resetting my brain, maybe

So, long story short, I’m trying to get back to blogging again.

Actually, I’m trying to get back to a lot of things.

Contrary to popular belief, we are still in a pandemic. COVID numbers in OKC are rising, and my understanding is that it’s the same in most areas of the nation. No shocker, considering how the US government and most of the population have abandoned all reasonable efforts to curb the spread. But that’s another story that I shall not tell another time because I’m sick of talking about it.

Anyway, the fact that we’re still in a pandemic with no end in sight gets me all tied up in the worst kind of knots. So I compensate by distracting myself. And I mostly distract myself with Twitter, Instagram, TV, and food — pretty much in that order. This means I’m giving my brain easy but massive hits of dopamine. Which leads to my brain saying, “Hey, all those other things you need to get done and all those other things you used to enjoy but they took effort? Yeah, those don’t give us the hits we want, so we’re not doing them anymore. Now, where’s that phone?”

The things Brain and I haven’t been doing are things like painting, writing, reading actual books, organizing, and cleaning. Brain and I have known for a long time that this is a NOT OPTIMAL situation and that something needed to change. But change takes ALL THE EFFORT and effort does not give Brain the massive dopamine hits that Brain wants. And so.

Last week I made the mistake of asking Josh about his efforts to rewire his own noggin. He pointed out that what had been going on with his brain might be the same that’s going on with mine, namely most/all of the above. He helped me articulate all of it, and so I decided to embark upon this nerve-wracking journey of getting Brain back into some semblance of healthy relating to my own life.

So. Starting last night, I’m “fasting” from social media, TV, games on my phone, and sweets & baked goods — for seven days. After that comes a maintenance phase; I’m not sure how long that lasts, but I don’t need to know that right now. Eventually, I’ll pick up some of those previous habits again — but not all of them, and not to the extent to which I was engaging in them before. For example, I’ll start watching TV again but only a weekly movie with the family or 1-3 episodes of something per week instead of bingeing 5 episodes every night.

Yeah, that binge-watching plus binge-chocolate-eating was a super bad-for-Brain combo. Not to mention bad for overall health and fitness.

So instead of all the “bad” habits, I’ll be engaging in other things to keep me from jonesing. These other things include writing (more on that later), editing, painting, reading, and working on various projects I’ve put off for forever. I’m not pressuring myself to complete anything; but hopefully this entire endeavor will lead to some permanent better habits that get me off my ass.

To be fair to myself, I have been reading books and I have been getting off my ass to exercise multiple times per week. It’s just that I can’t focus on a book long enough to really enjoy it, and between workouts I’m far too sedentary. And then I complain that my clothes don’t fit. So yeah, it was time to do something grown-up about Brain and our relationship.

Here I am reminded of what someone somewhere said about how human brains named themselves and also don’t like how they look outside of skulls. And here I sit, using my brain to anthropomorphize my brain and mentally stand at a distance to my own mental functioning. There’s something philosophical about this. I bet there’s a name for it. I hope the name isn’t “psychosis.” Am I standing right behind you?

Anyway. Hi, blog. I’m back.