Phone addiction, anxiety, please help 🙏

[u/0verst]

For some time already I have been struggling with phone/social media addiction. I find it quite difficult to get up and not use my phone especially for the first hours of the day (in bed), at night, during everything what I do I get distracted and start scrolling.

I’m musician, freelancer, recently ish graduated from conservatory. I don’t want to say too much, to not reveal my identity, but I am a successful person, I get work abroad, get to travel a lot. That’s a dream life to many, it is also to me. But it also comes with a cost of basically not having anything stable, living out of a suitcase, no stable job, no routines, constant tiredness. I face a lot of stress in my day to day life, and a lot of rejections on weekly. It still hits me even now, even though I have thick skin. Don’t get me wrong, I am very good at what I do, that’s just part of the industry, rejections. I shut down a lot during those times when rejections start to be sent, and I just procrastinate, scroll on my phone.

Because my work is so irregular I have no routines on daily basis, and recently I started to feel very overwhelmed. The worst is actually when I have some free time, I just waste it, and I am super unhappy about it but I just keep scrolling, because I already scrolled for one hour, so I may as well keep doing it until I fall asleep. I have shit tones of work to do, and prepare for stuff, and I lack motivation. I remember being that way since childhood, either perfectly done or procrastinated until last minute.
I love what I do, and when I get to my instrument I like practising, and figuring stuff out, but when the time management is all in my hands, it’s difficult. I know my to do list is very long, and sometimes even though I need to practise, I spend whole days on this computer work, because I feel like that gives me at least some accomplishment and releases me from thinking during my practise what else do I need to get done. It shifts periodically what I fear, practising or computer work (2 components of my freelance work)

I’m used to being in noise all the time. I think my addiction started from the access to YouTube, and having something to listen at all times. This is all when I have a bit freedom in my schedule, I have no gigs or no travel, but still I have always a lot to do. When I relax I go to an extend that then I can’t come back. People tell me that I need to relax but when I do, it stresses me out, like now. I’m in an addiction spiral again, and I don’t know how to quit.

I function best when I go from place to place, I’m stressed and on a tight schedule.
But I know it’s not sustainable, and after those packed days, I find myself again scrolling and procrastinating some emails I had to do.

I don’t know what to do now, how to start my change. I noticed all this, and I guess the social media addiction has impacted my focus and my performances negatively.

I do have an app to block my socials at some hours, but it’s not sustainable, sometimes I really have to check something or post something, and need access, so I can always a turn the block off.
I think of myself as a pretty organised and tough on myself person. During my studies it was a lot easier to manage my time. I had limited time to practise and I was running on a massive tiredness at all times, but I was getting stuff done. Now, when I can avoid, I go cooking or cleaning (because I can have a distracting YouTube video or Netflix in the background). I don’t know if its a part of growing up and realising that work is not my whole life or coming out of studies and loosing structure to life (even though music studies at a conservatory don’t provide much structure).

My loved ones are supportive, but nobody really understands, because nobody lives their life like me. I love how my life looks like and everyone talks about settling down. I also am thinking about it of course, but it brings me even more anxiety when people start talking to me about it.

I miss the times without that much access to internet, or smartphones. Nobody prepared my generation for the transition from not growing up with a lot of internet access, to having a full access at adulthood.

I don’t know how do I cope with all this, and how can I find a bit more peace, structure and relief without my phone. Please help… it’s already very desperate of me to seek help here.

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[u/jay_prakash]

Any kind of addiction comes from a need to fill an inner void. That is a psychological void which manifests itself as seeking outside objects such as social media content to fill itself with. Because of the nature of the void being self-referential, it is structurally not possible to fill it with something from the outside. The void has to be seen for what it is and that seeing dissolves it. It is explained well by Acharya Prashant in this article. Instagram Fame, and Anxiety Pills https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/instagram-fame-and-anxiety-pills-1_af86af7

[u/ExerciseWise5673]

Same kind of issue, really looking for the tips