Curing Brain Rot 🧠🤖

A collective cognitive decline is coming and you can stop it...

Hello to my new friends here on Substack, my name is Tj Power and I have just discovered this magical platform and community.

I am a neuroscientist and author running a research lab aiming to cure the impact of dopamine overload on our brains and nervous systems.

---

As I write to you today from a small coffee shop in a town in England I want to talk to you about something important.

I would love you to give yourself a few minutes to slow down from your hectic day and read this carefully, it may be a sliding door moment that course corrects your future.

So take a nice big deep breath in through your nose, and a biggg slow exhale and let your body soften.

---

Over the last 2 month I have been diving deep into the research on this term ‘brain rot’...

Brain rot is a term that was first stated by Henry Thoreau in 1854 when he predicted that society would experience a collective cognitive decline as a result of our growing preference for consuming trivial ideas over complex ones.

Brain rot has since resparked in the mainstream over the last five years as a term to describe the experience of ‘rotting’ when you’ve been doomscrolling for so long that your brain feels numb, demotivated, and unhappy.

Now for the first time we are seeing there is a clear connection between overstimulation in the brain and significant neurological consequences that must be spoken about, explored, and corrected for.

---

Firstly I want to show you what the scientific causes of ‘brain rot’:

1. Short-form Video - TikTok, Reels, Shorts, doomscrolling

2. Sleep Deprivation - Revenge bedtime procrastination, chronic fatigue

3. Double Screening - TV and phone simultaneously, working while scrolling

4. Constant Audio - podcasts, audiobooks, music always on, afraid of silence

5. Never Switching Off - no time in nature, always sitting, news addiction

6. Chemical Stimulation - caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, porn, gambling

7. Lack of love - distracted relationships, phones in bed, lack of intimacy

8. AI reliance - outsourcing thinking, lack of deep work, cognitive laziness

All of which I have struggled with a lot.

---

Next, let’s look at the kinds of consequences seen in the research:

1. Dementia - Alzheimer’s, accelerated brain ageing, memory failure

2. Mood Disorders - depression, anxiety, emotional numbness, rage

3. Chronic Stress - cortisol overload, nervous system dysregulation

4. Burnout - complete depletion, zero motivation, inability to function

5. Attention Collapse - inability to focus, shorter attention span

6. Digital Anhedonia - inability to feel pleasure from real life

7. Low Confidence - poor self belief, negative inner voice, hiding

8. Relationship Breakdown - poor communication, argumentative

---

And with these consequences, it very clear that specific brain changes are causing them:

1. Grey Matter Loss - brain cells dying, physical shrinkage, accelerated ageing

2. Dopamine Desensitisation - needing more to feel anything, pleasure fading

3. Amygdala Hyperactivation - threat centre overdrive, cortisol flooding, stress

4. Default Mode Network Disruption - loss of daydreaming, reflection, insight

5. Attention Network Breakdown - fractured focus, presence fading

6. Memory Deterioration - hippocampus weakening, poor recall

7. Oxytocin Depletion - reduced bonding, loss of calm, diminished connection

8. Prefrontal Cortex Weakening - self-control, poor decisions, impulsivity

---

As you read through the consequences I’m sure you can feel some of them.

I personally have struggled a lot with my mood, attention, and feelings of burnout. I also have had moments of digital anhedonia where life itself feels less pleasureful.

It feels to me as though society is so clearly aware that this overwhelm of stimulation is affecting us, but we are still not coming together at a big enough scale to figure out how the human psyche is going to navigate the immense acceleration we are experiencing.

A chap called Scott Barker just wrote an amazing article on this topic of acceleration that you may have read that actually inspired me to begin sharing on this platform.

---

Now I write to you today with my heart and mind open, I just would love to hear your thoughts. I want to know if you are struggling with this too.

Most of all though, I write to you to ask you to take this seriously. To begin caring a lot about how much you are overstimulating your brain.

Is it possible for you stop looking at screens when you eat or when you’re having your morning coffee?

Is it possible for you to spend time in the evening reading and talking and listening to music instead of double screening every single night?

Is it possible for you to turn off the unbelievably intense negative news and just quit the short-form videos for a while?

These are the questions we need to start asking ourselves.

Our ancient neurological hardware is struggling in this modern era, we must start listening to the signals, seeing the signs, and adapting our lifestyles to create a better future for all.

If you read to here, you are already one step closer to curing brain rot. A decision like that, to slow down and engage effort and thought, is exactly the kind of decision we all need to be making much more often.

All I want is a brighter, happier future for our world. Curing brain rot appears to be an integral peace of that puzzle.

Sending my love, I hope to speak with you about this in the comments soon :)