Neuroscientist Explains: The FASTEST Way To Heal Brain Rot

Right, have you noticed that it's getting harder and harder to concentrate? Your ability to focus on

concentrate? Your ability to focus on the things you care about is just going and you're finding yourself without even realizing just doom scrolling your life away. I've been there. I understand

away. I've been there. I understand

exactly what is happening in your brain and it's important to understand this hijacking of your senses isn't just [music] some crazy sophisticated algorithm designed to keep you hooked.

It's actually something that was predicted about the brain almost 200 years ago. I'm TJ Power, a

years ago. I'm TJ Power, a neuroscientist and number one Sunday Times best-selling author and in this video I'm going to teach you how you create a brain that loves doing hard things, that can focus on the things

that you care about and that can cope with the onslaught of AI dopamine-driven tech that is just going to keep coming at us and will block you from achieving your dreams if you don't [clears throat]

figure out how to manage [music] it.

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau retreated to a cabin in the woods [music] and predicted this exact moment. He

predicted that society was beginning even back then to prefer fast-moving trivial ideas over deep thought and he believed that if left unchecked, it

would lead to a progressive erosion of our cognitive [music] ability. He called

it a collective cognitive decline. The

neuroscience is now here to prove that what he foresaw is coming into reality.

A major new study has just found that those with smartphone addiction, and trust me, I have been there, are experiencing an acceleration in decline of gray matter in three [music] key

brain regions. Your left insula, your

brain regions. Your left insula, your temporal cortex, and your hippocampus.

These are areas of your brain responsible for your emotion regulation, your impulse control, and your memory processing. And this is what brain rot

processing. And this is what brain rot really is. It's your brain losing the

really is. It's your brain losing the ability, losing the strength to do hard things because it's no longer being challenged [music] in the correct way.

There is a clear answer. Arguably, many

generations are falling to this brain rot. And I've struggled with this like

rot. And I've struggled with this like crazy. I got an iPhone at like 11 years

crazy. I got an iPhone at like 11 years old. I'm the top end of Gen Z for

old. I'm the top end of Gen Z for context. And I spent, I don't know, 10,

context. And I spent, I don't know, 10, 12 years just stuck inside my phone. And

then as the phones accelerated in their capacity to hack the dopamine, I just got more and more hooked inside just like distracting myself from what I care about. The good news is, a huge new

about. The good news is, a huge new study has found that a specific digital detox can effectively erase 10 years of age-related cognitive decline specifically in the realm of sustained

attention. And this is what you want to

attention. And this is what you want to get back in your life. This is the opposite of brain rot. Sustained

attention, the ability for you right now to sit and actually watch this whole video is what sustained attention is. In

your body right now, you probably feel this urge like, ah, kind of nice just like click on WhatsApp, click on my email, maybe like check my phone, go on Instagram, watch some shorts cuz that will like deliver the dopamine quicker to my body. It's going to be okay. Our

brains can learn to hold our attention on things. They really can. And I have

on things. They really can. And I have so struggled with this. The tech inside these phones now is cooking us alive. It

really is. And what I do at Dose Lab is I run research study. Dose Lab is my research lab focused on dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins.

[snorts] We get people to run different experiments in their life. We've now

taken over 108,000 people through our training. We get them to run these

training. We get them to run these different experiments so they can assess for themselves whether they see any improvements in their brain strength, their brain capacity, and their overall

life as a result of testing different ways of living. We began testing something that has an unbelievably powerful effect on the exact goals here: training your brain to do hard things,

focusing for longer, managing the distraction, managing the addiction to the tech. This challenge that I'm going

the tech. This challenge that I'm going to recommend you do that will heal the brain rot is called meals, bedroom, bathroom. Meals, bedroom, bathroom is a

bathroom. Meals, bedroom, bathroom is a 72-hour challenge. So just so you know,

72-hour challenge. So just so you know, as you watch this video, you are committing yourself to a 72-hour challenge from the moment this video finishes. Meals, bedroom, bathroom

finishes. Meals, bedroom, bathroom involves not seeing a screen when you're eating a meal, when you're in your bedroom, and when you're in the bathroom for the next 3 days. This is going to be hard. That's the whole point. The only

hard. That's the whole point. The only

way to create a brain that isn't rotting is to do hard things. So, if we go through the meals, I personally reached a point where I basically could not eat food. I could not consume food unless

food. I could not consume food unless YouTube was playing at the same time. If

I was eating on my own, it was just YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. I would crave it like a drug. And I've been addicted to many things. And honestly, few things are as addictive as wanting to nail

YouTube with food at the same time. So,

the first one is is it possible to eat your meals without screens? And you can do it. It's just going to be a test, and

do it. It's just going to be a test, and it's going to be a hard test. It's going

to require your brain to reset and rest.

It's going to require your attention to just be on your food. And the boredom, the boredom is where you recover. So

often we see boredom as a signal to move our self towards stimulating ourself.

Really, you should see boredom as a training muscle within your brain to get your attention stronger and stronger.

Just like in the gym, you get the signal of like, "Oh, this is hard." But you have to keep doing it if you want to build any muscle. The same occurs with your brain. If you want sustained

your brain. If you want sustained attention, the signal of I need distraction has to be resisted in order to grow it. You then have your bedroom.

Bedroom is hard. You have a lot of reasons, I'm sure, in your mind as to why you need your screens in your bedroom. It might be emergency calls in

bedroom. It might be emergency calls in the night that never arrive. It might be needing an alarm to wake you up. It

might be sound to fall asleep to. All of

these things I have struggled with myself, and all of them can be solved.

The only thing we suggest is you run the experiment. If you do it for the next 3

experiment. If you do it for the next 3 days, and you discover, "Oh, it's okay.

Like there weren't any emergencies." And

if there were an emergency service crew would probably have helped with that intense emergency. And you can challenge

intense emergency. And you can challenge me on this in the comments. We're

creating illusions and justification as to why we have to have this screen bias all the time. But it's not the reality.

So many people We've got over 100,000 people to get their phones out their bedroom. They're all okay. I've never

bedroom. They're all okay. I've never

had a single email saying, "Oh, because I did that, now I didn't attend to this emergency." I've never had that once

emergency." I've never had that once ever. Then we have the alarm. You could

ever. Then we have the alarm. You could

put the phone outside the room and wake yourself up with an alarm. You could buy an alarm clock on Amazon for a few pounds. You could go to bed early enough

pounds. You could go to bed early enough that your body wakes naturally by 6:00 7:00. Whatever seems possible. But

7:00. Whatever seems possible. But

remember, this isn't an experiment you have to do for your whole life. This is

do it for the next 72 hours. And if you experience a measurable improvement in your brain rot, then you'll your self decide if you want to keep going. You

have the sound to fall asleep to. That's

hard. For 10 years, I listened to Friends, the TV show, to fall asleep.

Every day. Friends on. Friends on. So

when I started trying to fall asleep in the quiet, my brain be like, "Rah!" What

I found very effective is at 9:30, you go for a shower. You shower in the pitch black. A little bit of light from the

black. A little bit of light from the corridor so you can see something. But

it's very de-stimulating. I call it input fasting, where it's like you stop any input coming in, your brain de-stimulates. You get out the hot

de-stimulates. You get out the hot shower, your body then actually tries to cool itself down, which is good for falling asleep. Just lie in bed. I find

falling asleep. Just lie in bed. I find

if you think grateful thoughts, it's very useful to try and get yourself to go to sleep. But you just lie there, and just patient, and you just keep saying yourself, "I'm training my brain to not have brain rot anymore." And if you have negative thoughts, try and replace them

with positive ones. Find some of the goodness in your brain. There's a lot there to be found. So you have your meals, you have your bedroom, then you have the bathroom. For me, this is so embarrassing, but I almost saw me in the toilet as like a yes, now I get to go

scroll my phone and not work. That's

basically the reality of where I found myself. And that is not good. I would

myself. And that is not good. I would

sit there, and you could spend like 10 minutes sitting there just like scrolling absolute nonsense. You come

off, and you're just like, "I don't remember any of that." Not taking your phones to the bathroom causes you to be like you were as a child, where you're looking around thinking, "What am I going to read?" You're like picking up like a toilet roll. No, can't read that.

Picking up like a soap bottle. These

moments are what are going to reset your brain. And this challenge is very

brain. And this challenge is very simple. Meals, bedroom, bathroom, 72

simple. Meals, bedroom, bathroom, 72 hours. And it could actually work. How

hours. And it could actually work. How

many videos have you watched that you've probably have thought, "Yeah, no, I really really should fix my focus. I

should really have fixed my attention span. I should really have fixed my

span. I should really have fixed my addiction to these screens." But then haven't actually done it. I did the same thing for like a decade. But if you do this challenge, you will actually see a huge result because you're going to be

forced into boredom and boredom is the cure here. It really is and I hate

cure here. It really is and I hate boredom. I grew up as like the most ADHD

boredom. I grew up as like the most ADHD brain nightmare in school. I am the brain rot generation and there is an answer here. If we come back to the

answer here. If we come back to the research, we've got left insula, temporal cortex, and hippocampus.

Emotion regulation, impulse control, and memory. Those first two, firstly, are so

memory. Those first two, firstly, are so crucial because you don't want a system that can't regulate emotions where you're just like up, down, up, down, positive, negative, happy, depressed. I

have navigated those cycles for years where I'd be like really happy and then I'd be like depressed and just feel awful and my dopamine be crashed from the scrolling and then I'd be happy again. Imagine a life where your

again. Imagine a life where your emotions are more regulated and you're like, "Oh, how do you feel?" Like pretty good most of the time. That's within

your reach. It's all about just taking control of the addiction to these screens. Then you have your impulse

screens. Then you have your impulse control. If you have a goal in your

control. If you have a goal in your life, so you're thinking, "Oh, I've got this particular business goal, career goal, financial goal." Maybe that requires sustained attention on your computer. Then you may have many goals

computer. Then you may have many goals outside of that. You might have family-based goals, health goals, whatever it may be. That goal is going to require a determined brain.

Short-form content literally trains you to be the most poorly determined human on planet Earth because it's like, "I can't even watch this 14-second video. I

can only watch it for 2 seconds, 6 seconds, 2 seconds, 4 seconds." So

you're killing determination. You need

to get your determination back. We're

living in a world where it's changing fast and I'm not some crazy doomer that we're all screwed. I like to try and have optimism, but one thing you're going to need in the world as it rapidly accelerates and shifts and changes is

determination and attention so that you can find your way through. And then we have your memory. A huge new study of over 450,000 people has found that 4

hours a day of leisure-based screen time is directly connected to premature cognitive decline. That means dementia.

cognitive decline. That means dementia.

You don't want a brain with dementia. I

watched my grand go through the most horrific dementia. I'm sure you may have

horrific dementia. I'm sure you may have seen someone go through it, and it is no joke, that disease. It is a horrific experience. The fact that we're now

experience. The fact that we're now accelerating and increasing the likelihood of getting it, that's insane.

You have to understand these deeper motives, cuz when you understand the deeper motives, it's like, "Okay, I actually don't want dementia. I don't

want depression. I want to have determination." These are the things

determination." These are the things that create like a desire to be like, "Now I have to get this under control."

And the final thing to understand here is today is the easiest it's ever going to be to break your addiction to screens. Because the AI is only going to

screens. Because the AI is only going to get so much better at delivering us the most unbelievably perfect content to get your attention. It's just going to get

your attention. It's just going to get harder and harder, and if you don't do it now, 5 years from now, it's going to be like quitting a class A drug in comparison to alcohol. It's just going to [music] get more and more difficult.

So, are you willing to take this challenge? What I'd recommend is maybe

challenge? What I'd recommend is maybe doing this with someone like maybe you've got a partner you live with, or a roommate, or a friend that you can tag, and say, "Can you try and do this with me? 72 hours, meals, bedroom, bathroom,

me? 72 hours, meals, bedroom, bathroom, no screens when you eat, when you go into your bedroom, when you go to the bathroom." And every time you think,

bathroom." And every time you think, "This is difficult," I want you to understand that there's an area of your brain called your anterior mid-cingulate cortex. It lives deep in the center of

cortex. It lives deep in the center of your brain. It's often called the

your brain. It's often called the tenacious part of your brain that wills you to do hard things. Every time you resist the screens, you sit there and think, "Ah, I'm eating this meal without a screen. I'm so bored." Or you get into

a screen. I'm so bored." Or you get into bed and you think, "Ah, I don't have a screen, and it's difficult." Your AMCC, your anterior mid-cingulate cortex, is growing. It's strengthening. And that

growing. It's strengthening. And that

center within your brain is then going to connect to all aspects of your life where you want more determination. Many

of my generation and the generations around me are going to get [music] cooked by the brain rot. Can you be the person that takes on the 72-hour meals, bedroom, bathroom challenge, and [music] teach yourself that you have control

over your machine, and empower yourself with the freedom that these machines are amazing tools, but they can either imprison you or liberate you. Which path

are you going to choose?