I pride myself on being virtually vice free. There’s that old expression, “everyone has a vice”. I contemplate this sometimes and wonder what my vice might be. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t even drink coffee, I don’t watch porn, I don’t eat junk food, I work out often, I like to read and I enjoy the sauna, and I don’t even really watch TV. In fact, I don’t even own a TV. I don’t use TikTok, I don’t use snapchat. I used to spend a lot of time scrolling on Tumblr but I managed to kick that habit as well. I don’t look down upon those who don’t do those things, I’m just striving for a life of optimization, and eliminating these things help me feel my best, and allows me to channel my energy into more important things And I’m happy, happier than almost people I know my age. 

But there is that *one* little thing. 

I spend upwards of an hour and a half a day on instagram. 

And I feel really bad about myself when I do. 

I can justify this in a few ways. I’ve moved away from a lot of friends, instagram is a place to keep up with them! 

But am I really keeping up with them? 

My reels are great, they’re full of homesteading and recipe videos!

Yeah but how often a day do the mind numbing videos creep in and take you down a rabbit hole you shouldn’t be in. 

Multiple times. 

And at the end of the day, how much time did you spend on instagram that could’ve been spent doing something more productive. A chapter of a book, working on an article, going to the gym or playing with the dog. 

So I’ve decided delete instagram off my phone for 30 days. 

I don’t expect this to be easy for me, and I don’t know what my plans are after these 30 days are up. I love to post photos like a digital journal to look back on, and I probably will keep doing that. My friends send me videos but I think I can live without them, and I think once I kick the doom scrolling habit, I won’t miss much.

I recently challenged myself to buy no new clothes or house wares for a month and that was difficult at first but then it become sort of freeing, and since then I’ve been much more intentional about what I purchase. 

So if I do go back to instagram after 30 days, I’m hoping that this can serve as somewhat of a mental reset and provide some intention for me when I return. 

DAY 1

Upon day one I was quite sure that I needed this challenge because I realized over several hours in the car (I drive a lot for work) I wanted to check instagram at EVERY red light! A reflex, a switch in my brain, the car has stopped, time to check instagram, and every time I had to remind myself that it was no longer on my phone. 

Sounds a little bit like a junkie if you ask me. 

So now instead I will occasionally check my todo list, or better yet, not touch my phone. 

On day 2 I woke up and journaled, which I usually do anyways, after about 30 minutes of instagram scrolling while sill in bed. I try not expose myself to the light early in the morning by keeping a red light filter on, but if something interesting enough captures my eye, I’ll turn it off, and then I’m even more likely to get sucked into the doom scrolling. 

One day I’d love to start my mornings barefoot in the grass but I live in Detroit and there’s broken glass in my back yard and it just doesn’t quite have the ideal Set up for barefoot mornings and sunlight.

So I started my day without instagram and by 9am I have made breakfast, talked to our route driver and sent the route to her, checked the emails, journaled, made some big batches of ginger lemonade, prepared 3 loaves of bread for the next stage of proofing, cleaned the kitchen, and written this article introduction. 

Honestly, I’m not jonesing for a dopamine hit, nor was I yesterday unless I was at a red light, but I have plenty to do and numerous other outlets to keep myself entertained if the work ever runs out.

Social media and our young people 

Social media has provided some amazing things to our society and overall for the adult population I can’t say rather or not is more of a net negative or net positive, but I know that for young children the addiction to the screen is doing some intense damage to their developing brains. The facts are in, this is not good for our young people. 

I wasn’t an iPad kid. Born in 2001 to a mother of 18, I often felt on the cusp of millennial and gen z but I am squarely in the get z age range. I grew up with cartoons and I had a flip phone at the age of 9. I was 12 when I got social media, and every day I thank god that I didn’t have it earlier. I wish I would have waited longer but all things considered I turned out all right. However, this is so rarely the case today. Abigail Shrier covers this in her most recent book “Bad Therapy: Why Kids today aren’t growing up” Shrier talks about a very interesting phenomena facing young people today. We are the generation with the most access to “mental health resources” and yet, we are by far the most mentally ill generation. Why is that? Many reasons, but a huge factor, based on the most recent research, social media. 

Take this article from Yale Medicine or this one from Mayo Clinic , this from the child mind institute

Really any article from a quick google search will tell you about the negative impact social media has on young people. Unlike certain things this is not information you have to search for. Who’s to say the effect on adults is all that much better? 

Half way update

It’s May 12th, about half way through my instagram free journey. I’m pleased to say my urge to doom scroll has dissipated. I no longer get the urge to reach for my phone and scroll when I hit every red light. 

My screen time is down significantly. From 7-9 hours a day to typically somewhere between 4-5. Nine hours a day is too high, as is five hours in my opinion and it’s not taking into consideration my computer time, but there’s no doom scrolling happening on there and it’s all for work. Ideally my screen time would be between 1-2 hours a day, but I use google maps for several hours a day on route for work or running errands. I also listen to podcasts on Spotify and YouTube and sometimes leave the screen playing on accident, both of these contribute to several hours of screen time a day. 

Anyone know a good way to track screen time that doesn’t account for google maps and other time not actually spent on the phone? 

I no longer spend my mornings doom scrolling and am spending more time journaling and reading, which I already do quite a bit of but am excited about incorporating more of. 

I will confess that on 2 occasions I have looked at instagram messages on a web browser or my iPad. I was expecting (hoping) for a message that never came. Thus making the whole thing, not worth it.  

Over all, I’m feeling really good about being pretty much entirely social media free, and am not 100% sure what plans are for the end of this month after this challenge. I love posting photos on instagram and I’ve found that I’m documenting things through photos less than I would previously. This is a side effect that has both pros and cons in my opinion. I love photography and I love documenting moments but I’m on my phone less and in the moment more which I think has benefits, obviously. 

I may start scrapbooking or keeping a photo album so I have some place to document and look back on, or maybe just download instagram periodically to post and then delete it again. There are some instagram accounts that I miss keeping up with. This feels very silly, I’m not missing much I realized I also use instagram to research, restaurants in the area, thrift shops, markets, it seems like instagram has its finger on the pulse of what’s relevant in a way that google doesn’t. And of course, there are the hundreds of recipes I have saved that I swore I was going to make one day. 

I can honestly say that I’m not missing much from my friends or other people I used to follow. I realize I’ve been out of the loop- apparently there’s beef with kendrick Lemar and Drake, I was so out of the loop I heard about this on a Joe rogan podcast. And that’s another thing I miss sometimes, I used to see who was hanging out with Joe Rogan and know who the next podcast guest was, and now I just have to wait until they come out. 

In some ways I worry about losing touch- what are the young people doing and talking about (I’m 23, and even I can’t keep up) what if I become the 23 year old equivalent of a weird home schooled kid (I already don’t have many friends) but at the same time, what’s being in tune with social media compared to being in tune with what’s around me. 

I don’t come home and sit on the couch and scroll anymore. I’ll read or journal, look at my Todoist, or better yet, just get straight to work because there is always another project to do. 

Ultimately why I wanted to give up social media

I have this philosophy in life that leading by example is one of the highest form of authenticity and good. I don’t have kids yet but I examined this first in my younger siblings (aged 15, 8, and 11 at time of publishing) 

Kids are a mirror into our own behavior and I began to see things in my younger siblings that I didn’t like in myself. 

Of course, that’s not to say that it was all bad. They mirrored some good things too. But I began to look at habits and behaviors in my life like this: Is this a good or bad habit, and do I want my future kids to exhibit this behavior or habit? 

If the answer is no, then the next questions is: Why am I still doing this? Could I justify this behavior or habit that I’m exhibiting to my future kids, even though I don’t want them to do it? 

And lastly: What can I do to eliminate this habit and lead by example? 

The greatest example I have of this is drinking. Why am I drinking? Because it’s fun, it makes social outings more enjoyable, and all of my friends are doing it. 

Do I want my kids doing this? No, absolutely not. There are no positive side effects to drinking, and the health impacts are severe. 

Can I justify this to my kids even though it’s something I don’t want them doing? No. Not really. Just because I’m an adult doesn’t make it healthy, worth it, or right to drink, given how I feel about it personally. 

What can I do to change this? I quit drinking. I wasn’t an alcoholic. I didn’t have problems with drinking. But I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by quitting, so I did. 

One by one I went through things like this in my personal life and eliminated (or continue to try) to eliminate habits that I don’t want my kids to have. 

Which leads us here. Do I want my kids to use social media? No! The jury is in, it’s wrecking our kids. They can absolutely live without it and be better for it. Therefore, it’s time for me to start to lead by example. Of course these kids don’t exist yet but my younger siblings look up to me and mirror my behavior. I think eliminating or severely limiting social media is a great way to lead by example. 

Last week 

We’re reaching our last week of no instagram on my phone, although I don’t intend to go back when it’s over. 

At my peak I was able to get my screen time down to an average of 2 hours a day which is pretty incredible in todays day and age, especially considering google maps usage. 

 I would like to continue to limit my screen time as much as possible. I’ve found that when I have my iPad charged, I am susceptible to looking at instagram, I don’t tend to dive very deep into the rabbit hole, but I will check my messages, and check up on those aforementioned accounts I miss and then close the app. 

There’s no longer all this stuff I’m checking up on, and therefore nothing to see. I get bored rather quickly, and while I still find the occasional funny or interesting reel, I don’t receive the same dopamine hit, or crave the next dopamine hit quite the way I did when I was stuck in my addictive cycle. Unfortunately for me, setting an app timer or even getting an external app to limit my screen time doesn’t help me restrict certain apps. I’ll simply bypass the protocols I have set up, and do it anyways. For me, the solution was the go cold turkey until I felt like the addictive cycle had been broken. 

Here are some better habits I’ve replaced with my desire to doom scroll. 

Reading a couple pages of a book when I feel my attention span shrinking from the task at hand. 

Writing a journal entry, I find that one page takes about 3-5 minutes and is a sufficient reset for me mentally. 

Checking my Todoist, and monitoring my progress on important tasks. 

Looking at Pinterest and finding inspiration for current projects or future goals. I’ve been creating Pinterest boards for certain future aspirations and I’ve been enjoying it, but I’m not addicted to it, it doesn’t feed the addictive side of my brain like social media does, and I usually spend 10-15 minutes building a board and then move on to something else. 

One month follow up 

It’s been a month since the end of my 30 days of instagram free challenge and I am here to report that I have not redownloaded the app on my phone. I do continue to check it sometimes and I have come to find that there are some people whose content I enjoy and seek out, but I’ll check on them occasionally and then move on. I no longer feel the need to doom scroll. I still post and keep up with documenting memories for my own sake, but I would still like to start scrapbooking at some point. 

Life is genuinely better since I eliminated my social media addiction, and I now feel qualified and capable to help prevent my future kids from developing the same problem that everyone else in the younger generation has. 

Like I said earlier in this article, the verdict is in. Social media is not good for us, and it’s wreaking havoc on a young generation of kids who have never known life without it. Taking a step back and evaluating the relationship that you have with social media as an individual can be instrumental to see this crisis more clearly, and helping others. As adults, it’s up to us to lead by example and set limitations and expectations for young people. We can do this by consuming content more consciously, as well as limiting our overall consumption of content, and encouraging our friends to do the same. 

(NaturalNews – Jonathan Benson) Millions of prohibitionist-minded Americans have been exposed as complete hypocrites by research proving that refined sugar is more addictive than even hard drugs like cocaine. A compilation of scientific evaluations looking at both sugar and synthetic sweeteners reveals that these omnipresent substances often trigger the same or stronger responses in the brain as illegal drugs, and are sometimes much harder to break in terms of habitual consumption.

A paper published in the journal PLOS ONE back in 2007, for instance, explains how rats given the option to choose between drinking water sweetened with saccharin (Sweet’n Low) or intravenous cocaine almost always chose the water. A shocking 94 percent of rats, according to the researchers, actually preferred the high that they got from saccharin as opposed to the cocaine rush.

The same study found that sucrose, or common table sugar, was also preferred by the rats over cocaine. Based on this observance, the research team noted that regardless of caloric content, the sheer intensity and pleasure of sweetness seems to be more addictive than even the sensitization and intoxication brought about by cocaine, which mainstream society still recognizes as being much more harmful than sugar.

“Refined sugars (e.g., sucrose, fructose) were absent in the diet of most people until very recently in human history,” wrote the researchers from University of Bordeaux in France and James Cook University in Australia. “Today overconsumption of diets rich in sugars contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic.”

Sugar addiction is biologically equivalent to drug addiction

But is it just that the taste of sweetness is enjoyable, or is there something more going on in the brain to indicate actual dependency and addiction? Nearly 40 years ago, William Dufty helped answer this question when he penned a book entitled Sugar Blues, which highlighted the addictive properties of sugar and how sweets are a major driver for declining public health.

Many of the ideas presented in this groundbreaking book have been affirmed and reaffirmed by science, which has repeatedly demonstrated that certain neuroendocrine pathways are activated in response to sugar. The infamous “sweet tooth” and frequent sugar cravings are indicative of how these pathways drive obsessive consumption and addiction.

“In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants,” wrote the author of another study involving bees, which experienced cocaine-withdrawal-type symptoms when their sweet floral resources were taken away from them.

“The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus to lead to addiction.”

Wheat, cow’s milk contain opioid components similar to heroin

Wheat and processed milk are similarly addictive, according to GreenMedInfo, which documents how many processed foods made from these additives possess narcotic properties, acting in a similar way to heroin when consumed. Modern wheat actually contains psychoactive chemicals that bind to opioid receptors in the nervous system, literally acting as a drug inside the body.

Wheat contains a variety of opioid peptides known as gluten exorphins, while cow’s milk contains a variety of casomorphin peptides. Both of these component classes are highly addictive, and are part of the reason why foods made with them are often referred to as “comfort” foods.

“Fructose… is known to increase brain levels of endogenous morphine following ingestion, and may produce metabolic products in the brain very similar to those produced by morphine,” wrote Sayer Ji for GreenMedInfo about another highly addictive food additive prevalent in the American food supply.

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.greenmedinfo.com
http://science.naturalnews.com

(NaturalNews – Ethan A. Huff) Millions of Americans who claim to be opposed to drug use are actually heavy drug users themselves, according to a new study out of France. Researchers from the University of Paris’ Functional and Adaptive Biology laboratory recently found that triglycerides, a type of fat often found in junk foods, act on the brain in the same manner as many street drugs, exposing an epidemic of inadvertent drug addiction via the standard American diet.

Serge Luquet and his team, publishing their findings in the April 15, 2014, issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, tested the effects of triglycerides on mice. Having previously learned that these lipid compounds stimulate certain areas of the brain associated with pleasure and reward, the team decided to see how mice reacted to having a steady supply of triglycerides infused directly into their brains.

A body conditioned to high fat intake will constantly seek it out like a drug fix

Compared to mice not receiving the triglycerides, the test mice were less motivated than control mice to seek out more food, indicating a dose-response effect from consuming the fats. All the mice were allowed to access special levers that dispensed various food rewards, but those mice given the triglycerides were less likely to have brain activity telling them to eat more.

On the flip side, the mice not given triglycerides were found to be much more compulsive when it came to getting their food. Much in the same way that drug addicts have to constantly seek out their next “fix” in order to function, the control mice, who like all mice naturally desire high-fat, high-sugar foods, tended toward obsessively craving the food rewards.

“[T]riglycerides, fatty substances from food, may act in our brains directly on the reward circuit, the same circuit that is involved in drug addiction,” reads a summary of the report.

Brain responds to fat intake the same way it responds to hard drugs

Using a fluorescence microscope to analyze the mice’s individual brain activity, the research team was able to ascertain a specific enzyme in the brain that decomposes triglycerides, producing feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. When this enzyme is removed or deactivated, as the researchers did with the test mice, the desire for fatty foods becomes insatiable, much in the same way that a drug addict goes through withdrawals when cut off from his preferred substances.

Interestingly, the infused mice tended toward reduced physical activity and decreased likelihood of balancing a diet of both high-fat foods and simpler foods, compared to control mice who were obsessed with trying to gain access to the fats.

Many obese people are ‘drug’ addicts to triglycerides, unhealthy foods

In the end, this constant desire for fatty foods can lead to binge eating and gluttony, which in turn results in obesity for many people. Not surprisingly, obese individuals tend to have excessively high levels of triglycerides in both their blood and brain, and are typically more sedentary than the average person.

“[W]ith obesity, blood (and therefore brain) triglyceride levels are higher than average,” reads a ScienceDaily.com summary of the study’s outcomes. “So obesity is often associated with overconsumption of sugary, fatty foods. … At high triglyceride contents, the brain adapts to obtain its reward, similar to the mechanisms observed when people consume drugs.”

You can read a full press release of the study here:
http://www2.cnrs.fr.

Sources for this article include:
http://www.sciencedaily.com
http://www2.cnrs.fr

(NaturalNews – Julie Wilson) The food industry is a sophisticated, calculating and very profitable enterprise that preys on consumer weaknesses, ones they’ve strategically created.

Food sellers have one priority when it comes to consumers, and it’s not their health, but rather assurance. They need you to keep coming back for more, and they achieve this by constructing foods, especially processed foods, with three critical ingredients.

The perfect combination of salt, sugar and fat makes food taste irresistible, triggering intense cravings in the brain. “Salt, sugar and fat are the three pillars of the processed food industry,” said Michael Moss, a New York Times reporter who has investigated the secrets of the food industry’s scientists.

“And while the industry hates the world ‘addiction’ more than any other word, the fact of the matter is, their research has shown them that when they hit the very perfect amounts of each of those ingredients… they will have us buy more, eat more.”

Teams of chemists, physicists and neuroscientists work diligently to develop foods that we can’t stop eating. These perfectly engineered products don’t just leave us craving more but can change the way we feel about healthy foods.

Proof that junk food makes us want fruits and veggies less

Excessive consumption of junk food can change behavior, weaken self-control and lead to overeating and obesity, according to a study by the School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Australia.

Published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers discovered that feeding rats junk food made them fat and reduced their appetite for “novel foods.” Led by Professor Margaret Morris, experts taught young male rats to associate two different sound cues with flavors of sugar water — cherry and grape.

The rats raised on a healthy diet stopped responding to the cues linked to a flavor after having recently indulged in one of them. This biological signal is hardwired into animals, protecting them from overeating and promoting a balanced diet.

Rats that ate a diet filled with junk food for two weeks, including cookies, cakes, pie and dumplings, increased their weight by 10 percent and changed their behavior “dramatically.”

The rats “became indifferent in their food choices and no longer avoided the sound advertising the overfamiliar taste. This indicated that they had lost their natural preference for novelty,” the study observed.

Even after being back on a healthy diet, the behavior continued for quite some time, leading researchers to suggest that junk food causes lasting changes in the reward circuit parts of the rats’ brains.

The orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain containing the secondary taste cortex, is responsible for representing the reward value of taste. The food industry has learned to manipulate this decision-making process by using tactics that enhance food appeal.

The “crunch” factor is an important one. Studies show that people associate crunchy food with being more fresh or crispier. The louder the crunch, the better — at least in the food industry’s mind.

Food texture in general plays a big role in our desire to eat. Scientists working for Nestle developed oval-shaped chocolate, designed to melt more smoothly in the mouth, as opposed to rough-edged chocolate bars.

Flavor enhancers are one of the industry’s biggest secrets. Designed to keep their texture, boxed foods contain many ingredients that have nothing to do with taste, but instead preservation.

“Ingredients like that are kind of bundled under what may seem like relatively innocuous labels like ‘natural flavours’ or even ‘artificial flavours,’ when truly they are much more surprising when consumers really understand what it is,” said Bruce Bradley, a former food executive who worked for General Mills, Pillsbury and Nabisco.

“There’s tremendous amounts of money spent behind creating tastes and smells that feel real but in reality are completely artificial.”

Additional sources:
http://www.cbc.ca
http://www.eurekalert.org
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.nytimes.com
http://science.naturalnews.com