other ways to use your brain:

-Listen to a philosophy podcast while walking

-Rewatch a childhood movie and analyze it

-Learn a new word and use it in a sentence

-Handwrite a letter to someone (or yourself)

-Memorize a poem

-Learn the capitals of every country

-Create a mini book club with one friend

-Pick a side in a debate—then argue the opposite... See more

Just start writing. Use your notes app. Open a doc. A scrap paper. Spill thoughts. Follow tangents. Let yourself ramble. Write something ugly and tangled and undeveloped. Not to produce or sound intelligent, but it’s to hear yourself again. To track the way your mind moves. To think your own thoughts without structure or pressure or input. You... See more

- it really is that damn phone

Step away from the infinite scroll and give your brain a second to remember how to think without being spoon-fed. Not in a dramatic, I'm-quitting-social-media-forever way. Just pause. Let your dopamine system stop firing like a broken vending machine and your prefrontal cortex to actually breathe. And while you're at... See more

And maybe I needed the break. Maybe after years of pressure and burnout and noise, I earned a little numbness. But no one warns you how easy it is to slip from rest into rot.

-learn something that fascinates you

Pick a topic, anything. Become obsessed. Not to be graded or read. Not to get ahead. Just for the thrill of it. Write a thesis, do the research, produce the paper. Watch lectures. Take notes. Make PowerPoints no one will ever see. Make homework for yourself, like you used to. Give yourself a deadline in one... See more

-pick up a new hobby that requires focus

Learn a language. Teach yourself a song on a dusty keyboard. Knit something lumpy. Garden. Build a bookshelf. Learn how to cook without a recipe. Give your brain a tactile way to play. Let it be challenged, let it hurt, let it work. Give your brain something real to touch. Something with friction. With... See more

You just need to remember: your brain is still yours.

Unrot it. Reclaim it. Wake it back up.

-let yourself be bored

You don’t need to be entertained every second. In fact, you shouldn’t be. Remember when you could stare out the car/train/plane window for the entirity of a long trip?

Let yourself sit in silence. No phone. No music. No stimulation. Just 10 or 15 minutes of mental stillness a day. Stare out a window. Stare at the ceiling. Sit... See more

Maybe after years of pressure and burnout and noise, I earned a little numbness. But no one warns you how easy it is to slip from rest into rot.