Stop Consuming Your Own Misery: The Endless Loop of Doom-Scrolling

If you spend three hours a day scrolling through a curated feed of political outrage, economic collapse, and global catastrophe, you do not have an anxiety disorder. You have a self-medication problem. You are actively choosing to consume misery.

Most adults defend their doom-scrolling by claiming they just want to "stay informed" or be a "responsible citizen." This is a delusion. You are not scrolling to stay informed. You are scrolling because obsessing over macro-level crises is a fantastic way to avoid dealing with your own micro-level pain.

The Ultimate Avoidance Strategy

It is infinitely easier to be outraged about far away events where you have no control than it is to look at your own credit card debt, your dwindling relationships, or your deteriorating physical health. When you focus all of your emotional energy on things you cannot control, you grant yourself a built-in excuse for ignoring the things you can control.

Doom-scrolling is a sophisticated form of procrastination. It allows you to feel a false sense of importance and urgency while your actual, immediate life falls apart. By the time you put your phone down, your nervous system is so fried by global atrocities that you no longer have the energy to clean your kitchen, play with your kids, or have a difficult conversation with your spouse.

The Illusion of Participation

Consuming endless tragedy on your screen does not make you a good person; it morphs you into a neurotic one. Reading fifty comments under an inflammatory post does not change the world. It just spikes your cortisol and trains your brain to look for threats in your immediate environment where none exist.

You are not participating in society by doom-scrolling. You are being farmed for your attention by algorithms designed to keep you angry, afraid, and clicking.

Facing the Silence

The reason it is so hard to put the phone away is that the moment you do, the artificial noise stops, and the silence begins. And in that silence, you are forced to look at your actual reality. You have to face the resentment in your home, your dissatisfaction with your career, or your lack of meaningful pursuits.

Therapy is about facing that silence. Because the truth of the matter is that you do have the power to quiet your mind and find peace. The work requires:

• Digital Fasting: Cutting off the supply of manufactured outrage so you can actually assess your baseline mental state.

• Radical Localism: Shifting your focus entirely away from global issues you cannot control and committing to organizing the square footage you actually inhabit.

• Taking Ownership: Accepting that the chaos in your head is a product of your own behavioral choices, not the state of the world.

The Bottom Line

You cannot fix your anxiety while simultaneously pumping a firehose of digital chaos into your brain every night. If you are ready to put the phone down, face the reality of your own life, and get to work, contact Powers Psychotherapy LLC in Loveland, CO.

Mindfulness and Mental Health

Mindfulness can be Simpler than It’s Made out to Be

A brief, internet search about mindfulness might bring you to a range of techniques and practices for embodying a mindful self. This is awesome. Many of these are extremely helpful practice in developing abilities that range from increasing focus to reducing stress. However, many of these (concentration, breathing, etc.) can feel very aimless without the right teacher. At least, for me this was true. Of course, this is fully an internal struggle of my own. Almost all resources I encountered make it very clear that the entire experience should be free of pressure to perform.

Still, though, it is honestly difficult to accomplish that. And because it is difficult, it is at least worth looking at what the goals of all of these practices are.

What you Stand to Gain

At its heart, mindfulness is your ability to draw your attention and focus to the present moment and everything that it affords you. If you are distracted with deadlines at work, financial strife, or conflict with a loved one, you are having a natural reaction to the stressors of life. Additionally, you might not be fully present in the moment.

Now, another natural reaction might be to read the previous paragraph and think that I am trying to convince you not to worry about fairly consequential things in your life. However, I can assure you that this is not the case. Of course you have matters to attend to that simply cannot be ignored. At the same time, there are undoubtedly moments that exist in between your opportunities to work toward solutions. In these moments, the question is how to tend to what is going on right then and there.

Maybe the situation in front of you is a really lovely one that warrants a little appreciation and gratitude. Those seem to be the moments that our loved ones insist we make an effort to live in. On the other hand, maybe the situation is a minor concern that still needs tending to. In either case, there is something of value happening in the current moment that makes your attention valuable there as well.

So ultimately, you stand to gain an increase in value on each moment of your time and attention.

How to Practice Mindfulness

I should take this moment to fully acknowledge the benefits of any other mindful practices you might find. They truly are fantastic. Again, though, this blog is meant to provide more easily accessible ways to get the ball rolling on mindful practices.

One thing to try is to notice when you are feeling preoccupied. This might sound easy. With some practice, it can be. However, noticing what you tend not to notice is a skill. One way to build this skill is to take note of when you miss some details in whatever you might be engaging with. For example, maybe you are watching a movie and can’t remember what happened in the last few minutes. Maybe you are reading and go over the same paragraph several times in a row without retaining anything. These are experiences that everybody has at some point, but noticing it is the first step.

Next, simply tell yourself that you notice when you notice. Even try saying it out loud. Obviously this might not hold all of the answers to mindful practices, but again, it is a start. Once you make a habit of noticing when you can’t seem to keep your attention in the present, the next step is to identify what feelings and emotions are tied to your distraction.

For example, you’ve just realized that your attention has been somewhere else for several minutes, and you’ve told yourself that’s what has happened. Great! Now ask yourself this:

“While my attention was elsewhere, what was I feeling? Was I sad, anxious, angry, agitated, upset, etc.?”

Of course, you can feel many emotions at the same time. Even so, identifying even one goes a long way. With a few repetitions, you might see some patterns. Maybe you are identifying the same emotion again and again. Maybe it’s a different one each time.

In either case, you have now begun the process of getting in touch with your moment-to-moment feelings. Whether you choose to begin unpacking all of them on your own or with the help of another person, you might have a little bit better of a grasp on what you are trying to address.

If you feel like you need some extra help, there is always someone to talk with.