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This is my dopamine menu, aka the cure to my brain fog. And by the end of this video, you're going to learn how to make one, too. This video is sponsored by Surfshark. More on them later. The goal
Learn how to create a dopamine menu to reduce brain fog and replace doom scrolling with meaningful, easy activities for better mental health.
Key Takeaways
- Replacing mindless scrolling with intentional, easy-to-start activities can reduce brain fog and improve mental wellbeing.
- Structuring activities by time availability helps make better use of small free moments throughout the day.
- Preparing your environment to reduce friction increases the likelihood of choosing healthy dopamine activities over scrolling.
- Using tools like VPNs can protect your online privacy while using your phone productively.
- Consistency and intentionality in breaks can improve focus and overall productivity.
What the video covers
- The dopamine menu is designed to offer meaningful alternatives to phone scrolling during free or low-energy moments.
- It categorizes activities by available time: entry (1-10 minutes), mains (15-30 minutes), desserts (moderate consumption).
- Entry activities include eye care, movement snacks, making drinks or snacks, short stretches, language apps, meditation, and tidying small areas.
- Mains activities are longer breaks like walks with audio, YouTube workouts, journaling, watching long videos, and replying to texts or emails.
- Desserts are reserved for after heavy work and include activities like travel research and planning.
- The video emphasizes making these activities easy and frictionless by preparing the environment and materials in advance.
- The creator avoids including jogging/running in the menu to keep them as non-negotiable scheduled activities.
- The video is sponsored by Surfshark VPN, which protects online privacy especially on public Wi-Fi.
- The dopamine menu is printable and downloadable for viewers to use and customize.
- The approach aims to reset the brain, improve attention span, and build healthier phone habits.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Purpose of Dopamine Menu
- 00:33Identifying When and Why We Scroll
- 01:07Entry Activities for 1-10 Minute Breaks
- 02:14Examples of Easy and Inviting Activities
- 02:54Using Phone for Learning and Surfshark VPN Introduction
- 03:50Importance of Online Privacy and Surfshark Benefits
- 04:18More Entry Activities and Environment Setup
- 04:47Mains: Activities for 15-30 Minute Breaks
- 05:30Watching Videos and Managing Communication
- 05:58Why Some Activities Are Scheduled Separately
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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of the dopamine menu is simple: give us ideas to use our time more meaningfully rather than scrolling. The first step is to figure out when you tend to doom scroll. And for me, it mostly came down to one of these three reasons. First,
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when I have random free pockets of time throughout the day. Second, when I'm really tired. Or three, as a reward for doing something difficult. In my dopamine menu, I want to include these things: reminders or micro habits that I
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want to build, self-care activities, and things that are easy and inviting to do, which is the most important part because reaching for your phone and scrolling is both of these. You want to have options your tired, slightly bored, low
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willpower self would actually choose over scrolling. Entry are for when you have 1 to 10 minutes of time, like that awkward wait time waiting for your AI to generate an answer or as a short break whilst doing work. And because these
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small pockets of time are when I reach for my phone the most, the entry section is the largest part of my menu. Freshen up your eyes. I feel like one thing I don't care about as often is, unfortunately, my eyes. And in the past
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year, I feel like my eyesight has taken a toll where I can't see as far as easily as before. So by putting it on my menu, it's reminding me to take a break, do some eye stretches or massages. So
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it's like getting dopamine from the thought of helping your future self. Put on hand cream, lip balm, or reapply sun cream. Movement snacks. My day is usually sitting by the desk editing or scripting. Movement snacks are perfect because it breaks the sitting time up.
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You might think 10 squats sounds like nothing, but research that followed 8,000 adults for 10 years showed that replacing just 30 minutes of sitting each day with light activity was linked to a 17% lower risk of death even when the
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movement was broken into one-minute chunks. Make a cute drink or snack. Make it feel like you have a little café at your house. Like a mini snack or drink station that makes you look forward to it during the day. 5-minute stretch.
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Throughout the day, your body is stuck in this prison of a hunchback turtleneck position. Stretching is like a reset to your posture and muscles. I like to do this by focusing on where it feels tight and listening to my body. If not, I try
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to pre-choose my stretching videos. You want to make it easy for yourself. Things that you can just whip out and do. Language learning apps. Yes, I added apps from my phone to the dopamine list as well, but it is still an alternative
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to scrolling, which helps us build a healthy relationship with our phone. Like instead of phone equals scrolling, it can become phone equals learning and productivity. And you know who gets just as big of a dopamine hit when you're on
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your phone? Hackers, big companies, and cyber criminals that want to collect your data. And with Surfshark, which is this video sponsor, you can simply bonk those guys on the head. Surfshark VPN keeps your online identity safe, encrypting all the information sent
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between your device and the internet, protecting your personal data. With top-grade encryption, all your online activity and data is blurred, so anyone who sees it won't be able to read anything. I've been traveling a lot recently, which means long waits in the
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airports. And do you know where the gold mine for hackers is? Free public Wi-Fi.
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Free public Wi-Fi often isn't secure as hackers can easily compromise such Wi-Fi networks, meaning you risk sharing your credentials, emails, login, and even credit card information.
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Surfshark encrypts your data before it leaves your device, making it useless to the hotspot hacker. That means you can even access your online banking safely on public Wi-Fi. You can use my link in the description, surfshark.com/hanakim, or use code HANNAHKIM at checkout to
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get four extra months of Surfshark VPN. And Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk to try it out. Tidy up a small area. And I know for some of us when we start cleaning, we feel like we have to finish
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the entire room. But the whole point of the dopamine menu is that these aren't obligations or to-do lists. They're just intentional little breaks that you can dip into without pressure to complete it perfectly. Short meditation. When I'm staring at my screen for too long, I
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tend to get out of the present moment and not be as in tune with my body or mind. Meditation is a reset for your mind. And meditation doesn't have to be hours long for it to be effective. Even
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3 to 5 minutes is enough to feel immediate benefits. I personally like to use Headspace. I do have a discount code for that. You can try 60 days of Headspace for free. Read a page of any book or one article. Walking around to
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fill up steps. The whole concept around 10K steps began as a marketing campaign for a step tracking device in Japan. But if you spend most of your day indoors sitting, this is a great way to get more movement in and make it fun. I am
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patiently waiting for an app called Step Harvest to be released this year. It's like Stardew Valley meets step counting, and I really can't wait for it. With all these things, you want to make it super easy to do. Put your hand cream and lip
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balm where visible. Have that book you want to read right next to your computer. Setting up your environment helps you to have no friction between you and that activity. I really like the way my dopamine menu turned out. So, I
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printed it out and stuck it around the areas I spent most time. I went that extra mile, made it in A3, A4, even a little tiny A5 and as a wallpaper. If you wanted a copy of my dopamine menu, I
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have linked them down below. I've made it completely free for you guys to download. The only thing I ask of you is to share this video with a friend who needs a better way to reset during the day. Mains. Here is where we have a
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little bit more time, like 15 to 30 minutes. Honestly, this doesn't happen a lot compared to my 1 to 10 minutes of free time during the day. But these are for the times when I have lunch break and I have 30 minutes left over. As with
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anything else on this menu, you want these activities to be ones you can immediately do with little to no preparation and no hesitation. Go out for a walk listening to something and try not to listen to them throughout the
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day and save that for this moment. 15-minute YouTube workout. Journaling. Watch a long-form YouTube video. I once got into a really bad habit of watching long-form YouTube videos whilst I was doing work on my computer. But these
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days, I just want to watch the videos uninterrupted and undisturbed, helping my attention span, but also to appreciate the editing, the work that goes into these videos and even the comments. Hopefully, that's something that you guys can do with my videos as
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well. Reply to text and emails. I have a confession to make. I suck at texting.
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And I apologize to all my friends who have unfortunately fallen victim to this. I think it's because when I text, I don't want to do it half-heartedly, but take time to properly read and message back. So, I'd rather have that 15
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to 20 minutes taking the time to read and reply to a really long text or email. Now, here's why I'm not jogging or running in my dopamine menu. Not because they don't provide dopamine, but because if I put them in here, it can
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start to feel like optional things I could do. So, I set aside time in my schedule every day because it's something that's a non-negotiable for me to do. Desserts. These are what you have in moderate consumption. Ideally, after
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the heavy work is done. Research and plan for a travel trip. This could be real existing trips that you have planned or even trips you would like to go in the future. 15 minutes scroll.
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It's
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aka a whole block, morning and night, 7 days a week. It's uncontrolled and it's unhealthy. It's got its time and place, but you don't want it to let it dictate you. Write down recipes from online. I think it'd be nice to keep like an
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inspiration book. Just because you save or repost it doesn't mean you're going to remember it. So, I think writing it down kind of romanticizes it and makes you want to go back having literal dessert and really savor each mouthful,
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having your ratatouille moment rather than mindlessly eating. Also, I want to shout out here that this video was inspired by Valerie's YouTube video. I highly recommend you check out her take on the dopamine menu as well. Specials.
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Specials are the ones that you can choose weekly or monthly. You can rotate them and change them according to your interests at the time. These are real life experiences that give me so much dopamine where it doesn't even cross my
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mind to go on my phone. As much as I am an MBTI J type personality, I love myself a spontaneous cafe run or checking out thrift stores. They're not huge extravagant events, but things that on par with the 30 minute scroll in
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terms of dopamine and things that I could choose to do on like a normal Wednesday afternoon. The limited menu is not because it should be done in limited amounts, but because you may have limited energy. For me, this is usually
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day one of my period. I get the worst cramps then. So, all I want to do then is just stay in bed and nap. But sadly, that is also when I scroll for hours.
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Here is a list I made thinking of her. That version of Hannah that needs extra care and rest. Stretch in bed. Write in my inspiration, books, Pinterest, long form videos, or going through saved reals. Lie down and meditate. Clear your
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camera roll. No better time to do this than then. It's like scrolling, but in a way that triggers positive emotions from past memories, and it's a great way to declutter your phone. The dopamine menu shouldn't become another form of stress
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because you didn't complete it or do it 100%. It's a self-care body that really wants nothing but the best for you. I hope this brought some inspiration into your life. And remember, my dopamine menu is linked down below if you would
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like a copy yourself. And thanks to Surf Shark for sponsoring this video. Don't forget to click the link in the description or use code Hannah Kim at checkout to get four extra months of Surf SharkVPN. I'll see you guys in the
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next one. God bless you guys. You got this.
Topics:dopamine menubrain fogreduce scrollingmental healthself-careproductivity tipsphone habitsSurfshark VPNmindful breakstime management
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