Your brain is a computer with limited power. Modern society leads us to believe otherwise, but this is the reality. Everything you do during your day ends up taking a toll on your mental resources. Basically, everything you experience needs to be processed by your brain to elaborate, understand and memorize it. You often don't even realize it, as most of it happnes in your subconcious and during your sleep.

If you overload your brain, it will have to dedicate less time to each notion, leading to a worse processing. Bear with me, we'll get to the point.

I'm a student, so my typical fay was mostly spent studying. Every dead time and pause, i used to browse Reddit and Instragram, while to relax and unwind i used to game or watch Netflix. During all of this i used to use Whatsapp to text to friends, send memes and read groupchats, answering to anything in the span of few minutes. I masturbated daily and i hanged out with friends on weekend evenings. This looked perfectly normal to me and might resonate with lot of people.

This seems perfectly healthy, but it is quite a toxic behaviour. All these activites, even if some look relaxing, require lot of brainpower:

  • Studying is self explanatory.
  • Reddit is a literal information bombing. Spending 30 minutes on Reddit can involve reading about dozens of topics, which your brain has to process and memorize.
  • Instagram is a bit less intensive as it tends to span less topics, but it still engages your brain a lot.
  • Most videogames involve a high degree of focusing. Any game involves usage and improvement of muscle memory, eye-hand coordination, quick reactions, automated responses, all while learning new notions.
  • Texting puts your brain in alert mode. You get a message which distracts you, have to think about an answer for more that you would do in person, send it, then you think about what you will get back for a while.
  • Masturbation seems bland, but your brain puts high priority on sex. You can remember pornstar names and videos for a lot.
  • TV is similar to Reddit and Instagram, but it's better because it is one topic only. No need for your brain to open a dozen different folders.
  • Hanging out with friends requires you to think about what to say, what to do and process what people say, verbally or not, which may or not require focus depending on personality.

Now, let's think about what's the goal of this activities:

  • Sutdying is needed for my future.
  • Browsing Reddit is for fun and learning stuff, a small part of which will be useful in my life.
  • Browsing Instagram lets you stay tuned on others and have some fun.
  • Videogames are purely for fun.
  • Texting is for communicating with others.
  • Masturbation makes you feel better for a while.
  • TV is for fun.
  • Hanging out with friends is for socializing.

Now, there are 8 activities here. We could say 3 are useful in the long term (studying, texting, hanging out), while 5 of them are mostly meant for fun only. You don't realize it, but your brain has to split power to every activity: when you are gaming, you are spending resources your brain may use for memorizing what you have studied and processing what others said. Additionally, a "hidden" activity your brain is constantly doing is processing your own feelings and processing your opinion on others: the more your brain is busy with stimulations, the less your feelings will be clear.

Activities such as gaming end on themselves. They won't be useful for your future and for other activities such as studying or socializing, but they do sap your brainpower from other activities.

You don't need to dig every fun activity and focus only on being productive. Unwinding and relax are useful and needed, but you should realize they are at the bottom of your priorities, so try to organize your day to prioritize productive activities. Remember that the amount of time you dedicate isn't the only important factor: frequency matters as well. If you chec Reddit for 10 minutes twelve times a day, it's actually worse than a 2 hours reddit session, cause your brain will think more about it.

Activities that make you jump from one topic to another often are also unhealthy if overdone. Reddit is made of lot of threads that are fast to read, this leads you to focus on one argument for a short span, then jump to another topic. YOur brain adapts to this and in no time your attention span is lowered and you can't stay on one argument for long, plus you'll feel the need or always talk and share what you think, like a Reddit comment.

Nowadays, my typical day is something like this:

  • More errands. Tidy up and clean stuff whenever it is possible. It's needed, satisfying and doesn't use brainpower.
  • Studying.
  • Socializing. In person > phone calls > texting.
  • Reading. Relaxing activity that has a slower pace than TV and tackles only one topic at a time, unlike Reddit.
  • Reddit, but i'm cleaning my frontpage from unproductive subs such as funny, gifs and gaming subs. Keep useful subs only.
  • Working out. Very useful and doesn't use brainpower.
  • Occasional gaming session, movie or TV series. I tend to do it with friends now though.
  • Masturbate only when you get so horny it gets in the way for other stuff, avoiding porn.

Finally...

Overstimulation can be addicting.

One issue i encountered when i changed my routine was being really nervous and feeling the need to browse Reddit or play videogames. This is because your brain dislikes exiting your confort zone and it gets used to a certain amount of stimulaton: when it gets below that level, you get stressed. Hold on. Eventually, your brain will adapt.

The result for me was amazing. My mind became clearer and i could focus more in every task. I was able to understand better my feelings and my reactions, plus to understand better when i really need something and when i'm acting on an instinct: all of this made me less nervous, less needy, more productive and overall healthier. My attention span greatly improved too and my reasonments are less erratic.

A major thing that helped me change my routine was scheduling. Schedule everything. Instead of browsing Reddit while having breakfast, take pen and paper and write down everything you'll do on your day, you can include hobbies such as gaming and Netflix, expecially at the start, but try to dedicate less time than usual to them. You can also try to reduce one thing at a time: one week you cut out Reddit time, the next you also cut gaming, the next you'll cut Netflix.

I really hope this can help someone. Having a bad routine and being overall mentally stressed is a really subtle condition lot of people aren't aware of.

TL;DR: if you don't have time to read this, save it and read it later. If you don't want to read this because it is too long, it's a major indicator you should read it fully.