Shadowing Practice: How to Become Addicted to Being OFF Your Phone - Learn English Speaking with Video

I feel like a lot of us have the same experience right now.

You sit down to read a book and after 10 minutes,

your brain is already like,

okay, this is too slow.

And that makes you think,

what happened to my attention span?

Here's what's interesting.

The same way your brain got hooked on your phone,

it can actually get hooked on being off of it.

Not in a forced willpower kind of way,

but in a way that works with your nervous system that actually starts feeling better than scrolling.

So in this video, I want to show you what's really going on in your brain,

why it feels so hard to put down your phone,

and how to actually rewire that.

If you're new here, I'm Veronica.

I moved from my home country at the age of 22 and spent a lot of that transition glued to my phone,

dealing with loneliness, overstimulation, all of it.

So everything I share on this channel about building an intentional life comes from real experience,

not just theory.

I also have a weekly newsletter called Aligned where I go deeper on things like nervous system regulation and focus.

If that sounds like something you need right now,

I'll leave the link in the description.

Alright, let's talk about the real reason your attention span is gone.

What I hear a lot from you guys right now is this.

I used to read for hours and now I can't even get through 10 pages.

I watch everything at 1.5x speed or at 2x speed.

Watching a full movie without touching my phone feels like an achievement.

And I want you to hear this.

It's not you, at least not entirely.

It's just your brain has literally been rewired.

Our brains are constantly reshaping themselves based on what we repeatedly do.

That's neuroplasticity.

The more you do something,

the more automatic it becomes and it becomes your habit.

It becomes a part of your life.

And we all love talking about neuroplasticity when it comes to good habits.

Like you can always learn something new no matter your age.

I started learning handstands when I was 25.

I'm 26 now and I can hold a handstand for about 30 seconds.

My brain built new connections,

my balance improved, and my muscles got stronger.

But here's the part we don't talk about enough.

Neuroplasticity works for your bad habits too.

When you spend hours every day scrolling,

switching between apps, watching short videos and speeding everything up,

you're training your brain to expect constant novelty, speed, stimulation.

You're building what I like to think of as high-speed highways in your brain.

And obviously, over time, those highways become the default, the easiest route.

So when you try something slower,

like reading a book or watching a movie without distractions or just sitting in silence,

your brain is immediately giving you a thousand different ideas to think about,

a thousand are the things you could be doing right now.

Your brain resists, not because you're lazy,

but because those slower pathways haven't been used in a while.

It's like trying to walk through a forest that's completely overgrown

right now i'm reading this amazing book by nicholas carr called

the shallows what the internet is doing to our brains even

though this book was published in 2010 i highly recommend reading it right now

and there is one paragraph

that i really wanted to share with you guys i'm not

thinking the way i used to think i feel it mostly

when i'm reading i used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book

or a lengthy article my mind would get caught up in the twists of the narrative

or the turns of the argument

and i'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose that's

rarely the case anymore now my concentration starts to drift after a page

or two i get fidgety lose the thread begin looking for

something else to do i feel like i'm always dragging my wayward mind back to the text the deep reading

that used to come naturally has become

a struggle

and again this was written in 2010 way before tick tock became a thing we struggle to sit still

and read for a long time meanwhile the scrolling pathway feels automatic it feels natural,

it feels like something we do every single day because we literally do it every single day.

But here's the key.

The more you use one pathway,

the stronger it gets and the weaker the others become.

You didn't really lose your attention span, you retrained it.

But the good news is neuroplasticity obviously works both ways.

If you spend more time in slower focused activities,

you rebuild those deeper attention pathways.

And yes, I know, it feels so uncomfortable at first.

It feels extremely foreign, new, and weird.

But over time, focus and deep concentration starts to feel natural again.

And being on your phone for hours and hours starts to feel less automatic and less effortless.

Exactly what we want.

Alright, another problem I see that makes it so difficult for us to stay off our phones is the leaky brain problem.

We don't really use our phones intentionally anymore.

It's not like you sit down and you tell yourself,

okay, I'm gonna open Instagram right now and I'm gonna scroll for 10 minutes,

let me set a timer,

let me be super intentional about it.

What happens is you pick up your phone for something small like checking a message

or setting an alarm or replying to someone and somehow that leaks into 30 minutes or an hour or even more.

And then obviously we like to say,

I don't have time for anything right now.

I don't have time for a new hobby,

but your screen time is like 2,

3, 4 plus hours a day.

It's not like you don't have time.

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It's more like your time is leaking in those tiny unintentional moments.

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And the reason this happens is actually really simple.

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Your phone is the easiest way to regulate your emotions.

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It's your digital pacifier, and I talk about this all the time on my YouTube channel.

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But yes, of course, we can talk about dopamine

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and how exciting it is to be on social media and just scroll the feed,

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but we also have to remember that a huge chunk of the problem is

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that we don't know how to regulate our emotions anymore.

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I mean, the only way we do that is through being on social media.

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We kind of forgot all the other different ways of emotional regulation and nervous system regulation.

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The moment you feel tired,

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bored, overwhelmed, lonely, your phone is always there.

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No friction, no effort, and immediate comfort.

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And over time, this behavior becomes completely automatic.

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You don't have to decide anymore.

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You just do it.

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And that becomes a real problem when you realize that,

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oh wow, I'm choosing this immediate comfort over and over again

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and that moves me further and further away from the life that I actually want to build.

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You have goals, you have a vision for your life,

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but in those moments, you stop acting like the version of you who is building that life.

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Not because you don't care,

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but because your brain is now trained to constantly escape discomfort,

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not stay with it.

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Nervous system regulation is not about never feeling bored.

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It's not about always being calm and perfectly disciplined.

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It's about learning how to stay with yourself in those moments when you feel lonely,

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bored, overwhelmed, and act in a way that is aligned with the life

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that you want to build instead of automatically reaching for your phone.

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And I'm going to be honest with you guys,

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this problem existed way before social media.

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We've always had this tendency of escaping ourselves.

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It's just that now the easiest escape is always in your pocket.

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And the moment that you decide to put your phone down

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and let's say really focus on vacuuming the whole house without listening to anything,

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you suddenly have to face a bunch of thoughts and unprocessed emotions.

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That's what we're actually avoiding.

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We're using our phones not to feel,

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not to process, not to regulate.

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Now I want to move on to why for so many of us hobbies are just not working.

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Because we might think that hobbies are the solution.

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If you don't want to be on your phone,

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you should get a bunch of hobbies.

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And yes, hobbies obviously matter.

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I do want to talk about it in a separate video.

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But there is a piece of this conversation that's missing.

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Your phone isn't just overstimulating you.

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It's also making you feel more alone.

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When I moved abroad, completely alone,

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my screen time was huge.

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And if I'm being completely honest,

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it wasn't because I was bored,

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I didn't know what to do, I didn't have hobbies.

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It was because I felt lonely and that feeling was

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so strong and I didn't really know how to address that

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because obviously meeting people in a new country and building connections is hard.

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It's complicated.

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I didn't speak the language back then

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and I tried to add more hobbies into my life

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that I could do alone and obviously that didn't really fix the underlying problem,

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the underlying feeling that I was experiencing.

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Loneliness.

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I thought that if I just stay busy,

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if I pack my schedule, I will feel better.

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But loneliness doesn't go away just because you're occupied.

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We're losing this super important skill, making friends.

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And your phone is making it harder for you to find and maintain real relationships.

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And there is another layer that makes all of this way harder.

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Social media constantly shows you a version of reality where someone is doing something better than you.

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Like take my handstand journey.

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A year ago, I couldn't really do a handstand at all.

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Now I can.

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But the problem is, if I go on social media,

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I will find a hundred,

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a thousand people who can do a handstand so much better than me.

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And suddenly, something that feels like real progress to me,

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it feels like it's not enough.

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Like it feels like I'm not good enough yet.

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And I will never be, that's the thing.

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Because on social media, I will always find an example of someone who is doing it better.

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And that happens everywhere.

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Your body, your work, your relationships, your life.

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There's always someone ahead of you.

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And that slowly disconnects you from your real life,

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from your goals and your achievements.

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So what ends up happening is you're alone trying to build your life

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while constantly being exposed to a world where it looks like you're behind.

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And no amount of solo hobbies can fix that feeling because your nervous system doesn't just need less stimulation.

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It also needs more connection,

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more real people around you,

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people you can rely on,

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real people going through the same journey.

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Because the opposite of scrolling isn't productivity, it's connection.

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Connection to yourself and the world around you.

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Next, let's talk about the sphere that keeps you scrolling.

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I think another big reason we love to use our phones so much is the fear of missing something important.

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That's why we feel like we constantly have to check social media,

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our messages, the news, everything.

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But if I'm being totally honest with you,

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you are going to miss things.

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And the sooner you find peace with this realization,

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the easier it is going to be to build a life that is not centered around your phone.

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I live on the other side of the world from my family,

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and there are so many moments that I'm just not there for.

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And sometimes that really hurts,

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that makes me feel really sad.

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But constantly checking social media doesn't actually bring you closer to people.

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It just creates this illusion that you're involved.

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What actually changed things for me in a good way was first accepting the fact that yes,

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I am going to miss things.

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And second, choosing something intentional instead.

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For me, that looks like calling my family every single Saturday.

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And we talk for like two,

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three hours, and that one call brings me closer to my family than checking their Instagram stories ever could.

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And I think this is the key thing here.

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Instead of constantly checking what you might be missing,

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start by checking in with yourself.

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What do you actually need right now?

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What would actually make you feel connected, grounded, and present?

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Because when you stop consuming non-stop, something really interesting happens.

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Your attention comes back to you.

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You start noticing small things again.

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And for me, it was honestly really small and random things,

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like making a cup of jasmine tea for myself and noticing that I actually really like the smell of jasmine tea.

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That is actually my favorite tea.

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I've been drinking jasmine tea for probably years and years and years now and only recently I'm starting to appreciate the smell,

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the color,

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everything and this change like the moment it actually hits you

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when you start noticing those small things in your everyday life and you really start appreciating those things,

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you realize that it's all so worth it.

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So finally let's talk about how to actually build this life offline that you absolutely love.

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First, add friction to your phone and remove friction from the things that you actually want to do.

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You can delete all the social media apps,

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turn on grayscale mode, keep your phone in another room.

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Right now, I'm recording this video for you guys and my phone is not here.

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When I'm working, my phone is not next to me.

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I don't need to be glued,

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physically glued to my phone all the time.

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At the same time, you can make your book more visible.

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Maybe always wear workout clothes so that you don't feel like,

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oh my god, I'm too lazy,

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I don't want to change into my workout clothes,

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or maybe keeping your yoga mat out all the time so

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that you look at it and you just want to go and practice yoga.

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The easier you make the good things and the harder you make the social media escape,

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the more your brain will start to choose differently.

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Second, replace the reach with a micro-regulation practice.

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Every time you notice that you reach for your phone out of boredom or you don't really know what to do, pause.

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Don't do it just because.

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Take one deep breath, put your hand on your chest,

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feel your feet on the floor.

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You don't really need to meditate for 20 minutes,

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you just need to interrupt this automatic loop.

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That's already enough to start rewiring that automatic behavior and being more intentional about the ways that you regulate your emotions.

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If you realize that the main reason why you're using social media is because you want to stay connected,

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you can pick one real thing instead.

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Like a weekly call or a voice note or a coffee date instead of just stalking them on social media.

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And let that be enough.

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I talked to this person,

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we had an amazing coffee date,

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and in a few weeks we're gonna do something else together.

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I don't need to be constantly checking their Instagram stories.

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Third, do things with other people.

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And that is something that made the biggest difference for me.

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Go to a class, join a workshop,

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do your hobbies with other people.

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I know a lot of us like to go to a bar

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and meet our friends there and drink and have a good time

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and yes I'm not saying all of those things are bad but I'm saying you can diverse.

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You can do so many different things with your friends.

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It doesn't always have to be this one specific thing.

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Alright guys, I think it's going to be it for today's video.

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If you liked it, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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One thing before you go,

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if you were paying attention today,

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you might have noticed some cats hiding in the video.

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I want to call it cat tacks.

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Every video I hide cats throughout and your job is to find them.

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Today there were this many cats.

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How many did you actually catch?

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Let me know in the comments.

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And if you missed some,

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well, now you have a reason to watch this video again.

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If you're watching this and thinking, OK, I get it.

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I need to stay off my phone more often

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but I still have so many things that I need to do every single day.

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And I also don't want to get burned out.

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I made a video exactly about that.

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So if you want to continue watching, you can click here.

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Otherwise, thank you so much for being here.

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And I'll see you in my next video.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: How to Become Addicted to Being OFF Your Phone - Learn English Speaking with Video

Why practice speaking with this video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

Common Pronunciation Traps

What is the Shadowing Technique?