Shadowing Practice: Things I Quit in My 20s to Heal My Overstimulated Brain - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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This year, in 2026, I've been noticing that what we're all craving isn't more.
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This year, in 2026, I've been noticing that what we're all craving isn't more.
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It's not more discipline, more habits, and more routines.
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We're all overstimulated, our brains are tired, and our dopamine systems are completely hijacked.
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What we all actually want right now is to subtract, to live a softer life.
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So that's why I decided to make today's video.
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I want to share the things that genuinely help me heal my overstimulated brain.
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The things that let me step back into that softness
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and start living a life that is more aligned with things that I truly value.
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If you're new here, welcome.
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My name is Veronica and on this channel we talk about nervous system regulation, dopamine, your attention span, and how to live a more intentional life.
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Before we get into it, I wanted to remind you guys that I have a free nervous system regulation guide.
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The link is in the description below and once you grab it, you'll also be automatically added to my weekly newsletter,
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Aligned, which is basically these conversations but landing in your inbox once a week.
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Okay, so the first thing I quit was I quit watching everything at 2x speed.
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And when I say everything, I mean messages I receive from my family, like audio messages, things on YouTube, and things on social media,
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if I ever decide to watch something on Instagram or TikTok.
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I know that the main reason why we want to do that is because we want to save time.
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Let's say you have an hour, so instead of watching one video that's one hour long, you can watch two.
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And that can make you feel really productive, right?
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Because you're using the mindset that more is better.
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You're trying to cram more things in the same amount of time.
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But is it actually truly better?
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Like, are you actually understanding every single video and remembering all the key insights if you're always watching everything at 2x speed?
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Most likely the answer is going to be no. At some point I just realized
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that I was basically training my brain to find normal pace life intolerable.
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Because I remember when this 2x feature was just introduced, it felt really weird to me.
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Like I would use that feature and I would be like, oh my god, everyone is talking so quickly.
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I can't understand anything.
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Like why did they even create this feature?
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I'm never ever gonna use it.
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And look at me now.
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Like we've all trained our brains to see that as normal.
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It's just something that we all do.
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So when everything is sped up, obviously your dopamine system recalibrates.
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Real life starts to feel boring in comparison because you've trained yourself to expect that interesting only happens at 2x speed.
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We don't read anymore, we skim, we don't really listen to anything anymore,
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we just, you know, put 2x speed and then we think we're listening but we're not remembering everything.
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It's way too fast.
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And so yes, slowing down is going to feel boring and weird and uncomfortable at first because it's also a skill.
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Just like you trained yourself to speed everything up, it's going to take some time for you to get used to slowing everything down again.
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Because it's connected to absolutely everything in life.
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Things take time.
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Learning a skill takes time.
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You can't press 2x and learn a skill twice as fast.
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This is not how real life works.
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There's a podcast episode with Cal Newport.
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He wrote this famous book, Deep Work.
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And in this podcast episode, he mentions that our brain needs time to do things with minimal cognitive lift.
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Things like observing nature or going for a walk without your headphones.
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Things where your brain can actually process information at its own pace.
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Now, normally I would have heard that and I would have thought, oh, that's interesting.
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And then I have completely forgotten which episode it was in by next week
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but i've been using this thing called recall
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which is basically your own personal knowledge base you copy the link to any podcast
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or youtube video you're watching you paste it in
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and it transcribes the whole thing and lets you chat with it using ai
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so when i wanted to find that exact quote about the minimal cognitive lift I just asked Rico, where do they talk about minimal cognitive lift?
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And it showed me the exact timestamp.
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And the part that I really like is that it can generate you a quiz based on whatever you just watched.
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So you can check if you really absorbed it instead of just watching something and then forgetting everything later.
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I also made a quiz based on this current video for you guys, so if you want to test yourself,
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you can use the link below and do the quiz.
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Huge thank you to Recall for sponsoring today's video.
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The second thing I quit to heal my overstimulated brain is to treat every single weekend like a chance to reset.
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The pattern I followed in the past was this.
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I would hit Friday completely depleted.
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And then Saturday and Sunday would be go mow to do like a bunch of housework
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and basically prepare for Monday and for the week ahead.
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And the thing is that type of schedule made me completely depleted by Monday.
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I thought I was preparing and getting ready, but by Monday I just felt like, you know, I wasn't really ready to start my work week.
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And at some point I just ask myself this question.
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What is actually happening Monday through Friday that is requiring a total nervous system reset on Saturday and Sunday?
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Sometimes the answer was my schedule, my job, the people I talked to.
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I started adding more soft things.
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Let's say on Thursday after a work call, I would go for a walk instead of being at my house, on my phone, scrolling social media.
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Usually when we always crave this weekend reset, it's a symptom of something that's going on deeper.
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And so the actual move is making your weekdays less brutal in the first place.
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Because one thing I remember was happening to me was that on Saturday and Sunday, my back would hurt so much after,
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you know, sitting in front of my computer Monday through Friday.
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And then I would only exercise on Saturday and Sunday
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and at some point it was like veronica why are you
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doing this to yourself why not stretch at least a little bit every single day
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and so because of that i stopped treating my weekend as a chance to reset my bag
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and you know finally feel prepared to start monday instead of
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my computer all day all over again i added softness into
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every single day to regulate myself more all right thing number three I quit was I quit saving things for later.
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Thing is, we all love saving different tabs and Instagram posts and TikToks with some hacks and recipes and things like that.
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But most of us never ever open those videos again.
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Every time we save something, we're kind of making a promise to our future self that we can't keep.
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Like if I open my watch later playlist on YouTube, there are going to be so many videos there.
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And a lot of videos from there, I'm sure I'm never going to watch, even though I saved them to watch for later.
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I think for me right now, the fact that I haven't gotten to certain things is the answer about whether I actually want to.
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And that's okay.
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And realizing that you actually don't need more inputs.
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What you probably need more of is more time to digest
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and process things that you already have and things
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that you already use for example i really like yoga you guys know
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that and there are so many videos everywhere
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that i always save about yoga you know courses
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that i want to buy different products studios i want to go to
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but at some point i just had to be honest with myself
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and i had to ask myself this question like veronica are
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you actually going to do this like you like the studio
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but are you actually going to go to their class instead of just stalking their instagram page pick something
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and actually do it that is something that's going to feel
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so much more regulating for your nervous system instead of just saving a bunch of things
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and never ever opening them again thing number four i quit
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is i quit answering messages the moment i see them
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because what was happening to me in the past was
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that I would hear the ping or I would see a notification and I would feel this like physical pull to respond.
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Like I had to do it now.
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It was an emergency even though obviously it wasn't.
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Nobody really expected me to respond quickly.
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Nobody was timing me with a stopwatch.
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But my nervous system was treating everything as an emergency.
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Okay, I get a text.
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I have to respond to it right now, I get an email, I have to respond to it right now, it's an emergency.
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You know, most of the things, most of the notifications I was getting, they weren't urgent at all.
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I didn't have to respond to all of them the moment I got them.
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The interesting thing that I also learned recently is that what triggers this dopamine release isn't the notification, it's usually the anticipation of the notification.
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That's why so many of us like to keep our phones next to us, face up, because we love to check it sometimes,
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to look at the screen and see if we got any notifications.
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What I've been noticing more and more right now is that people don't really need you to respond in four minutes.
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What they do need though is for you to be fully present thing number five
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that i quit to heal my overstimulated brain was i quit
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the second screen now what's happening to a lot of us is
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that we can't watch a full movie without getting distracted watching shows just feels uncomfortable
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because we're so used to watching tiktoks short videos and
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so that's why when we do decide to watch a movie we still have our phones in our hands.
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We're online shopping, we're on social media while trying to watch a movie.
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But multitasking doesn't work.
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It's been proven so many times already.
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So you're not really doing two things at the same time.
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You're doing zero things twice.
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Your brain is constantly task switching and that makes you feel so freaking tired.
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Half presence is a very huge problem nowadays because the second we feel bored doing a certain activity, we pick up our phones.
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You're watching a movie, it feels too long, it feels boring, so instead of just turning it off and doing something else, like let's say reading a book,
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we pick up our phones because it's easier, there's no friction.
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Being deeply focused on one thing is
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so much more valuable than doing a bunch of things at the same time thinking that you're multitasking.
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Because in fact you're not.
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You're task switching and every switch has a cost.
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You're dysregulated nervous system.
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The next thing I quit is I quit letting my phone be in the bathroom with me.
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I feel like 10 years ago going to the bathroom was an actual tiny break.
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Two minutes, five minutes where nobody could reach you.
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But now you take your phone when you're in the bathroom, when you take a shower.
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So there's absolutely no room in your house where your brain has this moment of quiet.
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But those default moments where your brain gets to daydream, when you're feeling bored, they're actually so important for us.
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And we barely, barely have them anymore.
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So that's why right now I'm actively subtracting my phone from more and more activities that I do during the day.
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And yes, at first it is going to feel hard because there are going to be so many thoughts, so many ideas, and you know, your brain is gonna start actively processing everything.
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It is going to feel weird, like you're gonna still have that itch to like immediately grab your phone and soothe yourself and regulate yourself this way.
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But don't do it.
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Stay with it, stay with the discomfort, because with time it is going to start feeling better.
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But you need to give yourself this time.
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The next thing I quit to heal my overstimulated brain is I quit needing to know about every single internet drama.
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I feel like a year ago, I probably had context about every single problematic situation on the internet.
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You know, which couples were rumored to be breaking up, all of those things.
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Will this matter in a month?
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And the answer is probably no. I know that learning about every type of internet drama might sound exciting, but this curiosity isn't free.
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Usually, it costs you your time, your attention, and your regulation.
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Because not every story that you see or you hear about needs your full attention.
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You can let the internet have its drama without making yourself a witness to all of it.
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The next thing I quit was I quit consuming content that made me feel bad about myself, even if that content was aspirational.
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Because you know, we follow a lot of people online because they motivate us.
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But sometimes consuming all of that content can move your attention away from the things that truly matter,
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like your life and your goals and your relationships.
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For myself, I don't really notice it that much.
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If it's like a video or two, it's usually the volume.
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When I open Instagram and all I see is perfect lives,
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perfect bodies, perfect routines, the volume is something that makes me feel really anxious.
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I start feeling like each one of those videos just adds into my I'm not enough deposit.
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Like I need to try harder, I need to do more things, I'm lazy, I'm undisciplined.
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Look at all of those people.
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And when I hear that voice it usually means that I need to get off my phone.
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Obviously all of those people who create aspirational content, their goal is never to make you feel bad
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but you are the only person who can curate what you consume okay
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so the next thing i quit is actually a pretty big
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one for me i quit managing other people's emotions you know
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when someone invites you to do something and you know
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that you don't want to do it
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and instead of saying no you say yes
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because you don't want them to feel bad you think okay
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if i say no they're gonna feel really sad and really upset and I don't want them to feel sad, I don't want them to feel upset, so I'm going to say yes.
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You're saying yes to manage their feelings.
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You're trying to protect them from a small disappointment by completely sacrificing your own boundaries.
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And the thing is, it's not your job to manage other people's emotions, it's their job.
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Just like it is your job to manage your own emotions.
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Now what I try to remind myself all the time is that when I say no to someone, there is a very high chance that they're going to be sad,
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they're going to be upset and disappointed.
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And that's okay.
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And this final part, like realizing that that's okay, is usually the hardest.
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Because you have to trust that this person is capable of handling that.
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They're capable of managing their own emotions.
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They are an adult.
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They can feel disappointed and they can regulate themselves.
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And you trust that this is possible.
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Because the way I like to think about it right now is if you always rescue people from disappointment, from feeling all of those emotions, you're not actually being kind.
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You're treating them like they can't handle their own life.
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The honest no is the gift.
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Creating this boundary is the gift.
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When we talk about the defense response of your nervous system, we usually talk about fight, flight, or freeze.
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But there's also the fourth response, the fawn response.
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It's when at some point your nervous system learned that the easiest way to escape from a difficult situation,
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you know, conflict or disagreement is to appease, is to agree to everything, is to fawn.
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So what I'm trying to communicate is that fawning, if you notice that, okay, I have that, it's not a personality trait.
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It's a stress response.
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Alright, and finally, thing number 10 that I quit to heal my overstimulated brain is
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that I quit assuming that the loudest feeling is the true feeling.
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Because we're all speeding up our lives so much right now, we start assuming that the loudest voice, you know, that urgency in our heads is the true voice.
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It's the voice that's telling you you have to do something right now, you have to figure out something right now, there's absolutely no time to wait.
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Everything has to be done super quickly,
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you start expecting perfection from yourself and from other people because the voice in your head says everything needs to be perfect.
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And usually those voices in your head are not the truth.
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They are the loud system designed to grab your attention, but they don't always know what's best for you.
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And usually for me, all of those loud feelings make it really hard to listen to my intuition.
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When I notice that, okay, I'm really in my head, it usually means that I haven't exercised recently,
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that I really need to go and do something regulating with my body.
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I need to look at my sleep schedule, really calm down my amygdala.
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And so the bigger point of regulating our nervous system and, you know, all of those things
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that I mentioned in today's video is to actually start hearing that quiet voice more and more often,
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turning down the volume of everything else.
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We're trying to do those things less and less so that we can actually hear our intuition.
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That's why I always like to say that healing an overstimulated brain usually comes down to subtracting,
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not adding more things, so that you can finally hear that quiet voice, so that you can finally hear yourself.
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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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If you want to watch something next, I highly recommend this video right here, so you can click here.
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Otherwise, I'll see you in my next video.
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Bye!
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will focus on improving your English speaking skills by observing and shadowing a segment from a video discussing the importance of slowing down in a fast-paced world. You will practice listening to natural speech at a manageable pace, allowing you to enhance your pronunciation and comprehension skills. This exercise is designed to help you learn English with YouTube, particularly by engaging with content that encourages reflection and intentional living.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Overstimulated - Excessively stimulated or overwhelmed by external stimuli.
- Dopamine system - A system related to pleasure and reward in the brain.
- Intentional life - A life lived with purpose and clear intentions.
- Slowing down - Taking a step back and reducing the pace of life.
- Neural recalibration - The process of adjusting brain responses to stimuli.
- Productivity - The state of being able to produce large amounts of work efficiently.
- Cognitive lift - The mental effort required to process information.
Practice Tips
To effectively improve English pronunciation and speak more naturally, follow these tips as you engage with the video's content:
- Start by watching the video at regular speed. Take note of the natural rhythm and intonation used by the speaker. If you find it challenging, watch it once or twice without attempting to repeat.
- Once you feel comfortable, practice shadowspeaking or "shadow speak" by repeating phrases immediately after the speaker. This will help you match their pronunciation and pacing effectively.
- Focus on specific phrases that resonate with the lesson, such as "living a softer life" or "mental recalibration." Repeat these phrases multiple times to ensure proper articulation.
- Gradually increase your ability to slow down your speech as you practice. Notice how your brain adjusts to processing the information without rushing.
- Consider using pauses during your practice to think about what you've learned. This will help solidify your understanding and make you feel less overwhelmed.
- Regularity is key; set aside time each day for English speaking practice with the selected video, ensuring you end each session feeling accomplished.
By adopting these methods, you will not only improve your speaking and listening skills but also cultivate a deeper understanding of the content, enabling you to engage more meaningfully with the material.
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.
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