5 ways I'm deep cleaning my brain this spring

I should also be cleaning my closets too but this is a start

I dozed off on the F last Wednesday because the lullaby of Fade Into You by Mazzy star and my blue fleece button up were creating the same comforting illusion as my bed. This was the first time I’ve actually ever dozed off on the Subway, and the whole thing was very strange because I had gotten nearly 8 hours of sleep the night prior.

I awoke one stop before my stop for the evening, which was Carroll street, a stop that was the final physical barrier between me and one of the most magical neighborhoods in New York. It was around 6pm, my mission was to acquire a bottle of procescco to contribute to spritz-making, and I was window shopping all of the quirky boutiques on Court Street wondering how they’ve stayed open as long as they have.

I’ve actually walked up and down Court street probably over twenty times now in my five years living in New York, but realized this was my first time even seeing Yesterday’s News in the wild, as I had only ever seen videos of it on Instagram. And that folks, is the reason I decided to write any of this.

I’ve spent too much time looking down at a screen. The second my phone gains service again after rising up from the depths of the Subway, I’m on it. I’m on it when I walk. I’m on it when I talk. I can’t even imagine how much ~goodness I’ve missed that is living and breathing around me in my favorite neighborhoods.

I’m still also trying to understand how I let myself even shut my eyes briefly on the Subway, and I think it’s because, for once, I wasn’t fighting Verizon for one bar of service at each stop to hope Instagram finally refreshed.

The spritz and neighborhood in question

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January and February brought me to my peak impatience. I had never been so irritable in my lifetime. Very self aware of my irritability, but still very irritable. I’d open all conversations and plans with my friends warning them with a text before saying that “I might be in a weird mood”, secretly kicking myself and muttering frustrated epithets under my breath for even making plans with anyone other than my cats to begin with.

The type of plans you’re so mad you made a week ago but then end up being exactly what you needed. And this, in no way, is specific to any person. This was very much a ~me thing of getting annoyed that I’d even have to speak to the barista about my cold brew with oat milk.

Normal, very minimal tasks were making me feel burnt out, which led to me ordering an all time high amount of food delivery and writing absolutely zero words on Substack to the point where I’d type a note and delete it because I didn’t feel like editing a one sentence, cheeky phrase with a few photos. I’d never felt worse about my appearance. I walked out of the salon crying because I was so distressed over the fact that I had lost two hours to hair color. And pretty much anyone reading these words right now would probably just think I was struggling with depression and anxiety, which maybe I was, but I actually rack all of this up to the very peak of phone addiction.

Because phone addiction isn’t something we go to rehab for yet, it’s hard to understand why extreme irritability and loss of patience and serotonin could be so directly related. I remember reading Catherine Shannon ‘s Your Phone is Why You Don’t Feel Sexy a year ago, resonating with every single thing that she said, and knowing damn well I wasn’t going to actually take her advice of getting rid of my iPhone.

Now, a year later, I still have my iPhone, in fact I actually create and produce content at a much more frequent scale than I did a year ago. But after my phone got stolen in Brazil (leading me to leave Instagram behind for 10 days), I realized pretty much all of it was to blame for my extreme frustrations with my daily routine.

So nothing about this is heroic like it was for Catherine who physically decided to cut off access to her phone. Mine just happened to be stolen. But the level of deep cleaned that my brain felt after losing most access to the doom scroll was something I’m now obsessed with maintaining in the same routine I was hating two months ago, and wanted to share with anyone who was also at peak irritability and lack of attention and lust for life.

This is for my people who helplessly have 754 unopened texts on their phone and don’t know ‘why they’re like this’ and don’t know where to start.

1. I never leave the house with social media

I think the thing that made this rule feel really necessary for me was the fact that every time I’d go and see friends, someone would walk away to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, or I’d have a 10 minute walk alone to meet someone at the train, and the first and only thing that I’d do is pull out my phone and check social media. In the most literal and figurative way possible, I would never really look up on any walk, subway ride, uber backseat, moment alone at the table (as I talked about in my intro)…

I post a lot on social media. I need to- it’s essentially part of my job. But. I now do not leave the house with social media. I not only Brick my phone, but the only phone that has cellular service on it is the old temporary iPhone that I got as a replacement when my phone got stolen, so my actual phone stays home, and I bring this temporary phone with me everywhere. Even if I wanted to un-brick it and download social media, it has such little storage that I’d have to delete Spotify to even use Instagram without crashing, so it’s the perfect way to still be able to call/text my friends, but stay fully offline and present.

If I post something on social media, I post it in the morning and then Brick my phone for the remainder of the day. No sense in obsessively watching views because all of that stuff is purely out of your control, anyway.

I’m not suggesting you buy a second temporary phone, but they’re pretty inexpensive and at the very least you should Brick your actual phone every time you leave the house.

Because I also love being home, I have cut offs where I have to be awake for at least two hours before checking social media, and it needs to be inaccessible at least an hour before bed. You guys should see my sleep score on Oura now…..

2. I’m falling in love with TV and movies

Every single time any of my friends mention a TV show or a movie reference, I’ve literally never seen it. I used to feel high and mighty because I was a self proclaimed “non TV person” and always touted around the fact that I just never had time for it. But the truth is, a good movie or TV show is actually incredible for intellect and inspiration. How the fuck did I ever think I was “romanticizing my life” without watching a TV show based in late 90s or early 2000s New York City?

I’m not telling you to deep clean your brain by watching TV. What I’m telling you to do is get off of your phone while you’re watching TV and actually fall in love with a good plot and cast and not be scrolling the entire time you’re watching. My friends got me watching Girls on HBO and I have never been more excited to watch my nightly episode and lust for 2000s Greenpoint and the lives of the Girls who are going through so many of the same things I’m going through in my twenties. If I do pick up my phone after watching, it’s because I’m reading Reddit threads psychoanalyzing each character and underlying episode meanings. It feels awesome to be this excited by a good show again.

3. I have serotonin days

Serotonin Day

I know the whole point of mind-cleansing is to remove serotonin overloads from your brain, but the whole point of the way I spend my days now is to remove a lot of the cheap dopamine from my brain to really enjoy what I’m now branding as a Serotonin day. The exact itinerary of a Serotonin day are as follows:

No concrete plans and no alarms. This is seemingly impossible for a busy person who wants to see their friends on the weekends (or hosts supper clubs like every other weekend like I do), but I promise you need to make the space for these. You’ll sleep in, you won’t immediatley scroll, and you’ll do a series of things that make you classically happy. You’ll get a coffee you know is good. You’ll listen to a good playlist and take the train above ground to a new stop in a new neighborhood to try a new place for lunch. You’ll shop around after, really taking your time and space getting to try things on without anyone rushing you. You’ll maybe join friends for a loose dinner plan after you’ve had time to yourself.

I had the ultimate serotonin day on Saturday. I woke up at 9:30, snuggled with my cats, took the train to Bed Stuy to meet my friend Delaney for a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast at Welcome Home (this plan was also made morning of), and then I spent the rest of the day to myself thrifting around places like I Like Mike and A Store Called Store. I took myself to lunch at Acre and ended with dinner at the brand new Catch reopening, which was both nostalgic and impeccable on so many levels.

4. I’m trying (really hard) not to be late

This one is still so much a work in progress (similar to never responding to texts) almost to the point where I can’t even claim I’ve even made any progress, but removing mindless scrolling and reducing irritability and impatience has forced me to be more on time. Even by just a couple of minutes.

I think the concept of being late and why certain people are always late is a concept to be studied, but I do feel a slightly stronger sense of control over the concept of time with a reduction in phone use.

I used to sip my coffee and catch up on social media up until 5 minutes before I had to leave, every single time, knowing damn well there was no possible way I could do my makeup and find an outfit in five minutes. I’m still not as much as a morning person as I’d like and I’m trying incredibly hard to stick to a true routine, but I do think being on time is a sign of mental clarity and stability, so consider this one a work in progress.

(And yes, to all of my friends who saw me 15 minutes late last weekend, this is a work in progress)

5. Playing cards!

My boyfriend brought a pack of cards with us on our last vacation and kept asking every day if we could bring them to the beach or to dinner and I kept shutting down the idea. Realistically speaking, the last time I played a card game was in highschool when my then-boyfriend dragged me to all of his poker matches and I was stuck in the back with all of the pitiful partners playing war, which I don’t even remember how to play.

Everything changed, however, when one of our perfect beach days in Uruguay turned into pouring rain, sweatshirts, and negronis at 3pm, and he taught me how to play Durak, a Russian card game that translates to ‘fool’, and let’s just say playing this card game (and beating him in this card game) suddenly became more of a priority than the sun that finally came out the next morning.

My best friend also sent me this text this week because we’d hope and pray for a rainy day at the beach when we were kids to be able to play Mancala literally day and night. Anyone in New York want to play Mancala?