HealthyGamerGG - Struggling With Video Game Addiction

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Struggling with video game addiction? 🕹️ Dr. K shares insights and solutions in this must-listen episode! 🧠 Learn how to balance your love for games and life. 💡 Join us on the journey to overcome gaming addiction. 💪 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So if we really think about it, when we conquer our desire to play video games and we engage in another behavior, there is no reward. In fact, what we actually experience is punishment from that behavior. And if our brain experiences punishment when we go to the gym or when we're productive, what kind of behavior do you think it's going to avoid and what kind of behavior do you think we're going to reinforce? Hello, Sarasas, when Mangau Pasad here. If you want to get control of your life and understand how the mind. Find works, check out a DIY guide to mental health. The link is in description, huh? I want to talk to you all today about how to stop playing video games.

This is something that I struggled with a lot, and a lot of the people in our community have talked about this a lot, where, you know, you should be doing stuff besides playing video games or maybe using the internet or social media. And we kind of know in the back of our mind that we should be more productive, maybe I should be exercising, maybe I should learn how to cook, maybe I should do my schoolwork,

maybe I should work on my resume. there are all kinds of things that we know we should be doing. The problem, though, is that video games are actually just way more fun, right? That's why they sort of become addictive, because any moment that we spend playing a video game, there's going to be some kind of reward, whereas all this other stuff that we should be doing, for some reason, it's just really hard to motivate ourselves to do that. And so what do we end up doing? We end up trying to conquer that desire.

We wake up in the morning, and the first thought in my mind is, okay, like, I want to play games today. I don't want to work on my resume. I don't want to exercise. I don't want to do any of this stuff. And if you're like me, what you end up doing is fighting with yourself, right? You try to conquer that desire. You try to use willpower and discipline. And you win for a day or maybe two.

But if you're like me, eventually the real challenge is that you know you're going to lose. Right. So you can conquer that desire with willpower on day one. You can conquer that desire with willpower on day two, maybe even day three or day four. But inevitably, you're going to slip, right? You're going to go back to the video game. And the challenge that I faced, and maybe you feel this way too, is that conquering your desires to play games feels like a war that you will eventually lose. Sure, you can win a battle here, you can win a battle there, but that desire to play the game and that constant struggle that you have is never going to go away.

And so what I'd love to share with you all today is actually how to change that. Because what I've discovered, and this is what's so bizarre, is that you can actually change that. And I know that if you sound kind of skeptical of that, let me just start by sharing the story from a patient that I worked with as an addiction psychiatrist. So I don't know if you'll know this, but, you know, alcohol is quite addictive. So I noticed something really strange when I was working with patients who were sober, which is that once they were sober for a while, they started to make really weird statements. Like they would say, yeah, I don't even think about alcohol anymore. It's not actually a problem at all. I don't even want to drink.

And I got really confused by that because I had sort of been raised to believe that the whole point of being addicted to alcohol. is that you have this genetic predisposition. You have these like chemicals in your brain and these neurotransmitters and neurons that make you addicted to the substance. That you crave the substance, you want the substance. And despite the fact that it ruined your entire life, you can't resist the substance. And so I started to wonder a little bit, wait, hold on a second, what's going on here? Because these people aren't sober anymore through willpower.

They're not sober through conquering their desire. Something has changed about the way that their desire manifests. or more importantly, they actually desire to not drink anymore. And so what I'd love to share with you all today is how to shape your desire so that you no longer even want to play video games. And that may sound absolutely insane, but actually it's quite simple. And the main principle that we're going to focus on today is behavioral reinforcement. So let's start by understanding behavioral reinforcement within video games.

So generally speaking, we have this circuit in the brain or this part of our brain called the nucleus accumbens. and the nucleus accumbens is a very dopaminergic circuit. So usually what happens is when dopamine is released in the nucleus accumbens, it reinforces a behavior. We want to do it more. And the subjective feeling of reinforcement in the nucleus accumbens is actually enjoyment, pleasure. So when we sort of talk about all this dopaminergic stuff like social media or video games or things like that,

we enjoy doing it and those behaviors get reinforced, which is why they're so hard to kick. And this is the basic problem with video games, right? is that they're fun. So every time we play them, that circuit of our brain gets activated. We get a little spurt of dopamine and then the behavior gets reinforced. The next day when we wake up, we're thinking about video games. We want to play video games because our brain, our nucleus accumbens is like, hey, we need more dopamine. So let's play again. And so then we fall into this trap of, okay, since I have this natural impulse to play the video game, that's what my nucleus accumbens wants. I try to restrict it. I try to conquer it. I try to control it. And so let's understand a little bit

about what happens in terms of reinforcement when we actually control the impulse to play a video game. So let's say I wake up in the morning and I want the video game. I want that dopamine energy expert, but I decide not to. So I use my willpower. I activate my frontal lobes and I control the desire. And then what I'll do? I'll say, okay, I need to be productive. So I will go and exercise. I'm going to go to the gym today. So then I go to the gym and I work out for, I was planning on going for an hour, but I'm kind of deconditioned because I play games all day. So after about 20 minutes, and puffing, and then I come home because I'm exhausted, right? So I want you all to think about that for a second.

What do you think I'm actually reinforcing in that moment? Do you think that I'm saying to myself, yeah, I went to the gym today? No, actually, I feel terrible. I feel out of breath. I feel ashamed because I was going to work out for an hour and I could only last 20 or 25 minutes. I feel kind of embarrassed with myself. I don't really feel good. So if we really think about it, what am I actually doing in that moment?

Am I actually reinforcing the desire to exercise? absolutely not. And the same is true for something like being productive for a day. Right. So let's say I have a test that's a week from today and I decide that I'm not going to procrastinate, right? So I'm going to study for a little while. So I get up and I force myself to study and I study for two or three hours and how do I feel at the end of that study? Do I actually feel great about myself? Usually no. I start to think all these kinds of thoughts like, man, like I can't believe that I have to do so much work to do. I wish I had gotten started earlier. there are all kinds of thoughts that I have, but I usually don't feel great.

I don't think at the end of those two hours, man, I'm definitely going to get an A a week from now, right? This is, I'm doing so awesome. So if we really think about it, when we conquer our desire to play video games and we engage in another behavior, there is no reward. In fact, what we actually experience is punishment from that behavior. And if we are, if our brain experiences punishment when we go to the gym or when we're productive, what kind of behavior do you think it's going to avoid? and what kind of behavior do you think we're going to reinforce? So even spurts of productivity or spurts of doing the right thing

actually leads to avoid inspires our brain. We actually start to avoid productive stuff because we actually don't enjoy it at all when we do it. And this is what actually happens is we can fall into this cycle where I try to resist the video game. I resist for a day or two. It doesn't really work out. And then I crash, right?

So I relapse. I start playing again. And then I have to resist again. So I muster up all my willpower and energy. but the second time around it feels harder to kick the habit. And the third time around, it feels even harder to kick the habit. And the more that you try to kick the habit, the harder it becomes. And if you kind of think about that, wait, like, that's so weird. Why is that? It's because each time you try to kick the habit and you fail to a certain degree, or it's too temporary,

what you're actually doing is punishing yourself. Because all you're doing is paying the cost without actually seeing any benefit. So let's just think about exercise for a second, right? How many days do you have to go to the gym to actually see? positive reinforcement from the gym, right? It's got to be months. It's not going to be a couple of days. It's not going to be a couple of weeks. We're talking about three months, four months, five months, six months. And if we look at it through the lens of reinforcement, we can now see why going to the gym is hard. Because every day that we go to the gym, we actually feel worse. And there's this alluring video game over here that we can kind of tap into at any point. And it'll give us that

straight spurt of dopamine. So this is the first thing that we have to understand is that overcoming video game addiction is not actually positively reinforcing, it's actually punishing, and over time can induce our brains to avoid productivity instead of video games. So now the question becomes, okay, what do we do about it? So our strategy has to be one where we start reinforcing the right kinds of behaviors. Instead of when we engage in a behavior actually being punished for it, we need to cultivate particular ways to where our brain can actually enjoy the activity. And that starts with, first of all, catching your creative impulses. So if you're like me, part of what you may have experienced is that there are times throughout

the day when you do get a little bit excited about things that are not video games. Maybe you get excited about reading a particular book or maybe you get excited about, I don't know, painting, or maybe you do get excited, you watch some workout video or something or you see someone canoeing and you're like, man, that would be a lot of fun to go canoeing or go swimming. There are these impulses that we have towards the right behaviors. Now, this is really important because these impulses come naturally. They're not something that we have to force ourselves into.

So this is not like avoiding a video game to go exercise. This is sort of catching a natural impulse. In my case, it's writing. So that's kind of what I'm going to focus on, but you can absolutely apply this to whatever your creative impulses or what kind of impulses you have. So I started by simply jotting things down. So the first thing that we're going to do is if you have some kind of impulse, try to capture it in some way.

So I started carrying around a notebook. I installed a notes app on my phone. And what I started doing was just capturing my thoughts. I started taking some of that creative impulse and actually turning it into something. So that's actually step one is that when we have that creative impulse, we want to capture it and we want to put it down into something. Now, this does a couple of things. The first thing that it does is it trains us to start engaging in things that are not video games.

Since we already have that impulse, we don't have to overcome anything, but we can kind of capture it and we want to sort of get started with some kind of The second thing that this does is gives us an opportunity for something to reflect on. And that's going to be the second step that we do. So if we think a little bit about how can we start to encourage our minds to have the right kind of desire, I want you to imagine a scenario. Let's say that a friend of yours is thinking about, I don't know, writing a, making a video game. And as they start telling you about the video game, you can get excited about it too.

So you may want to give them suggestions. You may want to say, oh, hey, I think you should add this. I think you should add that. And then you kind of get excited about it. The two of y'all talk about it. Maybe even talk a little bit about collaborating. And now suddenly there's excitement. There's desire.

And if we kind of think about it, what triggered that desire? What triggered the desire was the input that your friend gave you. Your friend started talking about the video game that they made. So if we want to cultivate the right kinds of desires, we need the right kinds of inputs. And this is why writing stuff down can be incredibly important. So what I started doing is writing stuff down and then I would reflect on it. right? So I would pause and I would look at it. Sometimes I would read it. So this is where a lot of people fall short because they may try to capture that creative impulse. But then if you never reflect on it or

never turn it into anything, what is that actually going to reinforce? What that's, what your brain will actually learn is that there's no point in writing these things down because we never turn it into anything. It's actually a complete waste of our time. You spent 15 minutes writing something down and then a year later you did nothing with it. So then your brain actually reinforces, hey, this is a waste of time, we actually should not capture our creative impulses. So how do you switch that around? You actually spend time reflecting on it. If you write for 15 minutes and you wake up the next day and you read what you wrote, what you'll start to discover is that your mind will be sparked in the right way. You'll start to have more and more desires. You just love to think about

it. Maybe you feel inspired to write a little bit more. And so as you start to reflect on things, you're actually giving your brain the right kinds of inputs that will get you excited and then once again, you capitalize on those inputs. So the second thing that we really have to learn how to do is reflect on whatever our creative impulses are. In the case of something like exercise, you can still reflect on it. Even if you don't feel good about it, you can sort of pause after you go to the gym and you can kind of start to ask yourself some questions. You can say, okay, well, how do I feel about what happened today? Instead of actually defaulting to, oh man, this was an absolute mess and, you know, there's no way we're ever going to do this again.

stop and pause and reflect and think a little bit critically. What do I like about today? What are the wins today and what are the losses today? Because here's the wild thing. If you actually go to the gym for the first time and you spend 25 minutes there, that's actually a huge W, right? For the first day, you exercised. And that's actually a huge win.

But unless we're careful, unless we reflect properly, what we end up actually doing is punishing ourselves for going to the gym. Because we don't see it as a W. All we see are all of the thousand things that we did. wrong, right? All we actually experience is all these negative thoughts. I should have gone a year ago. I should have gone longer. I can't believe I'm so weak. You know, why am I wasting my time? Because this is actually what your brain is learning. So how do you change the learnings? You change the learnings by actually reflecting on it. Once you start reflecting on the exercise, you'll start to see,

oh, okay, well, actually, you know, at least it was a win that I went today. I went for 20 minutes today. If I'm lucky, I can go for 20 minutes tomorrow or maybe I can shoot for 25 minutes. everyone's got to start somewhere. And as you start to go through that cognitive process, you actually start to positively reinforce the desire to exercise. The third thing that we're going to talk a little bit about is honestly, originally I thought that this was kind of BS, okay? And that is practicing gratitude.

So I heard about all this practicing gratitude crap when I originally got into alternative medicine and especially when I was becoming a psychiatrist. And even as a psychiatrist, I thought that practice and gratitude was, was like a waste of everyone's time. I really did not understand it. Because in my mind, here's what I kind of discovered was like, okay, people are like telling me I should be grateful for stuff. But why on earth would I be grateful about anything when I have all of this crap that I need to do? You know, all my mind would see are all the things that need to get done. I can't spend time being grateful for the tiny little portion of things that I do, things that I do right,

when I've got a bunch of stuff that I need to be doing better. So every fiber of my being thought that practice and gratitude was BS. But as I've grown and learned, this is actually a huge, huge, huge part of cultivating the right kind of desire. So what does practice and gratitude do? So if we go back to our gym example, let's say that I went to the gym for 20 minutes, planning on going for an hour, and now I come home, I feel ashamed of myself, and I feel weak. So let's pause for a second. Did I actually do the right thing today? And the answer is unequivocally yes, right? Because I got up off my ass. I went to the gym. gym and I exercised at least for 20 minutes. That is way, way, way better than sitting at home and

playing video games. Even if I look at something like writing, I used to write. And the first thing that would happen is, I would think to myself how bad this writing is. I would read it the next day I try to reflect. And all I would see is criticisms in my mind. I can't believe that it's so bad. I have so much work to do. I would only see the negatives with my actual progress. And you think about that for a second. If all the progress that you make is met by negatives in your mind, what are you actually going to reinforce? Because every time you actually take a step forward, your mind punishes you for it. And so how do we stop that? How do we make it so that even if I go to the gym for 20 minutes?

Sure, it's 20 minutes or 25. At least I did it, right? And that answer is gratitude. This is the huge value of practicing gratitude. You need to learn how to practice gratitude if when you take the right step forward, if you make some kind of progress, if your mind yells at you about all the negativity, if it yells at you about how you should have started earlier or it's not enough or what will other people think or someone else does it better than me, if your mind responds to your step forward with all of these negative thoughts,

then you need to practice gratitude. Because as your mind responds with all of those thoughts, what are you actually reinforcing? Your mind is punishing you for making progress in life. And just think about this. Because this is exactly what you. we get addicted to video games. Because when we take a step forward, if our mind punishes us for progress, what do you think we're going to end up doing? Our brain learns, our nucleus accumbens learns. Hey, we can write and exercise and learn how to cook and try to be social, which you remember when you tried to be social and you were filled with anxiety and you went to a party and no one talked to you. And it was a really, really painful experience. As soon as you leave, does your mind tell you,

man, you made a huge progress today, right? You actually got up off your ass and you went to a party. And sure it was rough, but you did a good job, kid. Like, good job. That's not what your mind said. Your mind says never again. And when our mind says never again to progress, what is it going to say to video games? It's going to say absolutely all the time, let's go. So practicing gratitude is the process of any time you do something, acknowledging that there are negatives, acknowledging we're not saying that there isn't a long way to go.

We're not saying that, you know, you aren't out of shape. Like all those things can be true and you can at least appreciate some kind of positive, right? you can say at least I went today. And once you start cultivating that, what you're actually going to be doing is positively reinforcing the behavior. And so if we do these three things, if we start by capturing our creative impulses or capturing our impulses, reflecting on our impulses and practicing gratitude, what we will actually do is reinforce these behaviors in our mind.

As we start to reinforce these behaviors in our mind, our desires begin to change. Because where does desire come from? It comes from what's been reinforced in the nucleus accumbens. since video games are so good at reinforcing stuff in the nucleus of... Since video games are so good at causing dopamine to be released in the nucleus of comens, that's literally why we get addicted. So what we need is to start cultivating the right kinds of desires. And the way that we cultivate the right kinds of desires is by actually processing in the right way

our creative impulses, reflecting on our creative impulses, and even practicing gratitude. So here's the crazy thing about being addicted to video games. even when you do the right thing, your mind punishes you for it. And as long as your mind is punishing you for doing the right thing, it will always be a war that you will inevitably lose. The way to win this war is by actually altering your desires. And then the question becomes, okay, hold on a second, how do I do that? And this is the cycle that will lead to an alteration of your inborn desire. Because once I start capturing my creative impulses, once I start reflecting on those things, And once I start practicing gratitude, that kind of progress becomes positively reinforced.

Once that progress becomes positively reinforced, then my mind wants it again, right? That's the whole point behind the nucleus accumbens. When the nucleus accumbens lights up, it actually influences our desires the next day. And this is the problem with video games, is that they're so good at lighting up the nucleus accumbens. The moment they light up the nucleus accumbens, you've created a desire to play a video game tomorrow. A simple way of looking at this is when I play a video game and I have fun, what do I want to do tomorrow? I want to play more of the video game. If I play a video game and I don't have fun,

I don't want to play that video game tomorrow. So what we need to start doing to create the right kind of desire is to actually pause, reflect, and practice gratitude in our positive momentum in life. And once we start to do that, our brain will naturally start to create desires that are sort of good for us. It'll start to want to exercise. Man, I feel so good after exercising. I really enjoy cooking. I really enjoy writing. I really enjoy hanging out with my friends. And our natural desires will start to change. And once our natural desires start to change, this is how we achieve the state of an alcoholic who's in long-term sobriety and doesn't even want to touch the alcohol anymore. Because that's absolutely possible. And this is the sequence

of events to really shape your desire to no longer even want to play video games.