Poor. Choices.

When I first started this site, I wanted to write about the intersection of personal finance, health, and technology. This quickly expanded to include relationships, education, and work.

My working theory is these are all interrelated aspects of modern life and you can’t improve one without being aware of the impact of the others over a lifetime.

In last month’s post, I laid out the new challenges of “keeping up with the Joneses” in the age smartphones, social media, and algorithms.

TL;DR it’s a lot harder now.

There’s a war for your attention and your mental health is the casualty. Along with your bank account, life satisfaction, and relationships.

It’s time to fight back.

The most effective counterattack you can launch is training your mind to take back control of your attention. Not only will this give you more time but I believe it will drastically improve your finances, health, relationships, and general contentment.

Changing your mind is easier than you might think, too. The problem is the changes occur below the surface and slowly at first.

In fact, everything you do “changes” your brain.

At the biological level, synapses fire from cues in your environment and send little transmitters with chemicals like dopamine or endorphins throughout the brain. These synapses wire together with other synapses to help you learn, and eventually form comfortable routes to enable repetition.

Our ancestors might have experienced this by coming across a fruit tree, eating the fruit, and feeling a spike of dopamine at the sweetness on their taste buds. They would register this as pleasurable and useful, and then associate the time and place with the reward so they can find the tree again next week.

We might experience this in the 21st century by downloading an app, posting a picture of our vacation and feeling a spike of dopamine as little red heart notifications begin signaling other people like and approve of our picture. We also register this as pleasurable and useful and begin to associate our phone and the app as a way to make us happy again in the future.

The problem is some of these changes are not like the others. Some changes might seem good at first, but end up making us feel worse in the long-run.

Doomscrolling, binging on cheeseburgers or Netflix, constantly checking Twitter due to FOMO, forming dependencies on alcohol, Adderral, or pornography and more are all the result of constantly trying to feel “good” in the moment. These activities all change the brain slowly over time.

Everything is fine in small doses.

But unlike our ancestors, we have almost no barriers to all these taxes on our mental health. They are infinitely accessible, cheaper by the day, and served up in concentrated and ultra-tailored ways 24/7 by the most well-funded companies in the world.

The good news is the changes compound over time in the positive direction, too, and can be sped up with minor adjustments to your life that you can start today.

So, how can you reverse the negative affects of these super powerful, high-caloric, low-value demands on your bodily attention?

By doing nothing.

But doing nothing can be harder than it seems.

Do it right now. Just sit for 30 seconds and do nothing right now. Think of nothing. Move nothing. Don’t scroll down. Just close your eyes and focus on your breath.

If you’re anything like most people, you will find this exceedingly difficult. And if you don’t find it difficult, you are likely thinking without even realizing you are thinking:

• “I’m sitting.”
• “I’m focusing on my breath.”
• “This is easy.”
• “That was a car outside.”
• “My hand itches.”
• “What should I have for dinner?”
• “I need to pee.”
• “I came here to read about money, why is he talking about breathing?”

Waiting for something to happen or trying to make something happen while doing this is a sign of not doing it well.

That’s why this is hard. But this effort changes your brain.

Sitting with yourself in silence makes you more content with life. It makes you more resilient in the face of annoyances both small and large. It helps you put everything into perspective. It allows you to remember you are just 1 of 100 billion humans that have ever lived on this pale blue dot floating through an infinite cosmos.

And it certainly makes you more capable of ignoring what the Joneses are up to.

This is roughly called mindfulness practice and it’s a great antidote to the social media algorithms, flashy commercials, and gaudy neighbors that have hijacked your attention.

Deleting or limiting time you spend using addictive apps on your phone can speed up your progress with mindfulness.

Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and meditation teacher, puts it this way, “Your life is your practice. You’re always paying attention to something. Simply notice what you notice in each moment.”

It need not be some grand practice either.

Oftentimes, I will practice a mindfulness moment whenever I get up from my desk. Over time, getting up from my desk has become a cue to focus on my breath for 2 seconds. That’s it. No big commitment at all.

Another fun exercise is counting the sounds you hear. It takes you out of planning for the future and remembering the past and puts you squarely in the present moment. From there, it’s much easier to stay focused on the breath.

Admittedly, I’m not great at this.

In fact, a few months ago, I texted a friend of mine to see if he and his wife wanted to join us for ice cream downtown. I then left my phone at home to practice being mindful and in the moment and completely forgot that I’d need to communicate with him.

When we returned home, my friend had called and texted me multiple times trying to find out where we’d be and at what time, etc.. He was rightfully chagrined at my invite and subsequent ghosting of him.

It’s hard and boring and uncomfortable, especially at first, but coming back to the practice time and time again is the whole point.

I have absolutely felt changed for the better from 5 years of experimenting with this practice.

There are Other Benefits, Too

Besides being more content with life in general, there are other benefits of slowing down and noticing what you notice in each moment.

Finances

Slowing down and noticing more about your life tends to help you feel grateful and satisfied with what you have, and step off the treadmill of consumerism more often.

This doesn’t mean you slowly let everything around you fall apart or forego spending more money as you earn more.

A balanced approach might look like spending half of any raise you get and saving the rest. Or skipping a few generations of phones each time you upgrade. I like to purchase “new” used cars that are a few years old. They typically have all the major safety features but without the price tag of a brand new car.

Time

Being a personal finance blogger, I’m obligated to remind you that time, not money, is the most valuable resource in life. But all the time in the world won’t do you any good if your attention is consumed by comparing yourself to others, wishing things were different, or always looking for the next big milestone.

For me, deleting all social media has been akin to every day feeling like Daylight Savings Time where we fall back and gain an hour.

That time can be filled with longer form content like reading, calling a friend, playing a narrative video game, or going for a walk.

Health

Your posture will slowly improve as you spend less time looking down at the little black rectangle in your hand.

Sleep

An overall reduction of screentime and bluelight from your phone (especially near bed time) will improve the quality of your sleep.

Relationships

You may feel more present in conversations with your friends and family as the itch to fill any little lull in conversation by checking your phone disappears.

I won’t tell you to delete all your social media apps (although that is often a surefire way of accruing all these benefits quicker). I’ll just ask you to consider this the next time you wish you had better furniture, or feel that a weekend has come and gone too quickly, or are upset at your partner or any other inconvenience in life.

It’s all related.