Addicted to Binge-Watching? How to Stop Wasting Your Brain's Potential

today's video is sponsored by lingo Pai but more on them later so over the past few years I've kind of felt like my brain has been slowly rotting away I've honestly really hated being in my head and not for mental health reasons just I don't like the feeling of it I've hated how I spent my time engaging with everything around me obviously life is hard for everyone and everything is scary and stressful and often times to escape my feelings of unworthiness fears of debt and money worries PhD concerns loneliness body image issues and helplessness I would binge watch a lot like I couldn't stand the Solitude of my own thoughts but also in the depths of burnout I couldn't bear to engage my brain with anything meaningful so instead of reading books or watching something educational or even Arty or engaging with a hobby or a craft or my writing I would basically allow YouTube to play non-stop in the background of my life like that kind of static television sound whilst I worked out whilst I walked whilst I ate whilst I showered whilst I played with my dogs whilst I tied my home like it was never stopping and it was really hard to quit because the second I turned it off and fell into the silence I felt that horrific dread of loneliness and my own dark thoughts and in the Silence of my flat with you know no friendly or familiar voices around me I was reminded that I was alone I was reminded of all the deadlines that I'd missed of how much I fallen behind on my academic work and how much money was running out and the bills I had to pay and the taxes I had to file like so I would just turn on YouTube again and allow it to distract me from the brutal reality of my own existence and yet I didn't enjoy it in fact I hated it I started to become sick of the people I was listening to of the Mindless topics of their voices of the discussions and superficiality of it all but I was too scared of the alternative I was afraid of engaging with my own brain and seeing its full potential so I started to allow it to rot away until I hit my breaking point now I am not here to blame the crochet Community but I realized something had gone deeply arai when I actually tuned into the background noise of the YouTube videos playing and became aware that I was somehow listening to a video essay about crochet drama happening on Tik Tok something which I cared absolutely nothing about had not chosen to listen but had been passively consuming for over 40 minutes thanks to YouTube autoplay and again this is nothing personal against the crochet Community but in that moment I actually felt physically unwell it was like I'd overindulged in incredibly sickly food but the sick feeling was not in my stomach but weirdly in my head and I can only explain the feeling as like this mixture of nausea and headache like my brain had hit it limit of consuming mindless information and it was going on strike it was going to be sick unless I did something about it so I I actually did then I unsubscribed from every single YouTube channel that I'd ever once followed on all of my channels I had I have two and I raised my whole my watch lat playlist which was over a thousand videos at this point over a decade of having YouTube and I added this extension that prevented YouTube from actually giving me any recommendations so I don't see anything so my YouTube screen it's this beautiful blank crisp white slate and it honestly felt amazing it was like I cleared away all the garbage that had been cluttering up my brain for years and it was just gone and I say this not to demonize YouTube and its creators because obviously that would be hypocritical and a lie because there are some incredible educational and inspirational and fun channels out there but I had personally ruined my algorithm by accepting anything and everything in into my brain just to drown out my own worries and procrastinate on dealing with my own life and since that moment I actually haven't watched anything since I can't actually stomach the idea of watching another video just like that time I ate too much peanut butter and I couldn't face it for two whole years like I couldn't touch it and whilst it sounds dramatic that my body had this kind of physical revulsion to the idea of watching anything online it may have been trying to tell me something you see our bodies are incredibly smart and they signal to us when something isn't right and there's enough evidence out there to suggest that watching things online is harmful to our health and potentially deadly a 2018 study reported in the Journal of thrombosis and thrombosis found that prolonged sitting for binge watching can increase the risk of deep Fame thrombosis researchers found people who were sitting for long periods of time whilst watching or streaming television had up to 70% higher risk of developing a blood clot than people people who seldom watched anything a study from April 2020 in the international Journal of Environmental Research suggested that a comparison between active sitting which is whilst you're working at a computer at a desk and non-active sitting which is like watching television or scrolling on social media interestingly non-active sitting as researchers suggest might be linked to up to 25% higher body mass index and body fat in younger adults and this is because very likely television or binge watching and scrolling is ass assciated with distracted eating along with poor Sleep Quality to back this study up another study from 2019 in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that excessive television viewing was associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease events and all cause mortality whilst occupational sitting wasn't associated with either outcome they found that regly watching four or more hours of some kind of streaming service daily could increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and early death by up to 50% compared to people who watch only two or few hours daily finally a study in 2019 in the journal scientific reports suggests that binge watching could lead to cognitive decline which is what I was feeling researchers used data from 3,000 adults over the age of 50 who are watching more than 3 and a half hours of Television a day they found that watching this amount was associated with poorer verbal memory after 6 years and this effect was strongest for people who had initially performed better at the start of the study now you may be feeling quite relaxed about this because you're thinking I don't watch that much television at all but the term television here is negligible what all this research suggests is that these health concerns arise when one stares at a screen and mindlessly consumes content which can take any form not just television most people can relate to having some form of binge watching problem it doesn't always have to be from YouTube often it's Netflix you know technically the company like that capitalize and popularize the concept of binge watching and then other times it's twitch Tik Tok Instagram Facebook Twitter Amazon Prime Hulu or Disney plus if you are staring at a screen in some form that's not in the context of Occupational screen time you're effectively watching television in the context of how this research and studies applies to your health so what's the answer well obviously it's unreasonable to think someone would never watch TV or YouTube ever again but decreasing the amount that we stare at our screens watching and consuming content will be challenging researchers suggests that instead of spending long hours watching things online people should engage themselves in mindbuilding activities including activities such as reading board games puzzles crafts hobbies and exercise additionally it's easier to get over one bad habit by replacing the habitual repetitive Behavior with a healthier alternative that follows a similar format so for me a simple switch was rather than listening to YouTube all around my flat at the time I swapped it over for Audi books and if you're someone who loves binge watching shows that at night or in your room or in the morning then you actually may be interested in today's sponsor which is lingo pie the binge worthy way of learning a language lingo Pai is a fun and natural way to learn a language all by watching International television shows it's like Netflix and chill except it's Netflix and learn a new skill there are over 75,000 subscribers on lingo Pai learning languages such as Japanese Korean French Spanish German Portuguese and Italian through linguistic and cultural immersion rather than through dull exercises and memorization what's even cooler is that the app allows users to interact with the subtitles slow down the playback rate or create flashcards and then also use quizzes at the end for practice with the language which makes it so much more fun and effective I love French so I've been watching things in French and the ability to slow things down has been incredibly helpful for me as a severe dyslexic because I can't normally follow subtitles also I may be visiting Germany next year so it'll be a very cool way for me to learn Germany before I go there's really nothing like this out there so break the pattern of mindless binge watching and learn languages in a fun way with lingopie use my link in the description box below you get a 7-Day free trial plus 70% off a lifetime plan which is insane so final thoughts and a bit more of a personal talk from me our brains have so much potential and most of us waste it by consuming content that doesn't add anything to our lives entertaining content has its value but you know you're consuming too much when the entertainment and quick Giggles come at the expense of your personal development and well-being if you find yourself feeling miserable with your life you might want to take stock of what you're consuming and we're not talking about food here but it works in a similar vein you see just like food the things we consume mentally can negatively impact our bodies and minds but they do so insidiously over time I mean having a burger and fries even once a week is probably fine but having one for every single meal every day will cause damage over the long term even if you don't see it initially and just like you can't out exercise a bad diet you can't outthink poor quality media diet the things we consume in with our ears and our eyes impact our minds in the same way junk food and alcohol affects our bodies but the trouble is we can't keep track of it as easily as we can food we can see and we can feel if we're like gaining weight or lacking nutrients um or we feel like our fitness levels are dropping but we can't retrack our minds health so easily and it's hard for us to associate potentially media consumption with how we're feeling we don't put two and two together we may align it with other things like friendships or maybe body image issues but we don't put two and two together that what we may be having as a media diet is making us sick so be careful with what you're consuming and if you're feeling really overwhelmed perhaps do a deep clear out of the content that you're watching or transform it to healthy alternatives until you can wian yourself off your potentially addictive media consumption I know for me I was watching a lot of very mindless stuff online it was easy to consume it was jokey and laughy but it wasn't what I truly wanted to consume you know I love the Arts and I love books and I love history and I also love things like d andd and role playing and learning about you different parts of literature and I wasn't consuming that content because I had it associated with something else inside my head it was almost associated with work it was almost associated with not being relaxed and switch I just wanted to switch my brain off go so overwhelmed and burnt out and I still feel that way but not watching anything for a while has really helped me get back into what I want to watch clearing off my YouTube screen and realizing that I could start from scratch was such a blessing cuz i' just been accumulating all this kind of heavy weighty stuff for so so long and it was just a load of junk yeah I was feeling so just having that brain it hurt I can't explain to you how much it hurt that moment I felt so sick of what I was listening to it was like my brain was screaming at me to like make it stop and yet I didn't want to CU I was scared of what would happen if I did and face the music face the work face the deadlines face the fact I haven't been reading for fun face all these things that I'm technically ashamed of and it's easy to bury your head in the sand it's easy to bu your head in the Mindless noise and if you feel like you're consuming junk media you may find this having an impact on your well-being so it is easy for us to criticize and blame other things in our lives and like oh it's work it's burnout it's work it's our job it's our friendships it's our school but sometimes it may be the Insidious mediate diet that we're having because yes since I left social media a few months ago I I feel much better but it was also the things I'm consuming whether that's the the news or the websites I visit the Articles the kind of articles I read the kind of podcasts I listen to the YouTubes I watch everything like that still total up and you really have I didn't realize how deep I had to do this clean out so this is just my casual chat about maybe want to reflect on what kind of things you're following if they bring what kind of value they're adding to your lives and that includes my channel obviously I want to always you know spread happiness and I want to always bring joy to people and also bring informative videos but I understand that you know people need to really put their brain health first and I don't think people are talking about media diets enough and they're talking about scrolling and hours online but reading the statistics and reading these papers about how much it's affecting my health really scared me and it put me off wanting to go near the television or screen for a long time so I hope this video maybe gave you some insight into what may be happening in the back of your head as always in my description box down below there is a Google form where you can send any requests for any videos you'd like me to cover any topics you'd like me to talk about Etc it is down below please consider liking and subscribing to this channel if you would like to consider it and if not I will see you soon for another video thank you to my patrons as always and remember books save lives so keep reading

Channel: The Self-Help Shelf

Views: 113,767

Keywords: how to stop watching youtube, i'm addicted to watching youtube videos, how to stop wasting your life, are we addicted to technology, how to do a dopamine detox, am i addicted to youtube?, can one get addicted to social media, addicted to alcohol, josh's alcoholism has him addicted to hand sanitizer, addicted to hand sanitizer, can i be addicted to youtube?, how to stop social media addiction, how to stop watching porn, how to stop watching youtube videos

Id: u41M1V3aJNI

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 24 2023