfc chip) that blocks out distracting apps and notifications from your phone until you scan the device again.
Compared to just using the screen time settings this thing actually works.
Your brain is not gonna like it at first, and it’s gonna be hard. But on the other side of doomscrolling is the ability to actually think clearly again.
It’s the number 1 thing ruining your brain.
Read more books
Here I am talking about actual books. You aren’t special because you read a twitter thread or even a article/newsletter like this. You need to be reading actual books. Books that take weeks or even months to finish.
This is what cures brainrot. It’s the exact opposite of shallow, 30 second brainrot videos about a million different topics on social media.
It’s a thousand fucking pages about one story. You become invested. You’re required to focus to keep track of everything. It’s got actual depth.
People who read regularly have better vocabularies, better critical thinking abilities and a far superior ability to concentrate and stay focused for hours on end.
Especially fiction books. There is something about great classical fiction books that you don’t get from all these popular “self help” books. It improves your ability to understand how other people think and feel. A skill that’s extremely important if you wanna get somewhere in life.
Books like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Brothers Karamazov, The Picture of Dorian Grey, etc.
I like to read a mixture of both fiction and non fiction, but at the end of the day, the book that gets you to read is the best book.
And like with doomscrolling, start small. Read 10 pages before bed, and gradually build up. The point is just to rebuild your ability to focus.
Go for long walks without your phone
I know I briefly touched on this but I just wanna elaborate a little bit on it because I think it’s so important.
Going for long, slow walks is one of the most reliable thinking tools there is. There’s a reason why so many of the worlds greatest thinkers were all walkers. Nietzsche, Darwin, Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc.
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Movement and thought are deeply linked. Something just happens when you go for a long stroll through the forest while listening to the birds and paying attention to all the little details.
Your brain is running on all cylinders. And science proves this.
Just look at this stuff. You clearly see more brain activity after walking compared to just sitting around. And sitting quietly is already infinitely better than scrolling your phone whenever you got a spare second.
That’s the reason you’re living on NPC autopilot mode. You never give your brain time to think. So get back into the habit of giving your brain time to relax and just do its thing.
Walking without your phone, sitting around quietly, meditating, driving without music, etc. Being present.
This is how you gradually get back into the habit of actually thinking, instead of just running on autopilot.
Challenge your brain
Like I said earlier, your brain is like a muscle. If you wanna keep it sharp and strong, you have to challenge it. Just like you have to challenge your muscles if you want them to grow.
Doomscrolling all day is the equivalent of laying in bed all day for your muscles. No growth, no challenge, just one dopamine hit after another.
So make it a habit to start challenging your brain. Play chess, try learning a language, have discussions with people, argue, play cards, learn to code, learn marketing, write articles, make youtube videos, read books (already touched on), read scientific studies about topics you’re interested in. Expand your knowledge.
This is how you keep your brain sharp and combat the negative effects of doomscrolling. Most people just never do this.
This also goes hand in hand with my next point.
Have a f*cking hobby
When most people are asked what their hobby is they say something like: “uhh, i don’t know, going to the gym.”
That’s great, but it’s just not cutting it.
Once again, the problem is the phone. People used to be big into hobbies but now we just doomscroll whenever we have a second to fill out. This leaves no time for actually interesting hobbies and challenging things that make you sharp, interesting, real.
You need things you do just because they’re fun, because you’re good at them, because they challenge you.
The ones I mentioned above, but it can also be things that are less challenging for the brain. Surfing, skiing, playing basketball, tennis, golf, poker night, going to the jazz bar while drinking a negroni, whatever the f*ck.
Just do cool shit.
That’s literally my whole point with this post. It’s just about putting down the damn phone so you can actually live life and do cool shit. It’s honestly not complicated.
Meditate and do nothing
This is the ultimate test of whether or not your brain is fried. I remember the first time I tried meditating. 2022 or something. I selected the 10 minute session on the app thinking it would be easy because, 10 minutes, come on.
Literally didn’t even last 5 minutes.
Once again, meditation is pretty much the exact opposite of doomscrolling. It’s zero stimulation, just you, your thoughts and your breath.
There’s many forms of meditation. You don’t have to download an app, sit with your legs crossed like a monk and meditate until a certain timer runs out.
Meditation can also just be doing nothing. Sitting at the beach watching the sunset. Laying out in the sun tanning for an hour with nothing but your thoughts. Whatever. What’s really just important is that you have some time in the day with zero stimulation, just you and your thoughts.
The next time you’re at the bus stop, instead of picking up the phone, just stand there. The next time you got a couple minutes of spare time, instead of picking up the phone, just be with your thoughts.
I know this sounds like some crazy monk shit, but that’s just because of how f*cked the modern world is. Everyone is so stimulated 24/7 and couldn’t even fathom the idea of just sitting silently or going for a walk without their phone.
But if you actually think back to the past, like way back before agriculture, we actually spent a lot of time just relaxing, eating food, sitting around. At least when we weren’t out hunting or gathering.
In general, super low stimulation compared to nowadays.
The bottom line
The world is cooked. Plain and simple. People are becoming dumber and more distracted by the day. Algorithms and corporations all fighting for your attention. You’re literally frying your brain while they’re increasing their profits.
The average person isn’t even noticing this, and will keep going down the slippery slope of the autopilot, NPC life. Never doing anything new. Passive consumption. Mainstream media. Bullshit life if you ask me.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Read more books. Go for long walks without your phone. Learn something. Have hobbies. Challenge your brain. Have multiple things going on. Create more than you consume. Be alone with your thoughts. Try new things.
Adopt the renaissance man way of life.
Be like Leonardo Da Vinci.
“As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.”
— Leonardo Da Vinci
Thanks for reading and godspeed.
— Kasper Veritas