The question to ask when you find yourself scrolling

Not because it's wrong to scroll, but because you deserve to know the answer...

It’s a ‘rabbit hole’ many of us would say, scrolling on the internet or social media.

You innocently go to look up a simple question or maybe tonight’s recipe for family dinner, and next thing you know, you are in a deep spiral of comparing dresses on the red carpet or trying to learn about the next best hack for living longer. It starts out like a simple urge to learn and turns into hours that now were not spent connecting with real people or better yet, resting.

None of us are immune. It happens. And sometimes, it’s just plain fun.

But the reasons I hear for why we go down this spiral are often different than one of the most important ones to note, in my humble opinion.

I hear…
➡️ I don’t have willpower.
➡️ I was bored.
➡️ I wanted to relax and escape the stress of life.

None of these may be false at any given time. But there’s one more reason we scroll that is worth noting. Mostly because once you acknowledge this, it is then easier to recognize and pay attention to what to do to transform the moment.

Simply put, we scroll to survive.

Let’s break it down.

When you are stressed, you get into fight or flight mode. You turn on your threat centers, deep in your midbrain and you scan your environment for danger.

Scrolling = Scanning

When you are stressed, you feel unsafe. So you look for danger and look for what you need to protect yourself from.

Only it looks different in modern times. Instead of going outside the cave to explore a loud animal’s noise and protect your family, you are doing what we have at hand… Scrolling on high alert.

Any stressor, trauma-big or small, or worry, makes us feel unsafe, in our bodies. When our sympathetic nervous system is on alert, we sense we are in danger and we scan our surroundings to find that danger.

If you are mindful of when you are scrolling as part of scanning your environment (usually you will feel a certain urgency or stress in your body, pay close attention to your sensations), you can then explore other ways to make yourself feel more safe.

There are many but in terms of what may be simplest to do in a moment to shift your nervous system, let’s talk about breath work. Breathing either at a slower rate (easiest tool is to lengthen your exhale in proportion to your inhale and try to get to less than 6 breaths a minute so this would be inhaling for 4 and exhaling for 6 for example) or breathing deep into your belly, using your diaphragm.

Either way activates your vagus nerve, the main nerve of your resting parasympathetic system. This nerve sends a signal to your body to ‘stand down’ that you are ‘safe for now’.

If you can spend 5-10 minutes activating this breath, you may create space, literally, to know either what is causing you to scan for danger or to calm your threat centers and see that threat does not exist (if that is true).

At the foundation of feeling better is feeling safe. So next time you find yourself scrolling when you did not mean to, ask yourself one more question. Am I feeling unsafe? Is something putting me into scanning mode?

As always, meet me in the comments to expand on this conversation, share thoughts, wisdom or ask questions. Together as a collective, we create more understanding of what paves the path to more Joy. See you there!