Nicole Vignola on how to stop mindless scrolling and create a dopamine menu

Do you often find yourself bored and scrolling through endless memes, reels and cat videos?

Nicole Vignola, neuroscientist and author of Rewire: Break The Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts And Create Lasting Change says creating a dopamine menu can help you steer clear of never-ending screen time and make your days all the more joyful.

Her research has centred on neuroplasticity: how we can change habits, behaviours and thought processes in the brain.

Vignola told Jim Mora on Sunday Morning the best way to boost and maintain brain plasticity is through sleep and aerobic exercise.

“This releases a protein that helps brain synapses stay strong and continue to proliferate and differentiate,” she says.

We all know exercise is good for our health, and makes us feel better – but how do we put that knowledge into action, especially when checking our phone gives us an immediate dopamine hit?

The key is to steer away from automatic habits, or impulses, and create a dopamine menu: a list of things you could be doing instead of that, “so you’re essentially reminding yourself that there are other things in your environment that could also be fun”.

Examples on that list could be: put on music; have a snack; feed pets; or, in Vignola’s case, walk your dogs, cat… and goat.

“Sometimes I think it’s such a chore, but as soon as I do it, I always think, “Why do I see it like that? … It’s such a beautiful thing to go for a walk with all my animals. They all follow me!”

The upside is that by doing something, and getting stuff done, it motivates you to do other tasks, and find other sources of interest, she says.

For example, Vignola plays guitar for a hobby. “Once I’ve done it, I think, ‘I can’t believe I’ve forgotten about playing guitar all week – it’s the best thing ever!'”

Awareness is another important part of steering away from doom-scrolling, she says.

“Sometimes I go into an Instagram reel hole and I’m having a great time. But do it with conscience, do it with awareness that you are doing it, rather than an impulse behaviour that you are unable to control.”

It was a “100 percent” good idea to limit smartphone use in children and young adults, she says.

“The dopamine system in young adolescents is very much still developing – it’s the reason why teenagers will act in reward-seeking behaviours that put them in danger, because they do understand the consequences, but the dopamine … activity drives them to not care. “

The frontal cortex – which is responsible for impulse control, decision making, and how we think about ourselves – is not fully developed until the age of 25, and adding in stimulants such as phones – stymies or disregulates its development.

“There’s a lot of depression in young adolescents that are spending too much time on their phones, predominantly past 11 o’clock at night. There appears to be a disruption in the way the brain then produces dopamine overnight and that then impacts mood the next day, which will impact productivity and motivation.”

But given how the brain works, our phone – and all its cat videos, and memes, and hot takes – is always going to win in the short term.

“You can forget about your life for a second, all the stresses, and it really sucks you in, which is what makes it so comforting.

“The problem is that with every high, there’s a low. And with the phone, there’s a very big high, and then a very big low, whereas with a walk or going for exercise, yeah, you might not roll over chuckling on your sofa because you’ve seen something hilarious, but in the long term you’re doing a lot better for yourself.”

She points to the problem of attentional capture, where you might be working on a laptop, with your phone next to it. “The brain’s going to be working very hard at trying to divert the attention back to the screen.”

The solution, she says, is to think long-term.

“I think about me when I’m 70: who do I want to be?

“Do I want to be really, really good at scrolling on my phone? Or do I want to be a really good guitar player… who walks with their goat?”

Once you’ve figured out your dopamine menu – what makes you feel good, instead of reaching for your phone – write it down, she advises.

“It helps us memorise things better… we tend to ingrain it more in our memory centres.”

And you’ll also be more likely to do it, rather than just think about it.

7 steps to rewire your brain

• Step 1. Spring cleaning of social media. Unfollow accounts that make you feel bad.
• Step 2. Visualisation and attention. If you want to become a morning runner, visualise it the night before: waking up, not hitting snooze, putting on clothes and shoes, walking out the door. “This creates a mental blueprint for the action that follows.”
• Step 3. Repetition. This is “less about intensity, more about consistency, even if it’s just five minutes”.
• Step 4. Make space. So if you’re irritated by something your partner or children does, pay attention to that trigger, make space, and give yourself time to change the way you respond.
• Step 5. Push through boundaries. Our brains want to preserve energy by veering away from challenging tasks, so we need to push through discomfort to form habits.
• Step 6. Prepare for setbacks. Think about what could go wrong, or stop you forming a habit? Planning for that puts ourselves in a place of control.
• Step 7. Stepping through the fear, and conquering self-sabotage. This helps us gain confidence by deliberately going to places where we don’t have any. “Unfortunately, on the other side of the fear is where the change really happens. So we can step into it, and know that the only constant is change.”

Feeling anxious? Go for a walk

It’s hard to break the scrolling habit when we’re feeling anxious, Jim Mora points out.

One of the best tools for anxiety is to go for a walk – without our phone, Vignola says.

When we do this, our eyes move from side to side, and this quietens the amygdala – the part of the brain that processes emotions, such as fear.

So this act of walking helps us think about problems in a more logical mindframe, without the fear involved. It’s the same concept used in EMDR therapy, she says.

More mess, more stress

Another thing that adds to cognitive overload and stress is having a messy room.

This is the brain is constantly filtering information from our environment while paying attention to the screen.

“The more mess there is in your environment, the more filtering there is going on, and every time the brain filters something that is less important, it is using cognitive energy… it is taking energy away from you and your ability to concentrate on something, or it’s going to diminish your pool of energy for the day, and leave you feeling tired, which can then lead to irritability, and even exacerbate feelings of anxiety.”