Dr. Alok Kanojia
Appearances
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Coming up next on The Jordan Harbinger Show. A lot of people think that by avoiding things, okay, I'm feeling anxious. Let me do something to make myself less anxious. When you feel that negative fear and anxiety and you engage in an avoidance strategy, you're actually strengthening the anxiety's control over you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
A lot of people think that by avoiding things, they don't really think about it that way. They're like, okay, I'm feeling anxious. Let me do something to make myself less anxious. And that will be an avoidance strategy, which will just re-trigger the anxiety when you're in that situation again.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And then you'll become dependent on the avoidance strategy, which is why a lot of people who go to parties and feel socially anxious end up on their phones the whole time. I feel anxious. Let me pull out my phone. This makes me feel a little bit better. And then you're like, why am I even here? And no one's ever talking to you because you're on your phone the whole time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And like, it becomes like a vicious cycle. It's interesting.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So, okay. So great question, but we got to like go back a couple of layers to understand this. Okay. So the first is that if you look at change, most human beings are conflicted about change. So I want to go to the gym and work out, but I also want to binge watch my favorite show. And so it's really interesting because what we really try to do is conquer ourselves and
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But you can't conquer yourself. Who's doing the conquering and who's being conquered? So if I conquer my desire, I get really good at overcoming my desires. That's also strengthening my ability to overcome my desire to go to the gym. So it's kind of weird, right? It's weird. It sort of doesn't work. Conquering yourself basically doesn't work.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Sometimes it works and sometimes people are pretty lucky with it and things like that. But a lot of people really struggle and they do want to change, but they also don't want to change. And then a lot of times what happens is it's not that we actually want to change. It's that we know we should change.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Now, this is really important to understand because should in the brain does not lead to motivation. So generally speaking, if we look at the concept of should, where does it come from in the brain? It comes from our social emotional circuitry. So if we look at should, when I do things that I should do, what I avoid is a feeling of shame. What I avoid is a feeling of guilt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
What I gain is a feeling of pride, potentially, right? When I do what I should do. The driver for shoulds is our relationship to like other human beings, which is why if there's something you should do in life and no one is watching, you'll never do it. Because literally should comes from where does should come from?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Should is a societal expectation, which even if you believe you should do things, where did you learn that you should do things from other people? So should is fundamentally a social construct and involves the social circuits of the brain. Which is why like when someone's watching us, oh, where do you want to eat? Now I'm going to order a salad when I go out with my friends.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But like when I'm going by myself, it's going to be fried chicken and French fries. I feel seen. Yes. So should is never going to work. I feel attacked, actually. Unfortunately, right? If only we could be seen all the time. Exactly. Man, I'm glad I'm not alone. So want comes from the nucleus accumbens. Want or desire comes from craving and behavioral reinforcement and the seeking of pleasure.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So these two things are fighting. And if you are fighting in shoulds versus wants, the only way the shoulds will win is if someone is watching, which is why as people become more isolated, their lives have gotten worse because so few people are watching now that we get away with it. You used to not get away with it because someone was paying attention.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
That's the first thing to understand. Wants and shoulds are like fundamentally different. They can compete, but we need social environment to make them really work. So then the second question is like, OK, if you don't really want to do it, you should do it, but you don't want to do it. That doesn't activate our behavior in the right way because there's a should moving in one direction.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yes. It's a great point. We restrict our definition of anxiety quite a bit. Yeah. So we think that I'm not allowed to feel anxious unless I'm afraid of something. Yes. But what I'm hearing is that certain parts of your brain, like especially your frontal lobes, recognize that there is a lot of work that needs to be done and is starting to think through.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
There's a want moving in the other direction. So if we want to motivate behavior, right, motivation comes from the nucleus accumbens. We have to have a motivation to do something. But oftentimes it's really interesting. So if you move one level back, do you wish you were someone else? Now, that's something you're motivated towards.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And this is something that we've learned in psychiatry is that if you can't solve this problem, oftentimes moving one level back is where the money is. So now if I ask you, OK, so you don't really want to work out. Fair enough. Do you wish you were someone who wanted to work out? And that's absolutely yes. I wish I was like these other people that enjoyed working out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I wish I was a different person. Now that opens the door to all kinds of things. It opens the door to self-judgment, which is like good in a way, right? Because now we're exploring this stuff. And that's the stuff that gets in the way of you actually engaging, like all these negative emotions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And the other cool thing is that then we can ask the question, OK, if you want to be a different person, how do we go about that? How do you actually change? And then something cool happens once you run down that sequence of exploration. You figure out, OK, this is how I become a different person. Then you become a different person and then working out becomes easy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It's sort of like mentally loading responsibility. Yes. which is not exactly anxiety, but I think a lot of the circuits are the same or the experience of it is the same.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, it's a beautiful story, by the way. So I think you're right that a lot of people don't think you can change. And I think it's very possible to change. And I also think it's way easier than a lot of people think it is. But the hardest work is to not be yourself. So we think we are this particular thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Like we think that I'm like a piece of crap and I'm like fat and I'm overweight and all this kind of stuff. That's who we think we are, but that's not really who we are. It's our current existence, fine. But I think that oftentimes my experience is that changing happens way faster than people expect it to.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And the reason that people think it's really hard to change is because no one has taught us how. We learn like algebra, but we don't learn the science of changing who you are. And once you understand that, then like things actually become pretty easy. So I'll give you like just a simple example. You said that sometimes people say, OK, do you want to work out? Yes or no.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Do you wish you were a person who wanted to work out? That question is like 10 percent of the change. Huh. I know it sounds crazy, but like literally in that moment, you are learning to look at yourself in a different way. You are changing the questions that you ask yourself. And the reason that people don't change is because they ask the same question. I should work out. I should work out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And they bludgeon themselves with that. And it never works. So like it's crazy like how asking the right question can elicit such a large change and changing your relationship with yourself and asking yourself, who am I? Instead of forcing yourself into trying to be something like that change in and of itself is gigantic. Like, who am I? What do I really want?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And like, you don't really answer that question honestly. You don't say to yourself, I actually don't want to work. I don't want a career. I'm living my life ping-ponging, not towards what I want. I'm ping-ponging between two negative things. I feel ashamed for not having a career. So you're like, that's why I should have a career. But I really don't enjoy this job. I don't want a career.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And so it's very hard to change if you're lying to yourself. That's 50% of it. So I think the flip side of it is also it becomes way easier to change than a lot of people realize once you stop lying to yourself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Oh, yeah. This is really important to understand. So first thing is, we'll get to OnlyFans in a second. But I think pornography is, I really suspect it's the worst addiction on the planet right now. And I know that sounds like a really extreme take, because we have people dying of opiates and things like that. So if you look at the statistics, okay?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Back in about 2005 to 2010, the rate of pornography addiction was like somewhere around 3% to 11%. Can you guess what estimates of pornography addiction are now?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Wow. Wow. OK, like it's insane. How do they measure that? Great question. These are surveys. One of the citations I'm talking about surveyed 13000 people, random people, and just ask them, do you feel like you're addicted to pornography? Holy smokes. And 49 to 75 percent. Some studies suggest it's around 66 percent. Let's assume that all those studies are wrong.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
OK, let's assume that they grossly overestimate it. Let's assume that they're like double it. Even then, we're talking about 30 percent or something like that. It's insane. That's crazy, crazy high. The numbers are literally unbelievable. And I wonder if I'm just like misinterpreting the research or things like that. But it's crazy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, it's wild. And I was trying to figure out, like, why? What's changed? And then I tried to understand, OK, what is the neuroscience of pornography? I did a deep dive. There's a beautiful paper that I found that talks about sexuality in the brain. So where does sex exist in the brain? And so it turns out that we don't have a circuit for sex in the brain. Sex affects every aspect of the brain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So it involves so many different regions, involves a ton of different neurotransmitters. And if you kind of think about it, like what is the purpose of human evolution? It is to procreate, right? So our whole brain, our whole physiology is going to be wired towards this goal. And so now what you have is pornography, which hijacks all of these circuits.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And what we're seeing about the addictiveness of pornography is that the more that pornography approximates real sexual behavior, the more parts of your brain that it's going to activate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So I think there's two kinds of worry. There's worry that you're afraid that things will go bad. And then there is the anticipation of future effort. So you kind of know that you'll be OK, but your mind already knows that tomorrow is going to be heavy lip for me. It's going to be challenging for me. There's going to be some amount of suffering that goes into it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So I think that's the biggest change is that pornography used to be passive consumption. There's no interaction. And if you think about how does your brain know you're in a relationship? I know it sounds so weird, but a lot of times it's just people respond to you. People say good morning. People interact with you. So now what OnlyFans has created is the capacity to form a relationship.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And it's such an interesting relationship. People think it's a very unhealthy relationship. In some ways it is, but in some ways it's the best relationship. Because in this relationship, as long as you pay money, this person does what you want. And if you look at what do people want in relationships, It doesn't sound healthy, but what do you want in a relationship?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
You want someone who does what you want them to do.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It could be a deal maker for a lot of them too, Jordan.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
The feeling of power over another human being. Yeah. Sure, it's like false in a sense, but it kind of isn't.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
If you don't even add the unless. I've worked with these people, right? When you like get behind closed doors and you like talk to them about how they really feel about it, there's an immense sense of power and influence and connection.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
We're anticipating our future subjective experience of difficulty as we solve our problems. And a lot of people think that I won't be anxious unless I'm worried about the outcome. No, you can absolutely be anxious about how much it's going to suck for you to have to deal with that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
This is where, like, when I feel a connection with a chatbot in Indonesia, I don't want to believe it's a chatbot. I want to believe it's a real person. When you see a name in a text message, Like you could be an AI generated image. This could all be false, but that's not what we believe. It's not what we want to believe. Our senses are telling us this is a real conversation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
If you think about it, like we have a vested interest in believing this is real, even if we know there's a possibility it isn't. And then we're getting enough literally sensory input to make it feel real. So let's just start by tossing that out. or like acknowledging that. Now, in terms of how to stop, it doesn't work to just stop.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So for some people, cold turkey can be effective, especially if someone finds out about it and then they're like regulating you. I've been a doctor for 10 years now and a psychiatrist for six. What I have learned is that the first thing to overcome an addiction is you have to want to overcome it. So the willingness, like how do I stop? This is where we go back to the first question, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Do you really want to stop? Tell me why. Help me understand. Why is it important for you to stop? And then we have to ask another question, which is, what would you give up by stopping? And this is the question that a lot of people don't ask. And this is the really important question, because what's driving the behavior is that question. What do you gain? Addictions are not problems.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
They're solutions. This is why we keep doing them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, that's interesting. So do you have a sense of what changed for you over the course of those three years? Why don't you dread it anymore?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What impact does that have on your psychology? It is not good. No, that's terrible. It's awful. So this is where we see body dysmorphia. We see eating disorders. We see rises in depression. We also see rises in social anxiety and everyone is looking at the blemishes on my skin because I myself am not used to seeing them right now.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I'm going to take pictures and send them to my friends because I'm using Snapchat or whatever or for dating profiles, but I'm walking into the date. knowing that the person that I am is not as beautiful as the person that they're attracted to. Oh, brutal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And that's just one slice of identity. Then there's all of the other, okay, what kind of stuff pops up on my feed? The kind of stuff that pops up on my feed is the stuff that I am interested in produced by people who are better than me. If I'm interested in entrepreneurship, I'm going to go on the Jordan Harbinger podcast.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And I'm going to listen to some amazing entrepreneur who has done way more than I've ever done. And those are our exposures. And I'm not saying that your podcast is bad. I think it's great. Right. But like we have to understand that these are tools that can help us in a lot of ways and hurt us in a lot of ways.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So that's actually brilliant. Right. So I think that's where like we found the same thing is that people really resonate in a positive way and that these tools can be used for good or evil. They can use to help or hurt. And humanizing successful people is one of the best things you can do on social media. to recognize that even though this person is very successful, they struggle, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Because there's this fundamental idea that these people who are successful are fundamentally different from me. And reducing that gap can be very healthy for people. It's a strong work, man.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I think a lot of it is the way that we experience progress. And a lot of times our society focuses on outcomes. Right. So the value of studying for a test is getting an A. But that creates a very serious problem. Because if you work hard and you get a B, now your brain is making a calculation that says all of this effort wasn't worth it. And it actually decreases your motivation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, so sure. There's a really fascinating study that looked at comorbid populations of ADHD and depression. So these are people who have both diagnoses. And then they went back and they asked which diagnosis came first. So 3% of people who were diagnosed with a mood disorder, like major depressive disorder,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
When they were diagnosed, let's say, as a teenager with a mood disorder, 3% of them when they're 25 will grow up to have ADHD. Wow. 70% of people who get diagnosed with ADHD will grow up to have depression. But this is out of a comorbid population. So it's not that 70% of people with ADHD are depressed, but this is a study that looks at what comes first.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And for the vast majority of people, ADHD comes first. Once you work with ADHD people or if you have ADHD, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Because our current society is not designed to support people with ADHD. So what these people grow up with is all kinds of challenges that we don't really think of as consequences of ADHD.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
The first of which is by the second grade, a large percentage of kids with ADHD get invited to zero birthday parties. Really? That's terrible. It's awful. So when you're a first grader, what happens? Like you don't wait for your turn in line. You cut. Oh, man, the dopamine rush of going down the slide was so fun. You can't think about anything else. You're running back in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
You push another kid out of the way and then you go. You don't wait your turn. You don't play with other kids in a nice way. You're not attuned to them in a good way. Right. So there's like a lot of social isolation that comes with ADHD.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
That's just one example. The second thing is that kids are really good at judging IQ. Like, it's amazing. So we're really good at recognizing, like, stupid people and smart people. Okay. So this is paradoxically really damaging for an ADHD kid because an ADHD kid knows that they're not stupid. Like, I know that I'm just about as smart as all of my friends. But I cannot achieve what they achieve.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So there's an achievement gap. So even though I'm just as smart and I learn things just as quickly, my grades are way worse. So if you know your IQ is the same, your performance is way worse. How does a child make sense of that? The child says, OK, I'm busted in some way. There's something wrong with me. And they have evidence of this. Right. Because other kids are able to make friends.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But I just know that everyone went to a birthday party and I wasn't invited. Right. So they grow up with this idea that there's something wrong with me. And they're right. It's that people don't understand that this is a neurodiverse individual.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So that core of something is wrong with me, coupled with the lack of academic performance, coupled with the lack of social performance, when all that stuff piles on, they wind up depressed later in life.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So if you fall short of your target, you'll actually decrease your motivation. So what you need to do in that moment is study harder. But instead, neurologically, what will happen is your brain will be like, this wasn't worth it. We put in all of this effort and we did not achieve what we wanted.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So let me ask you, Jordan, when you were 33 and you had like 40 percent body fat or whatever, what was your mental state like?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I think there's a couple of other like interesting connections there. One is that people with ADHD do way better in entrepreneurship.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
There's a lot of different reasons for that. So one is that So people with ADHD are very good reactively. The problem is that you need a stimulus from the outside to act, right? This example that you get this text message an hour, text message 30 minutes, text message five minutes away. Getting three text messages over the course for an hour for a neurotypical person will drive them insane. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But for someone with ADHD, they're stimulus bound. So they're like externally motivated. So when you're playing dodgeball... And there's like five people throwing balls at you. If you've got ADHD, you're going to handle that really well. So oftentimes entrepreneurship is less structured. There's a lot of inbound stimulus, which actually activates your ability to focus.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
That pressure is what it takes for you to activate your optimal ability.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So I think that's a very dynamic mindset. So I think the challenge with ADHD is I've worked with plenty of people clinically for whom it's crippling and it's just very impairing. But I think there is a spectrum of severity.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And for many of us, and I'm the same way, for many of us, like finding the right environment where we actually thrive in chaos when other people don't can actually be a competitive advantage. There's even a really fascinating study that shows that hypomania in bipolar disorder, 4% of the population is hypomanic and don't even qualify for bipolar disorder.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Instead, what we really need to do is calibrate towards feeling good about what we do, not what our outcomes are. And so with the working out, it's interesting because you mentioned these other advantages, like you notice all these changes to your weight and stuff, but I would bet money that somewhere in there, you started focusing on being glad you worked out that day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
1% of people have bipolar disorder, but 4% of people are hypomanic and are not mentally ill. So they have features of hypomania. It's really weird. But these people's income is lower than average if they have a job and is way higher than average if they're entrepreneurs. So there are all kinds of weird intersections about understanding who you are, understanding how you're wired. Right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And this kind of goes back to do you wish you were someone else? It starts with accepting who you are and then really thinking about, OK, what are the parts that I really do want to change? And also, how can I craft my environment? to be optimal for the person that I am.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So I would say one of the most important things that has basically helped 99% of people I've worked with is paying attention to how you've been conditioned versus who you are. So one of the biggest sources of frustration is that we strive for things that were implanted within us. They're not really what we want.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And so then when we try to go for them, our motivation is lacking, our productivity is lacking, our focus is lacking. And then what happens is we try to biohack, brain hack, life hack ourselves, optimize our nutrition, start taking supplements to fulfill that goal and increase our motivation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Whereas I oftentimes find that like the best way to gain motivation is to really understand truly who you are and what was implanted within you. And if you can separate those two things and start to craft a life based on who you really are and what you want, and that can even mean changing certain aspects of yourself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But even when we talk about changing the self, are we changing the self to make myself happy? Are we changing the self to make society happy? My parents happy? My spouse happy? So really starting with that, I think, is like the most important thing that leads to lifelong changes. And the best example that I can give you is I had a patient come into my office who was anxious about getting fired.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Because they were like, it's so stressful and I know I'm smart. Sometimes I do a good job, but sometimes like people take credit for my work and like I'm terrified that I'm going to get fired. Right. So they're like, help me fix the anxiety. And so we did this kind of work. And like 18 months later, they quit. I really got worried about this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And I even talked to some of my mentors and like supervisors because 30 percent of my patients will make a career change within about 18 months of like coming into my office. And I started to wonder, am I biasing them? Am I somehow influencing them, pushing them in some way? Am I like encouraging them to do this? Am I screwing them up, basically? Am I like adding my own values?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And there's a lot of data to support that, right? Because when you choose a career at the age of 18, if you go to university, like you don't really know what you want. You have no idea. And then you start building up this life out of what other people tell you you should be. No wonder you're not motivated towards it because you don't really want it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, I see that with tons of high performing people. I've seen it in medical students, too. So like, you know, when I'm mentoring people who are applying to med school or applying to residency, they'll have all this like, oh, I want to help people. You don't need to train for eight years to help people. You can go work in a soup kitchen today.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Absolutely. So we ask those hard questions like, what do you really want? Right. It's fine if you just want money and prestige. Like, let's just be honest with ourselves. We're not going to put that in the personal statement.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Like if I was reading a personal statement where someone said, I want to go to medical school because I like science and I want money and I want job security, I would be totally fine with that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I think it's a great question. So let's understand a little bit about what psychedelics do and what they don't do. So as a psychiatrist, I've worked with basically equal numbers of people who have been transformed for the positive by psychedelics and people who have been destroyed by psychedelics. Wow. OK. So let's understand that psychedelics can result in PTSD.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Strangely enough, I see a lot of weird like OCD or generalized anxiety or like sustained mood problems after psychedelics, which I think there's not a whole lot of literature about. It's just clinically someone will come in with an anxiety disorder. I'll be like, when did this start? And they're like, it started when I tripped really bad on LSD. And now I'm anxious all the time. So.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, so I think probably part of it is that there is that noticeable difference. The challenge is that with the emails, you can feel accomplished after 150, but there's no sense of like progress tomorrow because the emails are just back. So it's way harder to get progress. So oftentimes what we'll try to do is help people link the emails to something that is noticeable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
That confuses some people, right? Because we also have all these studies. There's still early stages, but we have a lot of data that shows that psilocybin, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can be very helpful for trauma. We have studies that show it can be helpful. And so then people make a huge mistake. They say, here's all this research that shows that psychedelics can be healing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Therefore, if I am sick or if I'm mentally ill or I'm suicidal, let me take psychedelics and I will be healed. Huge mistake. So we have to understand the mechanism of psychedelics and we have to understand the circumstances that make them transformative in a positive way. If you want to simplify it, psychedelics induce neuroplasticity.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So your brain is normally in read-only mode, but we are allowed to edit it. So that's really the biggest thing that they do from a scientific perspective. That's how I'm simplifying it. So then what happens is when you enter into edit mode, what is the circumstance that you're in? So if you're alone and suicidal, the circumstance that you're in is not good. So it can be traumatizing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Whereas if we look at the historical evidence, as well as modern studies of the healing of psychedelics, what we find is that there's a shepherding in both cases. So in these spiritual traditions, you have a shaman who, when you're in that neuroplastic state, rewires you in the right direction. Right. The studies on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy find the same thing too.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So over the course of 14 weeks of psychotherapy, we'll have three doses of psychedelics. And when you're doing psychedelics, some of these protocols are very specific. For eight hours, you will have a male therapist and a female therapist who will sit with you and shepherd you through that experience. But it doesn't end there because you had this neuroplasticity, you have this experience.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Then what they do in the next couple of weeks is they integrate that experience into your life. What does this mean about you as a person? What does this mean about your trauma? What does this mean about your relationships? What does this mean about boundary setting? So it puts your brain into edit mode. And then if you shape it the right way, then it can be quite healing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
There is definitely potential to them. I think we should really study them more robustly for mental health. And I think that becomes really important for a couple of reasons, because we're starting to realize now like more about how mental illness forms. And I really love the yogic traditions for this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So there's also some really interesting studies where you can ask someone what their psychedelic experience is like, and you can predict whether they will have a clinical improvement or not based on the subjective content of their experience. So what happens when you trip is predictive for whether you get healed or not.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Now, the problem is we can't control what a healthy trip is versus an unhealthy trip. But basically what we found is that if you have an ego death experience, the likelihood of a clinical improvement is super high. So if you're just like out and you're flying around in space or whatever, like that doesn't necessarily correlate with any kind of clinical improvement.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
If I go through these 150 emails, what has come out of that? And that's the value.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But when we break down our sense of self, right? And this is what we're talking about. Like when we're talking about technology, what is technology doing? It's polluting our sense of self. It's giving us this false sense of identity. So when we use psychedelics and we have these ego death experiences, which are very hard to handle, by the way, they can traumatize us too.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It breaks down our sense of our patterns about who we are, the way that we connect to other people. One of the reasons that I love meditation is because meditation can basically induce psychedelic states. The difference is that in the meditative path, it's not clear that they induce them in the same way. So there's probably some variability there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But we know that ego death is a part of meditative experience, too. And then the other thing is that in meditation, we train ourselves way more before we enter the psychedelic experience. Right. So it's like dropping someone in like class five rapids and be like swim, bro, or training yourself up to level one, level two, level three, level four rapids before you go down class five rapids.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So there are like some meditation techniques like holotropic breath work, which I'm not a huge fan of, actually, because I think it can be dangerous. There are some techniques that I've done, two examples. One is one where your respiratory rate is 240 per minute. The normal respiratory rate is like 12 to 14. It's very, very difficult to do.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, sure. And that's valuable, too, because as we look at ourselves and we realize, OK, I just never get enjoyment of this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But when you have a super high respiratory rate, it like does weird things. So definitely don't recommend that you just do that without the guidance of a guru.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I think the main thing to remember is that psychedelics don't create anything in our brain. They activate things in a very unusual way. So they go and bind to existing receptors and activate those, sometimes hyperactivate them in ways that are very hard to do normally. But if we also look at what happens in the brain during meditation, it's very similar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
The flip side of it is like one breath per hour. So there are some practices that can get you there, which sounded crazy, but now we know about free diving and stuff. And we know that human beings can do that, but... The technique that will result in brain death for one person, one breath an hour will be lethal for most human beings. 20 minutes underwater will be lethal for most human beings.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But if you train your physiology in the right way, you can do it safely. So it's really interesting. But in the brain, what starts to happen is we start to build compensatory mechanisms so we don't get damaged by it. And also the changes to carbon dioxide and oxygen levels will induce alterations in how the brain activates. and result in like a psychedelic experience.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Once again, something that you definitely have to do under the guidance of a guru. Otherwise, you will end up with brain damage or die.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So I think the backlash against therapy is somewhat justified. So let's understand a couple of things. So the first is that I think there are a lot of things that we can do to heal mentally and support our mental health that are not talk therapy. So somewhere along the way, we started focusing on talk therapy as the only option.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And I think especially when I work with men, one of the biggest assumptions that we have is that talk therapy is the way. But there's a huge bias in therapy because therapy is primarily about talking. But we also know that 70% of therapists are women. And historically in the field of psychiatry, 70% of patients are women.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So when we're looking at what works, there's a huge bias towards people who benefit from verbal usage. And we know that women are actually better at verbalizing their emotions. And some of that is even due to things like estrogen. So estrogen literally increases your sensitivity to your internal emotional state. So this is why they get judged harshly for things like PMS and stuff like that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It's just literally estrogen increases our biological awareness of what we're feeling. And people who become fathers will have some of these changes too. So I started becoming so much more emotionally sensitive after I had kids. Totally, man. Like I start like crying during Disney movies now. And it used to be like.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, it's weird. Like if you're a dude, it's so confusing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Mufasa dying is the most heartbreaking. Like it affects me every time. Like it's wild.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
There's literally a biological component to our ability to express our emotions. And so somewhere along the way, we started with therapy. And I think therapy is great. I love being a therapist. I think it's really good.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's that latter part that makes a difference. I was talking to someone a week ago who's an entrepreneur and we were asking them a little bit about how they find clients. He was saying that he'll spend 40 to 50 hours a week for like three or four weeks of the year sending cold emails, just cold emails. And so it feels awful to do that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And also, especially with a lot of the men that I work with, there are other kinds of work we'll do more body focused, emotion focused, physical focused, because emotions absolutely don't just exist in the mind. In our words, they exist in our physiology.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
We even have some really interesting meta-analyses that show that things like the emotional freedom technique, which I thought was pure BS, in some meta-analyses has been shown effective for trauma. So this is like where they tap on certain parts of your body and they release stored emotions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But in clinical trials, like even though we have no idea how biologically it works, in clinical trials, people improve. I don't think it's all about talk therapy. I think talk therapy is great. I think there are a lot of other methodologies that work for people that are not talk therapy. So there are even studies that show that, you know, exercise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
There's a recent big study that came out that showed that exercise is just as effective as talk therapy for improving some aspects of mental health. So I think a big part of it is that talk therapy doesn't work for everyone. And then an even bigger part is that we have a very poor system for improvement as therapists.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So if you kind of look at it, like, how do you know that the food you're making is good? How do you improve? You can taste it. You can see how many customers are coming in to eat your pizza. If you look at something like Amazon, we have product reviews. We have metrics that show us that we're performing. psychotherapy has very, very few metrics to show a therapist that they're doing bad.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And the crazy thing is as our field, like we actually discourage this stuff. The number of times I've been in supervision and like my business mind is confused by some of the stuff that I hear from my fellow therapists. If a patient comes in for one appointment and never shows up again, And then you're a therapist and you go ask your therapist, hey, I had this patient who didn't show up again.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
We're going to construct all these like psychoanalytic, oh, they weren't ready for therapy. You didn't do anything wrong. It's like some kind of weird, like emotionally supportive kind of group. No one is ever saying, and it's even like sometimes an ethical violation to track that patient down and say, hey, what did I do wrong?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So we have no basic system of like customer feedback in the field of therapy. And so what that results in is a lot of therapists who like don't realize when they're making a mistake. I think what we have is a field of people. Some of them are not very good and some of them are very good. And we don't have a good system for the people to be able to tell the difference.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yes. And I think there's another like really challenging part, which is that sometimes I think that people who judge therapists as bad are doing a bad job as patients. And this is something we never talk about. We never say that the patient is doing something wrong, whereas like absolutely the patient can do wrong things. So I'll give you just one quick case.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So someone was saying, I didn't make any progress in therapy for two years. And then I switched therapists. And this therapist gives me no agency. They don't talk about what I want to talk about. They're very insistent that I just do this thing. But like, I feel like they don't care about what I want. And then you'll post this on the internet, right? Which is where the backlash is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And you'll get a bunch of other people who will say like, yeah, screw that therapist, find a different therapist. Whereas as a therapist, I'm looking at this and I'm saying, hold on a second. You had two years of unproductive therapy and you probably did what you wanted instead of what you needed to do. And now the second therapist is like, hey, what you wanted to do didn't help you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But he actually doesn't mind because that is worth like hundreds of thousands of dollars of business, right? Which is why we get so much email, by the way, because someone on the other end is spamming us.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Let's do something else. And so there's a lot of nuance there where like, you know, it's really challenging. But sometimes as a therapist, the way to help someone is to like face the difficult stuff. And some people do not like that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Hold on a second. Whose responsibility is it for you to keep coming back? I see. See, now what you're doing is really subtle. You're making this very interesting tightrope that you want the therapist to walk. Right. Where they need to like push you, but push you the right amount because otherwise you're going to leave.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah. So I think it's super challenging. I know it sounds wild, but a big part of this, I mean, I've had plenty of patients who don't take responsibility and don't do their part. And we don't say that often enough.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, so I think one of the biggest things, and I think people don't do this enough, so one of the biggest things is talk about how the experience of therapy is going for you. So if you feel like you're not making progress, tell someone. Tell your therapist, hey, I've been coming here for six weeks. I feel like I'm not making progress. Or I've been coming here for six months.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I feel like I'm not making progress. So there's a really subtle thing where patients want to make their therapists proud. And oftentimes making them proud means pretending we're getting better. And I think that doesn't help anyone. And saying, hey, I'm not making progress. So this is what's working for me. This is what isn't working for me.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And then I think this is where there's like almost a really important test for a therapist, which is how much responsibility does the therapist take for that? And sometimes if they say, well, if you're not making any progress, that's your problem. This is where I think we get to your point about hold my feet to the fire, but also encourage me and teach me in the right way.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So I think that there's a lot of shared responsibility and it's kind of like if something isn't working, you got to talk about it. That's the most important thing to do.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yeah, so the first thing to understand is that screen time is not homogenous, right? So like playing a video game, the kind of video game you play, whether you watch YouTube, whether you watch short form or long form, all that is like very different. I literally wrote a book about her. So How to Raise a Healthy Gamer is all about guiding parents and helping them understand this problem.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
I think the biggest thing is that screen time is not monolithic. And the second thing is that to remember that all of the addictions around screens, we get addicted because they are doing something for our brain. So the problem with screen time addiction is when you become dependent on the screen to fulfill that need.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So when pornography becomes the main way that I satisfy myself sexually, that's a problem. When social media becomes, when I stop living my life in the real world and I start existing on social media exclusively, that becomes a problem. So I'd say the biggest thing about a healthy approach to screen time for kids, if I had to summarize it super fast, It is build a fulfilling life for them as kids.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So they should be doing some kind of sports. They should be socializing. They should be expressing themselves creatively, studying. And then the screen can be added on top of that. But it should never be a substitute for parenting. And there are other challenges here where like oftentimes we use it. I sometimes use a screen as a substitute for parenting because I don't have the bandwidth.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It's really hard to be a parent right now. So a lot of times parents will ask how much is too much. Well, it depends on what else is going on. So I've worked with some kids who will, you know, use screens for 20 hours a week and it's totally fine because they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing. So I think it's more about building positive stuff and then screens can be after that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But generally speaking, I don't advocate for any regular use. So my kids will be screen free, generally speaking, four days out of the week. And I actually rather like a binge approach to screen usage where we'll like plan something. Right. So like this Saturday, what are we going to do as a family? We're going to go play putt putt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And the next weekend, it's like we're going to have a Smash Brothers party or a Mario Kart family party. You know, we're going to play for like three hours until bedtime and we can stay up extra late. So I think that there's a way to like model usage. And it's kind of like the porn addiction where we don't want second screen usage.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
The most damaging screen usage is the screen usage that permeates our day. But keeping it localized to a particular area and time for a particular goal, I think is totally fine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So it's a great point. 40% of kids, I think, grow up in single parent households. The numbers are not in your favor. And it's a really good point that is it the screens themselves or is it also? And the answer is it's both.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It's the screen because the screen does have a particularly damaging effect, but it's also the circumstances and risk factors of the household that contribute to that mental health decline.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yes. The purpose of answering fan emails for you, the incremental difference is pretty small. But for the 11th person who gets a response, it's huge because they're excited.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
No, I think a lot of people resonate with the idea of an endless amount of crap coming into your email.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Yes. The idea that the trauma is incorrect is actually incorrect. When you have a negative experience, our brain is wired for survival. So the first thing you have to understand is that the brain does not weight positive and negative experiences one to one. Okay. Our brain is designed to weigh negative experiences way more heavily than positive experiences.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So if you and I get into a fistfight, let's say you break a bone and I don't. That's a win in my column. But then if I get into another fistfight and I break a bone, that's not like even Steven. That's like if breaking a bone in the way that we evolved is like a lethal injury. So food poisoning is lethal. Not anymore, but in the way that we evolved, food poisoning was lethal, potentially.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
We're biased against losing things. So we have this thing called loss aversion, right? Which is if you ask someone, hey, if I give you a 50% chance to win $250 or a 100% chance to walk away with $100, which one will you pay? Yeah, I'm taking $100. You're taking $100, right? So our brain is wired that way. You're talking about the Sunday scaries or whatever. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So our brain has a unique ability to feel future pain in the present. Tell me about it. That's the story of my life. I think a lot of people listening can relate. Right. So my favorite example is the last day of a vacation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
My favorite hobby is ruining that last day of the vacation. Technically, you're on vacation. You get a whole day to enjoy yourself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But that's not what you're doing. No. You're thinking about going back. And the interesting thing is that we know that hypotheticals are capable of activating our amygdala, which is our fear center. Right. So a hypothetical will make us feel fear in the present. It's not a hypothetical fear. It's like we feel the pain in the moment. Yeah. And that's the way that our brain works.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
But we cannot feel a hypothetical pleasure in the moment. We can have some degree of anticipation. Yeah. You can be paranoid about a car crash, but you can't imagine going to the movies and then get a rush of dopamine. It doesn't work like that. You actually have to go to the movies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
It's wild, right? So there's a fundamental imbalance in the brain. So our nucleus accumbens, our positive emotions cannot be activated by hypotheticals, whereas our negative emotions can be. We get robbed. This is what's really important about trauma is when we have a negative experience, our brain, for survival reasons, warns us against that experience.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So now if I've had one car accident, we literally know that it creates something called hypervigilance. So you become hyper aware when you go into the car, because most of the time when we're in the car, we're not paying attention to the car, right? Even when we're driving, a lot of that stuff is done on autopilot. You're not consciously thinking about everything all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
And so what happens with people with trauma is that their brain hyperactivates because it's had this negative thing. It's hypersensitive to potential problems. And we feel really, really, really bad. Now, our treatment for that is usually something called exposure and response prevention. That can be pretty useful where we expose ourself to the thing and then we prevent the response.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Our body will start to acclimatize to it. The tricky thing that a lot of people trip up with is that even when you go driving, you may not be doing response prevention. You're actually panicking and you're not really able to calm down. So it's almost like it's re-traumatizing, which is why it persists for so long.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Every time you drive, you're not able to calm yourself down and have a more neutral experience. All it does is ramp you up and then you feel paranoid. You start to use avoidance strategies, which is not actually response prevention. That's the biggest mistake people make.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
Absolutely. I think that's what a lot of people discover. So the people who end up healing from it discover ways to expose themselves to the dangerous situation and then acclimatize to it so that it no longer triggers that response. Because remember that anything that we do that doesn't reward us and that reward can be negative. Right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
So every time I play with a dog and I don't get bit, that will slowly extinguish the response. The biggest problem that a lot of people run into is that when they experience the response, they'll use an avoidance strategy. They think that they're, oh, I'm exposing myself and so shouldn't that fix things?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1114: Dr. Alok Kanojia | Breaking the Cycle of Digital Dependence
No, it's actually the opposite because now what you're doing is when you feel that negative fear and anxiety and you engage in an avoidance strategy, you're actually strengthening the anxiety's control over you, right? So when the anxiety acts... you act in a different way. So that actually strengthens the anxiety.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
And so I want you to take a listen to the extraordinary Dr. K. What a lot of people don't realize is that you have a certain capacity for pleasure and behavioral reinforcement when you wake up in the morning. You have only a certain number of units of pleasure and behavioral reinforcement.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
So our dopaminergic circuitry in the brain, in this part called the nucleus accumbens, basically this is what gives us a sense of pleasure and also reinforces our behavior. So the problem with dopamine is we wake up in the morning and our dopaminergic stores are full. So what happens is we have a reserve of dopamine.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
And if you want something with delayed gratification and your dopamine stores are high, you can work a lot. But then when you get the payoff, since you have a bunch of dopamine, you get a strong dopamine release and then you feel really good. So the way that this works is like, I want you all to think about this. Let's say I wake up first thing in the morning and then I work for four hours.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
And then what is the reward, the subjective reward that I feel after four hours of work? It's really positive. Yeah. Then if I use technology for four hours, it's kind of whatever. But if I use technology for the first four hours of the day, And then I try to go and do work. You're not going to. You're not going to.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
And even if you finish the same amount of work, you will not experience the same level of pleasure because your dopamine has literally been depleted. Got it. So the way that I kind of describe this is imagine that you have a lemon that is full of juice. Yep. So at the very beginning, when it's full of juice, a small squeeze gets you a lot of juice.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
But by the end, you have to squeeze a lot to get very little juice. This is how dopamine is in our brain.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
Yes. So technology is like a hard squeeze. So if we use it first thing in the morning, we squeeze the lemon really hard and we get all the juice out. And then you have nothing left to feel good about because all of your dopamine stores have been depleted.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over
We were on our BlackBerrys, like checking emails.