What is a Popcorn Brain? How to boost your Mental Health by tackling It ?
Popcorn Brain: What Is It? ~
In the era of digitalization, technology is altering our thoughts and behaviors. It has a significant impact on our minds. Stress levels are rising, our ability to focus intently is diminishing, and our attention spans are growing shorter. Perhaps more harm than we think is being done by screens and electronics. Gen Z refers to this as having a popcorn brain. It has to do with multitasking and excessive social media use, which messes with our thoughts and increases feelings of stress and anxiety. Recall that this is not a medical phrase.
The Popcorn Brain's Games ~
You can fall victim to popcorn brain, which makes you feel as though you have too many things to do and can't stop checking your phone for alerts. You may experience tension even on calmer days. Disconnecting and engaging in mindfulness exercises, such as taking breaks from screens, are crucial for helping you restore concentration and relax. Our thoughts become disjointed and confused due to the continual barrage of information and diversions. This is made worse by social media, which makes us less attentive and more stressed out when we compare ourselves to other users.
What are the indications you should look out for? These are five indicators that you may have popcorn brain, according to Dr. Mazher Ali, a psychiatrist with 25 years of expertise in the area, who practices in Tolichowki, Hyderabad.
Continuous diversions You find it difficult to concentrate since you're always being interrupted or having the want to check your alerts.
Inability to concentrate: It's challenging to focus intently on a task and get deep into it.
Overwhelmed: You feel like you're drowning in work and knowledge, which is stressful and causes chaos in your life.
Online validation seeking: To feel good about yourself, you're always searching social media for likes or comments.
Always busy, but not getting much done: You feel like you’re always doing something, but you’re not accomplishing anything because you’re multitasking too much.
How to Deal with With Mind Techniques ~ Take note of these strategies to help you control your popcorn brain:
Set time limits for social media: To prevent constantly checking social media, set aside designated times to use it.
Engage in mindfulness: Try practicing mindfulness exercises like meditation to sharpen your attention and declutter your thoughts.
Maintain a schedule: To keep organized, make a daily calendar that includes specific hours for each activity.
Set task priorities: To prevent feeling overburdened, decide what has to be done first.
Take pauses: Plan frequent downtime to avoid burnout and rejuvenate, since this can increase output.
~ It's quite simple to go down the rabbit hole and binge-watch content online, especially in this day and age, yet doing so can sap our resilience and internal resources. We may progressively teach ourselves to become more conscious and deliberate about how we consume content by establishing reasonable time limits, making some healthy physical and virtual space, and always having a backup plan available. In the end, even little actions may have a significant positive impact on our resilience, optimism, and general well-being, helping to maintain and even enhance them through these trying times.
What's the lesson learned? : Become bored. It benefits you.
Unused to being yourself ~
Being present with yourself can be hard, even painful. When we’re in the moment with no distractions, it can be hard to deal with the thoughts, feelings, and urges that come up. Sometimes we stay so busy that we don’t leave enough time to check in with ourselves and process our thoughts and feelings. It can feel scary to slow down enough to be with yourself, especially if it’s been a while. Learning how to be present with yourself takes time, so don’t be too hard on yourself when it’s tricky.
We are afraid of being boring (vs being bored) ~
There’s a somewhat common phrase that says “Only boring people get bored.” Beliefs like this contribute to people being afraid to be bored, even though boredom is good for you. Just because you have moments of boredom in your life doesn’t mean that you are boring. You can’t be entertained every single minute of every day without being disconnected from yourself and your needs. Figuring out how to take care of yourself requires introspection, or looking inward and feeling our feelings, even when they’re hard. Doing this doesn’t make you boring - it makes you human.
Even though being bored can bring up some complicated feelings, it’s beneficial to your mental health in a few ways. Being bored:
gives you time to process ~
Our brains do a lot in the background, even when we feel bored. When we give ourselves time to rest and do nothing, it gives our brains a chance to process and encode what’s going on. It takes a lot of cognitive power to go through day-to-day life, and giving your brain a break lets it play catch up.
When you’re bored, this processing might be done in the background, where you don’t notice it, and sometimes you might process things more mindfully. Thinking through your day, reflecting on things you learned, and even daydreaming can help you process your thoughts and feelings if you give yourself the time to do it.
boosts creativity ~
Have you ever tried to figure out a problem, and then after taking a long shower or a nap, the answer felt like it was right in front of you? Sometimes giving yourself some space to be bored and to do nothing frees up your brain to find new solutions or make connections that you couldn’t make with so much on your mind.
Boredom when done right, with no distractions, gives your brain a chance to wander. You might notice new things that you’ve missed before, or reflect on what’s going on. Using your imagination in moments of boredom can help you think in ways you don't normally, which can help boost creativity.
allows curiosity ~
Our brains crave excitement and novelty, and when you’re bored you give yourself a chance to be curious. Curiosity and our search for excitement often lead to important breakthroughs on a personal level and a cultural level. Being bored can help people think of new solutions to problems, or to take action on something important. Without boredom, we would have fewer opportunities to be curious and explore new things.
improves self-control ~
Learning how to be bored is a skill that many of us have forgotten about, or didn’t learn in the first place. We have screens with us almost constantly now, so it’s really easy to avoid boredom by finding somewhere to scroll. Letting yourself be bored gives you a chance to exercise a little self-control instead of opting for mindless distraction.
Getting yourself comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of boredom is an important skill. There are lots of uncomfortable emotions out there that we can’t avoid. Learning how to regulate yourself emotionally during those moments is a skill that you can rely on in the future, no matter what comes your way.
What does that imply, then? The truth is that boredom is a natural state for human minds. Have you ever been bored and had some of your finest ideas? Ever felt like creating more when you had nothing to do? This is a result of our letting our brains function independently, without help, and—most importantly—without being aroused by outside sources. Your brain's critical network is activated when you're bored. The brain relies heavily on this network, which is known as the default mode network. Spending time alone with your thoughts allows you to reawaken and reset your brain, hence restoring brain health. some networks are always on, but to develop, you must take some time to detach from technology, reflect, and grow.
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