I used to play MMOs 12 hours a day and waned off. Now I'm at 2-3 hours a week.
This one was a slow burn. Replacing it with reading and working out. When I felt the urge to play, I did.
It wasn't forced and every week it was 20 minutes less here, and 30 minutes less there. Mind you, I was extremely comfortable with life.
Cashflow was good. Bills were paid. No real motivation irl.
Replacing one addiction with another. Swapping out one dopamine rush for another. One that's productive.
Then there's the environment. Sitting down in a particular chair put me in a gaming mode. It triggered familiarity, and the brain says. Hey you've been doing this for ages now. And you got it good. Keep going. Doing something else requires extra energy and your brain doesn't like that.
So I got a standing desk. It was painful the first week. Quite literally.
Numbing the 2nd. And now you'd have to force me to sit.
(Side note. It's not the act of standing that's healthy. It's the additional micro movements of the body. Standing still all day is the same as sitting down.)
With substances, I quit cold turkey. Looking back, I don't see that it affected my work. But it was an addiction and I knew the long term effects were not good. Thankfully I caught it before it turned into anything destructive.
This was sheer will, and it worked well. Well...except when the people around me opened their mouths. And it wasn't friends. It was family, and "family only wants what's best". So I told these particular people to go pound sand, after a long internal struggle.
The problem with quitting cold turkey is that I get random cravings out of nowhere. It's controllable, but that same feeling doesn't manifest with Games. Maybe it's because I still play a bit.
I don't think I can help you with the fast food, but understanding your own brain and how your body chemically reacts usually helps most people.
Topics to research:
Brain: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol
Body: gut bacteria, high intensity exercises
- Gut bacteria could go into the brain section. The amount of power your stomach has over you will blow your mind.
- Take inventory of the people around you. Let them know what you're going through. It may reveal some interesting facts about them.
You'll find that most people are addicts. Especially the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos...
They just give into what most people consider positive.
This one was a slow burn. Replacing it with reading and working out. When I felt the urge to play, I did.
It wasn't forced and every week it was 20 minutes less here, and 30 minutes less there. Mind you, I was extremely comfortable with life.
Cashflow was good. Bills were paid. No real motivation irl.
Replacing one addiction with another. Swapping out one dopamine rush for another. One that's productive.
Then there's the environment. Sitting down in a particular chair put me in a gaming mode. It triggered familiarity, and the brain says. Hey you've been doing this for ages now. And you got it good. Keep going. Doing something else requires extra energy and your brain doesn't like that.
So I got a standing desk. It was painful the first week. Quite literally.
Numbing the 2nd. And now you'd have to force me to sit.
(Side note. It's not the act of standing that's healthy. It's the additional micro movements of the body. Standing still all day is the same as sitting down.)
With substances, I quit cold turkey. Looking back, I don't see that it affected my work. But it was an addiction and I knew the long term effects were not good. Thankfully I caught it before it turned into anything destructive.
This was sheer will, and it worked well. Well...except when the people around me opened their mouths. And it wasn't friends. It was family, and "family only wants what's best". So I told these particular people to go pound sand, after a long internal struggle.
The problem with quitting cold turkey is that I get random cravings out of nowhere. It's controllable, but that same feeling doesn't manifest with Games. Maybe it's because I still play a bit.
I don't think I can help you with the fast food, but understanding your own brain and how your body chemically reacts usually helps most people.
Topics to research:
Brain: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol
Body: gut bacteria, high intensity exercises
- Gut bacteria could go into the brain section. The amount of power your stomach has over you will blow your mind.
- Take inventory of the people around you. Let them know what you're going through. It may reveal some interesting facts about them.
You'll find that most people are addicts. Especially the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos...
They just give into what most people consider positive.