User:Curranjacobs12/sandbox

Device Time
One of the major strategies of coping with pandemic fatigue is limiting the amount of time you spend on your device. A habit many fell into during the COVID 19 pandemic was Doomscrolling, or purposely tuning in to negative stories on TV or on social media. This fuels increased dread, uncertainty, anxiety, and fatigue. This occurs for several reasons; for one, the overexposure to negative content causes one to develop a negativity bias. Our brains have evolved to respond to negativity and stress much more strongly than positivity, so finding a positive-heavy balance of information consumption is important to maintaining a healthy mental homeostasis.

Another blameworthy reason elevated screen time makes you feel subpar is its effect on dopamine production. Certain activities stimulates our prefrontal cortex into secreting dopamine, which our brain makes a correlation with and creates a rewards system. Excessively relying on the wrong activities to create dopamine (activities that cause high dopamine production with little effort) comes with a high risk of addiction. High levels of device time (especially social media) has been shown to stimulate our mesolimbic pathways into producing high and continuous levels of dopamine. The brain gets tired with the high flow of dopamine and needs to downregulate, causing a dip below homeostasis. Moving forward, one will require more screen time to reach the previous level of dopamine, causing our off-screen homeostatic levels of dopamine to be lower than average.

Physical Activity
Another method found to be very useful in his studies was being active. "If you make movement a priority, you will find a way to make it happen. Prioritizing time to exercise and meditate by putting it in your schedule and protecting that time is going to make a huge difference in your mental health". Other forms of coping include meditation and finding time for yourself to reflect.