Why am I feeding my unhappiness?

I was mindlessly scrolling through my phone the other day, checking the same three apps; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram over and over again. I realised that I was just feeding my negativity, I was procrastinating to avoid what I needed to do. I was becoming disassociated with my work life and instead living in this world of negativity and fighting. I felt inadequate, my opinions were either not enough or too much, wherever I turned there were people fighting, bad news and nothing that would satisfy my creativity and craving for joy.

I knew what I needed to do, I was planning my lessons for Nail Art @ Noon and the 30 Nails in 30 Days Challenge and needed inspiration. But instead of looking for it, I told myself that scrolling through Facebook was searching for it. That doesn’t make sense though, I’m here to do nail art and instead, I’ve watched footage from a riot, read an argument between anti maskers and learnt about just about anything but what I needed.

Or instead I would look at things I knew I couldn’t do and make myself feel upset that I wasn’t able to do them. It’s like wanting to learn to drive but watching ski videos instead of taking driving lessons! So I stopped, put the phone down and actually took some time to think.

Now, does this ever happen to you to? You don’t always realise until you stop how negative all this social media can be for us. It feeds that black dog that hangs around us, ready to take over at your lowest points. What is this addiction to negativity and how do we stop it?

Don’t worry, I’ve looked it up so you don’t have to. It is called ‘Doom Scrolling’ ominous I know! Scrolling through endless negativity isn’t very good for you both mentally and spiritually. Ingesting this constant feed of peoples negative opinions, people you don’t know telling you things that aren’t true that then sit in your mind causing anxiety. It’s endless, and all of this can have an effect. We love it though, the hate, the negativity, we’re inexplicably drawn to the negative. Our brain is hardwired to the bad stuff in the world because it’s this mechanism that keeps us safe.

We need to know what is bad so we can avoid it or help change things into positives, this made sense when the world was less connected, you could help neighbours and friends and avoid the dangers locally. Now though we are made aware of things so far out of our control we feel powerless to help. So instead we sit with that weight and let it drag us further and further into the darkness. This is why we need each other, to support each other and not fill each others feeds with negativity.

Compliment someones work, comment something positive. Root out the negativity and remove it. We are all allowed to be critiqued and criticised as long as it is constructive. If you think my nails could look better another way or with a slight design change tell me! Let me use that to feed my creativity and create a positive feeling.

Social media holds such promise and potential, we can share good news with people all over the world. We can contact and lift up friends no matter where they are. But it also means we have to see things we do not want t see, feel things we do not want to feel and hear news we do not wish to hear. There is no way you will be able to single handily make the world a better place, but we can all single handily make someone day better. The bottom line is you can’t, so why force yourself to take it all in and hinder your mental health?

Has doom scrolling been effecting you? The recent manifestation of anxiety and depression could be a sign of doom scrolling and the effect on your psychology. You need to take a step back, breathe and check your feeds. Tell me what you have done to feed your creativity instead, even better, uninstall that social media outlet just for one week to split test your happiness.