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NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

Managing the addiction


WorkInProgress

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@Marius Thanks for the tip. I watched the first two videos, and it seems like something I could need.


Not to sure about the theory behind it but I am quite certain that all the high dopamine activities I do currently (porn, YouTube, eating high fat/high sugar things) if I feel down or stressed are damaging to me. Therefore, I think it is time to make a cut and find other activities which maybe have a lower level of instant gratification but actually help my living conditions to improve.

What could these other things be? Ideas: Exercise, Household chores, writing, playing with my kids, talking with my family, -> Basically living a simple modest live.

What I don't want to do anymore: Read stuff online without clear purpose, YouTube, Porn, eating to feel better.

But these are only reactions to stress and bad habits. I think I need also work on reducing stress in my life. With two small kids, a wife struggling with health issues and full-time work, I feel oftentimes overwhelmed and without buffer to do anything beyond the absolute necessary. This feeling leaves me drained of energy. When I then have some free time, it feels very hard to be proactive and do stuff that's good for me.
 

The second point I want to tackle is having fewer things to do and more excess energy to do them.

Ideas:

  • Plan and do daily todo's. If I know I can finish them, I can ignore the big pile I still need to do and focus on the things planned for today. For this to work they need to be specified to be able to do in 30minutes or less (even if one/both kids are still awake)
  • 10 minutes of exercise every day
  • Drink 2l a day.
  • Say no to every type of new obligation at work and at home and only do things I absolutely must do until I have free time which I can fill purposeful with activities
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To make this a little more concrete, I'll write down a goal:

at the 1.9.2021 following is true: 

  • My life feels grounded, and my healthy habits for my body and mind keep me sane and energized.
    • I haven't watched porn or youtube and did not read things on the internet without clear purpose for the last month.
    • I said no to new challenges and was able to create free periods of time.
    • I drank a lot of water and ate healthy whenever possible
  • I imagined all ready being at this point and thought about and worked on reaching  this goal everyday
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I am looking at the Mental Momentum course on youtube. He advices to do a Sunday with as little high dopamine activities as possible. Basically a day were you do nothing at all to prove yourself that you can do it. I think doing 90 days without gaming has a similar psychological benefit. It had it for me in the past at least. It showed me that I can do what I promised to do. That was really helpful after a long period were I always said: I will study, I will clean, I will excercise and then just gamed instead. Lately I seemed to gone back into that old mode of promising myself stuff (maybe to ambitious stuff) and then not keeping this promises. This is partly due to external factors (kids and wife taking priority over things I wanted to do) but it is my failure. I need to stop promise myself things with high propability to fail. That's something I learned.

For example I currently can'T doesn' want to do the dopamin detox sunday andrew advices to. I currently don'T want to stop talking to my kids and my wife even for a day. For this I would need to take a hotel or something and leave all the responsibility and burden on my wife who struggles herself to get a little bit of time for herself.

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Today I was successful for around 3/4 of the day with not using my phone and doing very low stimulus activities. But in the afternoon after a longer excursion with my 2 kids I was tired and watched some gaming content. Seems like I use this also as a way to boost me up if my energy level is down. I also drank a decent amount of coffee.

But on the good side, I was this morning in a relaxed productivity mode. The household chores and playing with the kids seemed not like energy draining, but more like a default activity. If I can stay in this mode longer (especially if I work again) I think my productivity and average energy level will increase without a doubt.

I think this is the correct path: minimal usage of my phone and everything else, which gives my spikes of stimulus without much effort. This includes things like messenger (caught me wanting to check my phone, whilst I knew that nothing important could have reached me) and mail. I will schedule them and otherwise don't look at it as a default. I will reduce/stop my caffeine intake also and eat more wholesome products and less industrial made stuff.

If I am at work, this will also mean to silence teams and whatsapp and check it only every 25 minutes. And check my mail every 4 hours. It will also mean to schedule my day and stick to the (boring) plan.

 

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Another day without work. My wife visited some friends with the kids so that I had some time to clean. I wasted around 90minutes with youtube, porn and drinking a beer/limo mix. It's strange how hard it is for me to sit with some pressure or just start doing something. After that shitty start, I cleaned our apartment and drilled some holes to construct our new wardroom (is this really the correct word in english?) were our jackets can be hanged. This was on the agenda for some time, but its quite impossible to do this with the kids around. In sum I was productive for around 5 hours (and teh appartment still looks messy). But I think I did okay today.

But it annoys me still that I seem unable to kick these things that are bad for me even if I am in low stress situations. They are awful habits.

Tomorrow I will not watch youtube, I will not read stuff on the word wide web without purpose, eat no sweets and I won't use porn or masturbate. That will be day one of the new person I am becoming. Someone who is relaxed, energized, does the important things without hesitations, and stays healthy in body and mind because of his good habits.

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@Marius

Thanks for the tips.

I don't know I tried so many things over the years but neither meditation nor gratitude journals and a lot of different other things seemed to have any effect on my productive. The bottom line is, if I do a lot of these things, which should be good for me I am not able to make them a habit. They jsut  don't feel like their making a difference. After some time (few days-few months) it seems just like chore and my belief in them doing anyhting positive dwindles. The everyday pressure leads then to me cutting them.

I have the feeling of just to much pressure on myself. Going full detox doesn't help there it seems. Because I tried and relapsed gaming after one day. Played like 3 Days straight hearthstone doing almost nothing at work and hiding it from my wife.

I thought maybe I can regulate it and only play a little bit. As expected, this didn't work (today was another 5hours of gaming before I was able to stop and delete the game.

Kind of stumped. I think I need to somehow change my mindset. I have great work, great kids and a hell of lot to do. Because everyone needs me. Thats something good in its chore. I am just not able to handle the stress or reattribute it in a positive way. The urge to escape is really strong. I need to get actually more efficient and do less stuff at work. There I have a big degree of control and this should be my starting point. At home stuff gets hopefully better over time.

Dopamine detox isn't right for me it seems. Gaming isn't either. Maybe I can restart things in september. Then my big work project is done. My wife and my older sone are one month in a diagnostical institution for pediatric psychological problems, and I have taken a vacation to look after the younger one while they are awake. This means I am able to organize my life on my own again. I will try to get a relaxed but strict schedule, to develop better habits.

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