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How overstimulation is ruining your life - YouTube
Channel: Better Ideas
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during certain periods of my life i have
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a very difficult time
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focusing on pretty much anything
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important or difficult
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during these periods it seems almost
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impossible to break
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out of the social media limbo where
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you're just constantly switching between
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tabs
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refreshing pages kind of waiting for
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something interesting to happen
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like for someone to post a cool photo on
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instagram or something you're kind of
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waiting to be entertained but if you
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actually have to apply yourself
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it's extremely difficult borderline
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painful to do so
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and i'm pretty sure almost everyone can
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relate to this problem
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i'm sure you've seen a lot of videos on
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youtube giving you little tips and
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tricks as to how to focus better
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including my own channel but there are
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very few videos
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kind of diving in talking about why it's
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so difficult to focus
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on hard things you know like what's the
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deal why can't we just sit down and do
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something important with very little
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strain
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why aren't we motivated to do the things
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that would significantly
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advance us further in our lives because
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it's not like we don't want those things
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it's just hard so in this video i want
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to dive into
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why we procrastinate why it's so hard to
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do important things
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because knowing how this all works helps
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us carve out a long-term
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solution it can help us permanently
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solve this problem and that may sound
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really ambitious
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but i do believe it is possible but
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first we kind of have to
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discover a little bit more about our
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human brain so weird thing about our
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human brain
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our human brain i'm really trying to
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convince you that i'm human the weird
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thing about the brain
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is that it pretty much hasn't changed
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for thousands of years
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we share for the most part the exact
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same brain as our hunter-gatherer
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ancestors
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and this is the type of brain that was
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evolved to scan
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vast valleys for the prospect of food or
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a fresh kill
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and absolutely light up and get excited
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at the sight of an antelope
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so you can gather your friends together
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and run after it kill it this is the
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kind of brain
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that as you're kind of going through a
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berry bush and you find a juicy berry
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you're super excited you eat the berry
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and it pretty much makes your day you
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know it's not really exciting stuff
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there wasn't a lot of stuff to do back
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then
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but that's just kind of the way it was
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and the reason why we were motivated to
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go run after an antelope
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or eat a fresh berry is the same reason
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wow is the same reason we're motivated
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to go on facebook and you know check our
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notifications
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go on instagram etc the reason why we're
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motivated to do any of this stuff is
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because of a brain chemical called
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dopamine
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now you've probably seen a lot of videos
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on youtube if you're into
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self-improvement
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about dopamine but dopamine is kind of
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misunderstood
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because most people think it's the
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feel-good chemical
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it's a brain chemical that's released
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when you're experiencing pleasure it's
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the reason why you experience pleasure
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but that's not exactly true
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because dopamine is the motivating brain
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chemical
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dopamine is what's released when you
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feel like you're about to be rewarded or
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when you feel like you're about to
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experience something pleasurable
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when your ancient ancestors saw the
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antelope frolic across the field
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they got a squirt of dopamine which
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motivated them to go kill it when you
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see a notification
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pop up on facebook you get a squirt of
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dopamine which motivates you to click it
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and what this means is that dopamine
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is what controls your motivation thank
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you boys
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oh did you get a big mcchicken yeah you
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said make chicken now why is this
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important despite the fact that we
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share the exact same brains as our
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hunter-gatherer ancestors
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we don't live in that world anymore we
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live in a world of supernormal stimuli
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through ferocious technological
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advancement and
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capitalistic ventures or whatever you
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want to call it we live in a world where
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things are designed to be as pleasurable
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as humanly possible
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and what supernormal stimuli does is it
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hijacks our natural
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reward pathways it tricks our brain into
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thinking
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we are about to do something so
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important for our survival
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that we have an almost irresistible urge
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towards doing that thing a good example
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of this
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is junk food food is integral for our
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survival
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and high calorie foods are usually even
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more important for our survival
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because you know they'll keep us alive
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longer the more calories
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the longer we'll live roughly speaking
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see what junk food does
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is it's mechanically engineered to be as
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high fat high calorie as possible so
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when we get that
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beautiful we when we eat that beautiful
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potato chip our brain remembers that
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and the next time we see a bag of potato
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chips at the grocery store
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there's a huge amount of dopamine that's
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released
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motivating you to go grab that reward
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that reward that's integral for your
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survival so we almost become
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slaves to our dopamine system we almost
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just go where our dopamine system
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tells us to go that's why we get into
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kind of social media binge
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because our brain is telling us to stay
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on
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these social media sites because there's
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a chance that we might get a reward
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we might get social validation where we
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we might be able to
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look at something kind of stimulating
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and naughty it's the dopamine system
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that's telling us and motivating us to
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stay there so what does this all mean if
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we're bringing this all together
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basically for most of us who have
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difficulty focusing
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we find it really really difficult to be
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motivated to do harder things
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that is only because we have
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reprogrammed our brain
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to fall for this super normal stimuli
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rather than
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normal stimuli natural stimuli because
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it's not that these
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natural rewards aren't rewarding they're
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just less rewarding than the
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artificial supernormal rewards so the
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long-term solution to be able to focus
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on boring things
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is to reprogram our brain to remember
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that these things are actually
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pleasurable
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and really good for us and integral for
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our survival and this isn't just about
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a dopamine fast for a couple of days or
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something like that
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we almost need to reset our baseline
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long term we need to think about how
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much stimulation we want
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in our lives what kind of super normal
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stimulus do we want to take
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part in you know i've noticed in my own
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life that when i'm camping for a long
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period of time
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and there isn't much to do other than
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figure out how to cook a fish over a
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fire or set up my tent
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or go for a walk in the woods or go
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swimming or lay on the sand
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in these situations little things like
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having a conversation with a sibling or
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a friend
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becomes immensely pleasurable it's the
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same reason why people who break out of
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an addiction cycle
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they stop doing their immensely
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pleasurable thing
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cold turkey after a certain amount of
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time they find an
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increased enjoyment out of life itself
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pretty much everything in life becomes
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more enjoyable
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they start to find motivation to do
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things other than their addiction
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you know it's something that i also
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noticed during the quarantine why it was
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so hard for me to
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find my work ethic again it's because
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all that time inside
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made me an internet addict i spent so
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much time looking at
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screens that my baseline of dopamine and
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stimulation was so high
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that the more boring things became
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almost painful to do in comparison
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the disparity of stimulation became so
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vast
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that i felt physical pain trying to do
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harder things so if we're able to find a
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way to
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genuinely enjoy the things that make our
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lives better
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then what are we doing like why don't we
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just go and do that i really want to
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challenge you guys
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over the next couple of weeks or months
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to really think about how much
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stimulation you want to invite into your
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life
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you know what's actually adding value to
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your life and can you reduce the amount
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of
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super supernormal stimuli that you're
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indulging in on a daily basis
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you may actually find that by reducing
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your amount of time on social media or
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on youtube
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or eating junk food or you name it you
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may actually come to
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genuinely look forward to socializing
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you might actually look forward to
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reading a book you might actually be
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motivated to go to the gym there will be
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that dopamine driver
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pointing you in that direction creating
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an irresistible
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urge to go to the gym like who would
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have thought that's possible
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and it is possible because it's science
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one way that i'm going to make sure i
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stick to this over the next month
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at least is i made a list of a large
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amount of things that are fairly low
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stimulus that i can do instead of doing
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a more stimulating alternative that
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includes things like
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going for a walk reading a book talking
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with a friend
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skyping a friend going to the gym by
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having that list in your hand
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you'll have a automatic response to that
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urge to go do the the thing like you
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know
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eat a bag of chips or something so i'll
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make a follow-up video on my second
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channel
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on how that all went i really encourage
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you guys to do the same thing
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and if you're looking for more
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activities that don't over stimulate you
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then i'd highly recommend checking out
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videos on skillshare
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and use it as an alternative to watching
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videos on youtube
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because youtube is like candy if you eat
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too much of it you're just gonna feel
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not so good whereas skillshare is like a
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hearty steak dinner
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it tastes good and it's good for you for
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those of you who don't know
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skillshare is an online learning
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community with thousands of classes
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covering dozens of topics everything
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from photography to cooking to coding
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skillshare empowers you to accomplish
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real growth
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and that's because their classes are
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extremely practical
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i'm taking yet another cinematography
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class on skillshare
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and i find it really easy to just take
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what i'm learning on skillshare
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and apply it directly to my real-life
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pursuits and one of the other great
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things about skillshare is that it's
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extremely affordable
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especially when you compare it to online
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classes or workshops
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if you pay for the annual membership it
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comes in at less than ten dollars a
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month
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so it's kind of a no-brainer and
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skillshare is doing this awesome thing
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where the first
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1000 of you who click the link in the
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description below
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we'll get two months of skillshare
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premium absolutely free
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so make sure you click below and take
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advantage of that
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learn something new explore your
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creativity
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and have a great time if you like this
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video make sure to hit like
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because when you hit like the algorithm
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blesses me
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by shoving this video in front of other
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people's faces
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helping them out which also helps me out
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so it's kind of a win-win for everybody
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if you're lurking here and this is the
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billionth time
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you've seen my bald head
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what are you doing hit subscribe already
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and make sure you hit the bell icon so
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that you don't miss future videos
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and if you haven't discovered my second
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channel yet i will link that in the
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description
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i'm posting kind of a weekly and
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bi-weekly
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q a videos they're super me super fun
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and i'll occasionally post vlogs there
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as well so make sure you check that out
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but that's kind of it for today thank
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you so much for watching and we'll catch
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you in the next video
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[Music]
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you
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