Social Media: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

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Welcome everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Motivate Grind Succeed podcast. The show that gives you 100% fluff free, guaranteed practical and useful tips with every single episode so you can live up to your true character potential. No spam, no long intros or peer information to help get you going. Now, if you're new to this show, welcome.

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I know you're going to get a ton of value from this week episode. If you're returning, welcome back. A quick favor to everyone who is listening. If you are new or returning, it doesn't matter to me. I love all you all the same.

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If at any point in this episode you get some value, please share the episode with somebody and go ahead and rate the show what you think it's worth. So with all that housekeeping out of the way, let's get started with this week's episode. And this week we're talking about how social media is a drug. Now, if you listen to last week's episode, I talked about not seeking external validation and one of those ways was to essentially get off of social media. So I felt I needed to dive into that just a little bit deeper.

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So that's what this week's episode is about. So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly suggest that you go ahead and listen to that as this is a more of a deep dive into .1 that I made on last week's episode. So there's not going to be a whole ton of like, I mean, there's going to be a little bit of CTAs in this one because 100% fluff free guarantee, but we'll get to that in a second. So I just want to give a little background and then we'll get into that.

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So starting this episode off, if these past few years have taught me anything, it's that you are what you eat, literally and figuratively. And we're going to be digesting now what social media is actually doing to you and why it's so important that you control the social media that you intake. So going back, depending on what you're listening to, this, I don't know how long ago it was, but back in 2020 when the pandemic started, a lot of people started scrolling through their social media feeds and overall social media usage spiked. This spike meant whatever people were being exposed to on social media was being consumed more and more and more. And to make matters even worse, since everyone was posting about the pandemic, that's what they were being bombarded with.

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So naturally, people's mental and emotional health was going to take a toll, at least partly due to all of the information that was being thrown at them at the time. And so it got me thinking and it got me researching a little bit onto how social media affects us physically, mentally and emotionally. So after doing a little bit of research, here's what I found out and I'm here to share with you my decent amount of knowledge from my googling adventures. So when we consume social media or when we even go on our phones, a combination of blue light emittance, hence what these glasses are for. They're blue light blockers, flashing lights, keyboard pop ups when you type a letter, and maybe a sound if you rock with that as well.

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And many, many, many, many more play into the many hits of dopamine. One of the many neurotransmitters responsible for the feelings that you feel. But this one in specific is responsible for feelings and emotions. And specifically good feelings and good emotions. Okay?

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So people who make these devices, they have people who understand color psychology because different colors make you feel different things, right? You see the color red, you probably typically think some kind of anger or rage. Or when you see something blue or green, you might think calming, feel calming, pasture. Why do you think the Windows XP background was a nice grassy plane with beautiful blue sky? It was calming.

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It was relaxing. It was able to invite you into the atmosphere. So it's all about color psychology and other people who understand about how humans work and how different kinds of subtleties in human psychology, they understand about these little dings, these notification alerts, the vibrations, the sounds, the visual stimuli and other kinds of things that are going on add to the dopamine hits, which is why people are so glued to their phone. It's a constant stream of a slightly heightened level of dopamine. And if you know anything about drugs I know I thought about that.

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It's a really weird analogy to make here, but stay with me for this sentence. If you think about drugs, when people take drugs, what the drugs do is it is infusing a bunch more of this artificial neurotransmitter that's giving you a huge rush of what would not be natural. And because your receptors in your brain can't handle that, you have this incredible high. And what happens is after the drug leave your system and you're back down to your normal baseline, it doesn't feel like enough. Because once your brain has experienced that high, it wants it again and again and again and again.

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And that's where things get hooked. Which is why we keep going on our phones all the time, again and again and again and again because it's the hits of dopamine. Okay? Now, take Instagram as another example, right? So we'll get off the drug point now because that's not the best analogy, but the best one I could come up with at the time, right?

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So take instagram, for example. You're flooded with images, you're flooded with videos. You're flooded with reals just everything. And as you continue to consume these things, they become a part of you. Now, you won't literally start growing out new sepia filters and chroma filter here.

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And this filter, you won't be doing all of that. But the images you see, the news that you read, will become part of what you remember and what you discussed because you consumed it again, figuratively and literally. You are what you eat. So what is it that I'm getting at here, right? Am I saying remove all your social media?

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Not quite. Some people do and they go on a social media detox and they feel a sense of relief and there is nothing wrong with it at all, right? Sometimes that needs to be done. And if you feel like you need to, by all means go for it. If you need this cold turkey, quit a social media platform because it's just too much, then by all means go ahead and do that.

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I know people personally who have done this, including myself, and they could not be happier with themselves and their quality of life. Knowing that I can say this for certain, uninstalling your social media, not necessarily deleting your account, but at least uninstalling the app from your phone, at least for a period of time, can help you get some sanity back, if that's what you're looking for. But sometimes it may not even require a full uninstall of Instagram or a full deletion of your account. Now, if your account is just like you don't even know where to start, you might be better off just deleting the account and starting fresh. However, sometimes one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.

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So what I usually recommend first, if you don't want to get rid of the app or you don't want to uninstall it, or like for me, for example, I use Instagram for the podcast and everything, so that's something I can't really get rid of. What I would recommend as I did this myself and I've talked about this on a few episodes before, it works absolute wonders. That is to reevaluate my circle of influence. So if you have no idea what this means, you can go back to episodes eight and nine where I discuss creating and controlling your circle of influence and eventually I'm going to be remaking that episode again. So that way you will be able to have a little bit more of a recent episode to be able to refer back to.

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But for now, episodes eight and nine. One day, right, I was going through Instagram, so story time, I was going through semi mindlessly and honestly, I felt myself getting to a worse and worse mood. And so I said, you know what, enough is enough. And I performed the relationship quadrant that I talk about in episode nine on every single individual that I followed, which at the time was well over 300 people. And after painstakingly, man, let me tell you, it was painstaking.

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It was absolutely painstaking. I did this for over an hour and a half or so. My following list went from 300 people and business accounts and other kind of brand accounts and things like that to around half, around 156 ish people and business accounts. And as of recently, I don't have my phone next to me. As of recently.

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I think I'm on my personal account. I think I'm down to now, like 115, right? So I'm constantly like, cutting things off that I don't need, right? So I cut down that list because they either provided very minuscule or absolutely zero value to Ye boy. Okay?

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They were not going down the same trajectory in life that I was planning on going down. And again, no hard feelings for these people, no hard feelings for these accounts. But you are what you eat. Besides most people who have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of followers, if one person unfolds and they're probably not going to be chasing you down and asking you why you unfollowed them, right? Unless they're absolutely glued to their followers list for some reason or another.

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I don't know why they would be. But hey, here's what it is. So that's what I recommend. I'd always recommend before you go uninstalling or removing your account or whatever it may be, first, at least try to whittle down what people and accounts and brands and things do not serve you in that purpose. Finally, what I want you to do is focus on your breathing.

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Now hear me out for a second. Hear me out for a second. I know it sounds kind of out of place, but when you focus and control on your breathing and you focus on it with some breathing methods such as box breathing or the Wim HOF method or whatever it is that you choose, there are studies that say that deep breathing does, in fact calm you down and release stress. And believe it or not, it does help. I was a skeptic at first, thinking, man, how can breathing help?

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I already breathe. It's like, let me not get into that.

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I was going to say something. Let me not say that. I'll leave that joke to the comedian to play it off a little bit better than I can. So what I did was I sat down and I gave it a shot, right? I was like, you know what, it's not going to take me that long.

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It'll take me like two minutes tops, right? Two minutes tops to try these breathing things. I can spare two minutes, so okay, I can spare two minutes. So I did the box breathing method with 4 seconds. So 4 seconds inhale four second hold, four second exhale, four second hold, right?

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And so I did that three to five times in a row, and it surprisingly worked out very well. Okay? So right now, I actually want you to try it, okay? We're actually going to do something a little bit different, and we're actually going to try it right now, right? Because I know some people will be like, oh, I'll try it later.

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Try it. No, we're not going to do it for two minutes. We're just going to do two rounds of box breathing. So what you do is assuming you're in a safe place or anything, you don't have to close your eyes or nothing, right? It's going to breathe with me.

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So I'm watching the timer that I have because I'm recording this. So it's recording in time. So we're going to do 4 seconds. We're going to do four second inhale, four second hold, four second exhale, four second hold. All right, so make sure you're nice and seated, nice and comfortable.

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And then I want you to breathe in 4 seconds starting now.

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Good. Now hold. 4 seconds.

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Okay, now exhale and hold.

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Okay, now inhale again and hold for 4 seconds.

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Now exhale.

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See, I already feel calmer already. Just after that already. And we just did two rounds. We just did two rounds. Each one was about 4 seconds.

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So 16 seconds each. Round times two, that's 32. You spent 32 seconds roughly breathing. And I guarantee you most of you all out there will already feel a bunch calmer. Now imagine doing this three to five times, right?

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Imagine taking two minutes and doing this and man, I'm telling you, it'll calm you down so much. So I highly recommend trying out box breathing, giving it a shot whenever you are feeling that you're stressed out for anything, or you're going to give a public speech or something and you're just like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm stressed out and everything. Box breathe, man. Box breathe.

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Breathe. Just breathe. You'll be surprised at how shallow we all breathe the next time that you do it. Also make sure you're not breathing into your chest. Make sure you're breathing into your diaphragm belly.

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Breathing. If you breathe into your chest, how most people do it's very shallow. It's not deep. You're not getting as much oxygen to your entire body as you should be because you're breathing so shallowly. Which is why sometimes if you hear an episode, you'll probably hear me breathing.

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And sometimes because I'm breathing in deep into the diaphragm, into the belly. So that's what's actually going on, not breathing into the chest, that helps out a lot too. So again, I recommend giving this a shot. Not going to drag on this point anymore. It's breathing.

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Give it a shot. Give it a try. Like I said, three to five times usually calms you down pretty well. And like I said, I've been doing it for a few months, and so I guess they're doing it over the past couple of months. Like, I think three or four months, I think, or so I've been doing it for.

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It works out fantastically. So again, social media is a drug. What should you do? The two main call to actions right now is one, reevaluate the circle that you are exposing yourself to on a day to day basis. With that social media.

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And number two, after you've been finally doing a little bit of a mini detox, focus on your breathing. Focus on trying to be here in the present moment and focusing on what makes you happy in the here and now and not using anything overly artificial. And with that, guys, thank you so much for coming to another week's episode of the Motorbike Rearrange podcast. Before you go, guys, you know, every single week, three quick requests for you subscribe or follow to the show, like the show whatever platform you're listening on that allow you to be able to listen to when new episodes are released. I would be greatly appreciative if you could do that because we drop new episodes every single week.

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Number two, let me know what you thought about this episode. Leave a comment DM voice message on the website completely and totally up to you. And lastly, follow me on social media. I guarantee I'm not going to scam you with a bunch of stuff. This is actually a healthy social media.

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The account, all the links that will be in the description. Take care of yourselves and I will see you all in the next episode. Bye.