> Stay up late because I’m wired on caffeine and dopamine from scrolling.

I wish people didn't overuse certain terms. Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body. It can't possibly keep you up at night.

It's just the caffeine, which in turn has a half-life of several hours. Also below a certain level it's eliminated approximately exponentially, so there's a long tail of residual caffeine.

I thought it'd be the male version of https://www.thehairpin.com/women-laughing-alone-with-salad/

Huh, I just realized I’ve been doing a version of this for the last decade or so.

When I’m tired or distracted at work, I do a “magic eye” with my keyboard: I bow my head down close to the keys, then focus my eyes to infinity, and gradually bring my focus closer to “snap” to different focus depths.

When I worked in an office, my coworkers found this disconcerting. Really helps me reset though!

Bonus focus points if you paint the wall and watch it dry.

I’ll often use a quick brain break like this to do a tiny bit of exercise, e.g. walk on the spot, plank. This means staring at a wall (or the floor) anyway plus you get the blood flowing. Most appropriate would probably be wall sit while staring at the opposite wall!

I think this is actually valid, if you think about it. Some days I go by with constantly thinking be it about work, in messages, or simply on social media. Taking the time to stare at walls actually provides ability to step back, calm down, and actually random thoughts will start appearing out of which some can be insightful.

Staring at trees in a forest is the same but better I’d wager, read a study on the benefits of looking at trees in the brain once, combine with this wall technique and my own anecdotal experience of walking in the woods to solve complex computer problems, plus the physical movement of the hike gets your blood flowing.

Goddamn this post reads like my daily challenge / struggle cycle just about every day. I’m gonna go stare at some walls!

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

It seems you have caffeine problem not scrolling problem :) join us at r/decaf