Shadowing Practice: This is wrecking my brain and it feels amazing - Learn English Speaking with Video

I want to talk about something we are all victims of right now.

Our phones having a complete chokehold on us.

I posted to my stories and y'all slid right into my DMs and asked me some real hard-hitting questions.

So today, I want to do a little deep dive into what our phones are actually doing to our brains

and our anxiety and our focus and answer your questions about the parts that are impacting you the most.

Let's get right into it.

Question number one, can I fix my brain after years of doom scrolling or is the damage just kind of permanent?

Great first question and good news.

You are not too far gone.

And that's the science talking, not me.

Let me give a quick neuroplasticity 101.

Our brains are changeable and habits change our circuits in our brains.

They're not set in stone.

And neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to change its structure and its function in response to experience across your entire life.

So when I say that your habits are wiring circuits in, I mean that quite literally like your brain is constantly strengthening the path

that you use most and then is letting others get a little bit overgrown

so you've got this little alarm system in your brain called the amygdala

and its sole job in your brain is to determine is this safe

or is this dangerous it loves drama like it loves anything emotional negative

or threatening so when you put your amygdala which is your threat detector plus dopamine the little reward hits plus cortisol

the stress chemistry all together you get this loop where your brain is scared rewarded

and over stimulated all at the same time and then

that loop begins to feel like your new normal

which is why it feels in your words kind of permanent

so here's what fixing it looks like in practice it means shorter scroll windows more offline novelty

and boredom tolerance like you have to learn how to be bored

and i think the first thing

that i said there the shorter scroll windows really leaves room for having more of

that novelty offline or learning how to build up a tolerance

so you have to kind of create a boundary of how long you want to spend on your phone

and i've said this

so many times i am not against being online i think it's once it takes over your life

and starts to feel like your brain is deteriorating

because of it that's where the issue comes in you can't think of this as a quick fix

or as like a three-day miracle detox you kind of have to think of it in months of consistent tweaks

and really simple things that you implement into your life and

that is where you'll start to see the change after months of reducing little things

and creating little boundaries here and there

and learning how to be bored for five minutes then 10 minutes

and 15 minutes that is where you'll begin to feel like your brain is being fixed

but do not fret it is reversible all right question number

two why does my screen time make my anxiety worse

but also feel like the only thing that calms it down okay

so this is what i would call a fake safety behavior

great examples i scroll to feel more informed about the news

or feel safer once i know what's going on in the world

but what actually happens is it spikes my anxiety

and my cortisol My brain is reading every horrible headline as danger

and every swipe is giving my threat system like this little nudge

so my stress hormone cortisol keeps getting spiked

that is exactly what keeps your anxiety running in the background

on a nervous system level like your phone is literally yanking you between fight

or flight and numbed out mode all day long.

So all this bad news and all this drama, it kicks you into this hyper arousal state and your heart is racing, your mind is racing, you're overthinking things.

And then in comes the mindless, pretty content and it becomes this sedative.

So your brain starts to associate the phone with relief from the very feelings that the phone just created.

I mean, I know this is a little bit dramatic, but it's kind of like purposefully setting your own house on fire

and then giving yourself credit for calling the fire department

so what is it

that we have to recognize i think there's this whole idea of the short-term soothe versus like the long-term cost

so in the short term with all this dopamine

and this novelty it feels calming in the moment

but in the background it is raising your baseline anxiety over time

so i would suggest doing a little tiny experiment recognize

when it is that you sit down and you start doom scrolling

and swap that block one block per day with something

that is genuinely regulating to you i know for me it's the mornings

and the evenings so instead of me scrolling like through youtube shorts

while i'm trying to get ready in the morning i can put on some classical music

and just like enjoy my company and have a cup of tea

while i'm doing another thing is at night instead of me

scrolling on instagram in bed i can spend 15 minutes reading

or journaling before i go to sleep and that is how simple

and easy it can be I want you to notice your anxiety 24 hours later.

So do you feel different?

Do you feel like there's been a little bit of a change?

If so, maybe try it out again and again and again.

Question number three, severe phone addiction is ruining my life.

How do I break the cycle?

I wake up and I scroll.

I eat and I scroll.

I go to bed scrolling.

I literally don't know how to exist without it anymore.

What is wrong with me?

Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with you.

I think that is maybe the first step is to reframe the idea that there is something wrong with you.

Your brain is doing exactly what it has been trained to do.

And those symptoms in behavioral addiction look a lot like having a low amount of tolerance

and having a lot of withdrawals and loss of control.

I think that you're feeling this shame because you are trying to solve this problem with your willpower.

So here's why your willpower alone will always fail.

Oftentimes you have a cue And it might be something that like happened,

you know, at work or you felt awkward about or any tiny moment of discomfort or a desire to feel something.

You have that craving then to find comfort and to find something that will make you feel better.

So you go from the cue to the craving

and then you respond by picking up your phone

and you subconsciously go to Instagram and then you're there for 15 minutes and then you wonder, what was I doing?

Why did I do this?

And that is that cue craving response loop is automatic

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and it is the strongest when you're tired or you're anxious or you're bored.

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My dad, who is a mental health professional, always talked about halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired.

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Those are the times that your triggers are maybe the strongest when you're hungry, you're angry, you're lonely, or you're tired.

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And I would also add anxious and then got anxious and bored.

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So halt ab, halt ab, balta.

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Okay.

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Anyways, so we're not going to go from 100 to zero, we're going to gradually reduce our access to these things.

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So this restlessness that comes with withdrawals doesn't blow up in your face.

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And this is where I love automation more than like trying to create rules for yourself

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that you have to stick to on your own.

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And I use opal for exactly that.

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I've been dabbling with something new, which is autofocus and it connects to our calendar and it cuts out all of the junk for you during focus windows.

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So you're not relying on your 6 a.m zombie self to do the right thing.

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And I love that it's called autofocus because it's exactly that.

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It's like with a camera.

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You don't have to have this incredible expertise and be a professional.

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You don't need as much manual control.

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You trust that the setup will do exactly what it needs to do for you.

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So in the end, I end up with a perfect picture or a better default behavior.

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And I also wanna point out kind of what I said earlier of reframing things.

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I want you to reframe your identity as well.

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Saying I'm addicted to my phone is not helpful or beneficial.

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Saying I'm someone learning to protect my attention, that sounds a lot better.

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And it's true.

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And my last tip here, I would add just like little tiny replacement rituals.

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So having your phone in another room for the first 30 minutes

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or charging your phone in a different room when you're sleeping.

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Putting your phone on do not disturb so that notifications are not always throwing you off.

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And then also like creating a digital sunset where you have times

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and boundaries where you do and you do not have access to your phone.

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And just remember, there's nothing wrong with you.

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You are simply using tools that can't go up against these billion-dollar tech companies and their state-of-the-art algorithms.

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All right, question number four.

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Using my phone less actually made my anxiety better, but every time I try to cut back, I'm insanely bored at first.

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Is that normal?

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Yes, it's normal.

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That's just simply withdrawals.

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There are actually studies that show restricting smartphone use in heavy users can trigger withdrawal-like symptoms.

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So like this irritability, anxiety, feeling like FOMO.

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So to really answer your question in a simple term, yes, it is normal.

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But I also want to answer why it feels worse before it feels better.

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Your reward system is used to constant micro dopamine hits.

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And boredom is your brain recalibrating from all of that

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but sometimes it feels like it's proof that we need our phones

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and again this is not just like a snap your finger

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and you're fixed kind of thing you should expect one

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or two kind of messy weeks and don't be surprised by it

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because it's like trying to do a sugar fast

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or quitting smoking like that is really a very similar level of intensity

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that you are experiencing this is where i call in my focus score on opal it's

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so nice to have this because the first days feel horrible, but your data might already be improving.

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It might show you that you're spending less time in the worst apps

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and more time in deep focus and you're not picking your phone up as often

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and you might be having better sleep

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because you're not scrolling at 2am it puts

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that proof right in front of your face so you feel motivated

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and inspired to continue and on top of

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that you can do it with people

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so it feels less like suffering in silence and more like something

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that you're building together which is why i now have over 400 friends on opal

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and you all can see my screen time and my streaks

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and my block sessions like it's intimate and it's motivating

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and it keeps me going so to sum

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that up it's very normal to have these withdrawal symptoms

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and you need to have proof and data that you're improving

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so that you stay motivated and

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if you can't do it yourself you've got people who are doing the same thing

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that will continue to motivate you too all right

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and question number five what do i substitute my phone with i know get a hobby

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but nothing hits the same as scrolling how do you find something

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that gives that same dopamine but isn't a screen i hate to break it to you

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but not a whole lot hits the same as scrolling

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that is why it is

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so addictive it's kind of like in my mind you smoke cigarettes

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and you're like oh what can i smoke that will give me that same hit not really anything

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you have to find other things that might not be as satisfying

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but are much more beneficial for you right

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so sure everyday life things might not give you as big of a hit of

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that dopamine but feeds are designed to give that fast

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and unpredictable hit so i would try to reframe things again reframe

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that you're not trying to match the intensity of the dopamine spike you're trying to build longer

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and steadier dopamine waves last year there was like a big wave of this trend the dopamine menu

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and like i loved it i still use it to this

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day i have a pre-written list of quick non-screen dopamine boosts

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that i feel are very much tailored to me and the things

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that i like for the exact moments that i would reach for my phone so

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if you're saying okay well i don't know what makes me

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feel good let's start a little experiment remember we're not trying

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to like transform our entire beings in a day i would

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encourage you to treat the next 30 days as like a

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lab track what actually leaves you feeling better an hour later

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versus just high for 30 seconds then take your learnings

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and start to build out your dopamine menu so

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that you can turn to something instead of your phone

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so it looks like the big theme from these questions here is

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that nothing is wrong with you you're just naturally responding to an environment

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that is very very good at hijacking your attention also your

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job is not to become a superhero of willpower it gets to change the environment

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and give your brain a chance to relearn things so

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if you are in

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that place of i literally don't know how to exist without my phone start really really really small

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and get help from tools that actually lower the tension you can download opal

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and you can add me as a friend at olivia.unplugged

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and we can work on this together because i'm not immune to this either

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and if you didn't get to ask me your questions in my dms you can comment below

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and i will save them for my next Q&A or answer them right in the comments.

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It is time for me to unplug and I'll see you next week.

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: This is wrecking my brain and it feels amazing - Learn English Speaking with Video

Context & Background

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What is the Shadowing Technique?