The other day, after a flurry of meetings and projects, I was depleted—physically and mentally drained. My day was almost over, but I still had some items to clean up. However, I had roughly 10 minutes or so to myself.
I decided I needed a break. I needed to rest and recharge before coming back to clean up all the items for the day. But before I closed my eyes for a 10-minute nap, I told myself I’d quickly glance at my phone to see what notifications I may have missed. And here’s where things became interesting.
I told myself I’d only get on my phone to check my social media notifications and then get off. Two minutes was all I needed, and in the remaining eight minutes, I could rest my eyes, restart my brain, and clean up my workload. However, once I opened the app, it was over before I even had a chance.
First, there were the notifications, but then the videos and images began to grab my attention. And then, the rabbit holes and the scrolling started to occur automatically. Next thing you know, I found myself scrolling and realized the two minutes I gave myself was over; it was almost four minutes now. I only had six minutes left till I had to get back to work. I told myself I’d get off the phone shortly… but somehow, some way, I couldn’t.
I literally was mentally telling myself to get off the phone, but it was as if I was saying this while my hands, eyes, and attention were still scrolling away. Finally, after eight minutes, I snapped out of this trance and instantly shut off the application. Unfortunately, I had two minutes to spare before my next meeting.
This eight-minute ordeal didn’t sit well with me. I began to ask myself, “Why was I unable to get off the phone faster? Why did it seem as if my brain was wired to scroll when, consciously, I was telling it to get off the app? Was my brain state in a trance different than my consciousness? Does my brain state affect my consciousness and vice versa?”
These questions wrestled with me for a couple of days until finally, I decided to look into the different brain states and the information I found was truly mind-blowing.
First, I came across the topic of the DMN (Default Mode Network) and was blown away by how much the DMN state shapes how we think and what we do. While learning about the DMN, I stumbled across self-referential thinking, and this is where things went completely bonkers.
While learning about the DMN, I also learned about the brain states and how they affect it. There’s the theta and alpha states, and then there’s the beta state and how these can affect self-referential thinking.
Then I learned about dopamine, how it can drive up beta states, and how this all ties into our DMN!
The information on self-referential thinking was so impactful because it’s safe to say we spend most of our time in self-referential thinking, yet we have no idea about it — we don’t know how to recognize it.
And if we’re not familiar with self-referential thinking, there’s no way we’d know if we found ourselves participating in the practice of Rumination.
Rumination can be a horrible state if not checked — but due to our society, technology, and way of living, this self-referential thinking is a massive part of our DMN — that social media devices, televisions, and media are designed to keep us in.
As you can tell, I learned a lot in the past couple of days:
I learned a bit deeper about how we think and gained tremendous insight into why I was unable to get off my phone.
I learned about dopamine loops, cognitive friction, neural inertia, and attentional control— which I will discuss in this article.
But most importantly, I learned about the value of self-reflection and self-awareness and how these relate to brain states.
Again, as you can tell, I’ve learned a lot and have much to tell:
I’ve learned much about our society, our way of thinking, and how little switches can make a big deal.
I’ve learned how and why Napolean Hill stresses desire in Think and Grow Rich. I now know why desire leads to an increase in dopamine and why that helps one get out of the DMN.
Lastly:
One thing I’ve realized, as I stated in my article on how to live our best life, is that nine out of ten times, the only resistance that we face in meeting our goals is entirely mental—as I faced the other day.
Laziness (another lesson I learned), as Carl Jung once said, is man’s greatest enemy and plays a massive role in these neural states.
These are a glimpse of the lessons I’ve learned. To better organize my thoughts, ensure I truly know this material, and build these new mental networks, I will write and elaborate on these topics through a series of articles.
That said, these articles will be available only to my paying subscribers as a token of thanks for supporting me financially as I embark on this journey. These are quite intimate thoughts, and I invite you all to partake of these insights. I may remove the paywall sometime in the future, but not anytime soon.
Without further ado, we’ll dive into the meat and potatoes of how our brain works.
We’re going to dive into the different states of the brain, focusing on theta to beta.
We’ll spend some time understanding the brain’s “default” state and why this automatically sets us up for failure — especially when it comes to these social media apps, and,
Lastly, we’ll close by realizing that by simply being aware of what our brain is doing and what state it’s in, we can instantly begin to stop the default programming and can shift it in a positive direction.
So sit back, relax, and let’s dive in and talk about the brain and its default mode, also known as the DMN (Default Mode Network).
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