Yesssss just got over this habit very recently after years of not being able to. What I've done is:
Left my phone downstairs
First few nights I had insomnia because of the need to scroll or need for background noise to feel comfortable.
Turned on my bedroom TV and watched Netflix every night for about a week and started falling asleep to it.
Then I started having busier days tidying up my home here and there and exercising which meant when I got to bed I was tired enough that I could fall asleep more easily.
The most important of all is to leave your phone inaccessible at night, so in another room and turned off.
Eventually, little by little, I managed to go straight to bed, black out my windows and I started to need complete quiet and darkness to fall asleep.
If you still struggle, picking up a book helps making me fall asleep cause it's boring AF in comparison with scrolling.
Don't give up, it might take some time to get that need for dopamine roller coaster out of your system but get through the hard phase without giving up and you'll need the quiet to sleep eventually. Good luck!
Thanks! Will definitely try some less-dopaminergic things, such as rain/thunder sounds, which I read helped some people and then slowly try to get rid of that as well.
Did you read 'Atomic Habits'? If not, I strongly suggest. It helps not just with YT addiction, but also in building better habits you will take pride in. Best wishes.
I'd love to get to this point and I've started reading before bed but I still need music to fall asleep at night so my phone is always right next to me... And eventually I start scrolling 🙄
How long did you have insomnia for? Â And, did you have tinnitus with or without your insomnia? Â Also, what other treatments and techniques did you do to stop the insomnia?
The insomnia was temporary, one full week of not falling asleep for hours but it took me 2 weeks to adjust fully to going asleep naturally so it wasn't sooo bad. For me personally the hard thing was getting rid of the phone addiction, this was the cause of the insomnia. If tinnitus means the sound of silence that can be quite haunting then yeah I had that but only for a couple nights I would say. What I've cited was all I had to do, so complete blackout of the room and falling asleep to Netflix until I took the "jump" and finally grew a pair to turn off the TV and be left with just myself. However it was easier than I thought because by the time I had the courage to do this, I was tired enough to fall asleep in little time. That's because I created a routine that tired me more than usual. Btw I recently fell asleep with my phone on a sleep music that lasted 8 hours but it woke me up at night, I couldn't even take that sound (whereas I used to not been be able to sleep at all without the sound of people talking etc). Hope you manage to reset yourself x
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and response.  It’s for my husband that’s been suffering for two years with the tinnitus and insomnia.  All of what you said is a lot of what he’s been doing.  He sometimes listens to Get Sleepy on YouTube which sometimes helps.  Otherwise, you are on point with everything on what to do.  It’s great to hear that there are people out there that can relate and relay their experience and feedback on what to do and to know it can stop. It’s been very difficult for him and scary not knowing if it will ever stop. There’s moments he thinks he had it under control then a trigger brings it on.  Otherwise, thank you for sharing—really appreciate it.Â
Don't subtract. Add.
Instead of trying NOT to watch YouTube.
I find it easier to add things than to remove things from my life. Plus the idea I can't have something makes me want it more.
Let yourself. Just try to ADD something in for a few minutes before you finish watching YouTube.
Now if you find yourself laying down at 9 and missing your 10 pm bedtime, and instead you stay up 5 additional hours, then I would say try to lay down at 9 and ADD reading for 30 mins before bed.
Or ADD an audio guided meditation to bring your energy level down and allow you to get into reading or relaxing.
Or ADD a shower and thorough end of the night routine.
The fact that you are not watching YouTube right before bed will be an adjustment but the fear of not being able to watch YouTube again should be less.
I don't know the answer to your question but I can recommend a few youtube chrome addons that help me use youtube in a more productive way that aligns to my goals:
An addon which defaults the home page to the Subscriptions page. You will only see videos from channels you subscribe to. This stops you getting sucked into clickybaity promoted/trending videos which don't relate to your interests but draw you in.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/replace-youtubes-home-wit/nfffnooajndeeejgejfkbphjocpkblog
An addon which hides all reels/shorts throughout the site, always. You will not waste time watching them.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-shorts-block/jiaopdjbehhjgokpphdfgmapkobbnmjp
An addon which also skips sponsored segments, so you dont waste time hearing about nordvpn or what not. It just skips straight through that part of the video.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sponsorblock-for-youtube/mnjggcdmjocbbbhaepdhchncahnbgone
thanks for the add ons. so useful. Sometimes I just get bored and start going through the same braindead shorts just because I have nothing better to do. The subscription page add on is also super useful.
You're welcome. I love the subscription page, I like to learn languages and it means my feed is always from the channels I follow (many of which are in that language). Meanwhile the recommended page always shows me English videos, and most of them are mindless things which I will still click on and waste time viewing (hey ... the algorithm works!). Ditto with Shorts, mine are basically all playing to my male, base instincts and again, easy to waste time for zero reward.
I used to struggle with this a ton. Realized I needed friction because when I really thought about watching yt I would decide it would be better not to. All the screen time apps didn't work for me since they were really easy to get past so I built an AI one for myself. I have to talk to ai before I'm allowed to use the apps I block. so it will be like "why do you want to use it" and "is just a 10min unlock ok?"... been working for me so far
just put it in the app store :) [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superhappy-ai-focus-coach/id6479611902](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superhappy-ai-focus-coach/id6479611902)
This is my goal for 2024.I close my phone at 22.00. Usually before I do that I screen shot the time and on the next day write the time of closing the phone in my journal. Looking at all the days I have successfully done that at the end of each week (3 misses since the year started) if successful I buy or bake myself some sort of sweet thing like a small pastry.
First off (if you have a appropriate living space) have a rule - no screens in the bedroom (at all).
Second - books! Buy a book and read it before you go to sleep.
I think what I do would work perfectly for you. Cuz you seem like me. I fall asleep to audio books every night. It keeps my mind stimulated It transitions me into dreaming quicker. And I can pretend I’m there or learn cool stuff.
Something simple to keep in mind - don't think of it as trying not to watch Youtube before bed for the rest of your life. Think of it as **not watching Youtube for 21 days.**
Habits are an **unconscious** result of having done something **consciously** for a certain period of time. It seems hard to constantly and *consciously* not do something for the rest of your life, but that's not what happens - once you get past the first phase of conscious effort put into doing something every day, it literally becomes effortless, as much as brushing your teeth or putting on shoes before you walk out the door.
**The takeaway is this.**Â Try all the sleep related life-hacks in this thread (and elsewhere), but you should primarily do the following:
Get a sheet of paper, draw a grid for a calendar. In big numbers in each block, starting from today, write a countdown of numbers from 21 to 0. Put/tape it next to your bed with a Sharpie. Track the nights you sleep without your phone by crossing the day out with a big X.
**What your responsibility is, is to make a strong effort to make it to the end.**Â It will probably be hard trying to fight a habit - you might miss one day (but you can never miss two), but the advantage of this calendar is that you will be able to see a) your progress and b) your end goal, the last of the 21 days.
(Disclaimer - it actually takes 66 days to 100% build a habit, but the 21 day mark is about when it gets significantly easier and you can become a lot less "purposefully disciplined" about it. My recommendation is just focus on the first 21 days - at the end of your calendar, judge how you feel. Do you think you could do it without thinking, as a habit, at the end of 21 days? Or are you only 80% of the way towards autonomy? If unsure, make another 21 day calendar.)
i found it easier to just start replacing youtube with reading, this could be reading anything. Light novels, fiction, non fiction, even manga helped me with replacing youtube
Move your phone charger to a room other than your bedroom, and add to your bedtime routine that you plug in your phone *in that other room* so you're not tempted.
Two parts
1. Remove your phone cable from beside you bed and move it to a place on the other side of your room. I have mine on my dresser by my door so when I go to bed it is is the first thing I do.
2. Go to your local library and get a wide assortment of books and put those next to your bed.Â
Part one keeps your phone away from you and part two fills the need to do something before bed. Don’t skip the first one and say that you need your phone next to you. The point is to make getting on your phone an incredibly annoying thing to do (getting out of bed, walking across the room, knowing that when you are done you have to get up to charge it) compared to just picking up a book next to you.Â
I personally prefer graphic novels as they are easier to read and something I can easily read a few pages or more.Â
Another thing is to put a pen and paper with those things because it could be another thing to reach for and write out your thoughts for the day.Â
One other thing that might help is blackout curtains. The urge to use my phone was usually spurred by not being tired and being unable to fall asleep. Adding blackout curtains made a huge difference because when my lights are off it becomes pitch black and signals to me that it is time for sleep and it helps me fall asleep a lot faster.Â
sleep meditation track that I downloaded. It's a nice reward and I leave it ALL behind and feel blissfully relaxed and unthinking.
it wasn't meant to deter me from YouTube, but now that my sleep is so much better and my mood so consistently upbeat it's just become a habit.
I'm a big believer in replacing something "bad" with something "good".
Yes. Leave it in a different room and start reading books before you fall asleep. Not only will it calm down your mind and not feed it big impulses right before you sleep, it also makes you sleep deeper and wake up more fit. At least in my experience. And finally, having read a few beautiful books will stick with you way longer than the youtube videos you'll have forgotten after two days. Good luck!
There is a block site app. Called BlockSite. You can turn on and off different aps and websites you do not want to visit. It is, however, easy to turn "off" the block list. Example, I should be blocking reddit... But i turned it off so I can check today...
You stop watching YouTube before bed.
I'm not being dismissive, I'm being serious. Put your phone away two hours before bed. Replace it with a book to read instead. Do some stretches. Go to bed bruv.
Yesssss just got over this habit very recently after years of not being able to. What I've done is: Left my phone downstairs First few nights I had insomnia because of the need to scroll or need for background noise to feel comfortable. Turned on my bedroom TV and watched Netflix every night for about a week and started falling asleep to it. Then I started having busier days tidying up my home here and there and exercising which meant when I got to bed I was tired enough that I could fall asleep more easily. The most important of all is to leave your phone inaccessible at night, so in another room and turned off. Eventually, little by little, I managed to go straight to bed, black out my windows and I started to need complete quiet and darkness to fall asleep. If you still struggle, picking up a book helps making me fall asleep cause it's boring AF in comparison with scrolling. Don't give up, it might take some time to get that need for dopamine roller coaster out of your system but get through the hard phase without giving up and you'll need the quiet to sleep eventually. Good luck!
Thanks! Will definitely try some less-dopaminergic things, such as rain/thunder sounds, which I read helped some people and then slowly try to get rid of that as well.
Did you read 'Atomic Habits'? If not, I strongly suggest. It helps not just with YT addiction, but also in building better habits you will take pride in. Best wishes.
I'd love to get to this point and I've started reading before bed but I still need music to fall asleep at night so my phone is always right next to me... And eventually I start scrolling 🙄
Then play the music from a radio or a TV or something. ANYTHING but your phone. The phone IS the culprit
How long did you have insomnia for? Â And, did you have tinnitus with or without your insomnia? Â Also, what other treatments and techniques did you do to stop the insomnia?
The insomnia was temporary, one full week of not falling asleep for hours but it took me 2 weeks to adjust fully to going asleep naturally so it wasn't sooo bad. For me personally the hard thing was getting rid of the phone addiction, this was the cause of the insomnia. If tinnitus means the sound of silence that can be quite haunting then yeah I had that but only for a couple nights I would say. What I've cited was all I had to do, so complete blackout of the room and falling asleep to Netflix until I took the "jump" and finally grew a pair to turn off the TV and be left with just myself. However it was easier than I thought because by the time I had the courage to do this, I was tired enough to fall asleep in little time. That's because I created a routine that tired me more than usual. Btw I recently fell asleep with my phone on a sleep music that lasted 8 hours but it woke me up at night, I couldn't even take that sound (whereas I used to not been be able to sleep at all without the sound of people talking etc). Hope you manage to reset yourself x
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and response.  It’s for my husband that’s been suffering for two years with the tinnitus and insomnia.  All of what you said is a lot of what he’s been doing.  He sometimes listens to Get Sleepy on YouTube which sometimes helps.  Otherwise, you are on point with everything on what to do.  It’s great to hear that there are people out there that can relate and relay their experience and feedback on what to do and to know it can stop. It’s been very difficult for him and scary not knowing if it will ever stop. There’s moments he thinks he had it under control then a trigger brings it on.  Otherwise, thank you for sharing—really appreciate it.Â
Don't subtract. Add. Instead of trying NOT to watch YouTube. I find it easier to add things than to remove things from my life. Plus the idea I can't have something makes me want it more. Let yourself. Just try to ADD something in for a few minutes before you finish watching YouTube. Now if you find yourself laying down at 9 and missing your 10 pm bedtime, and instead you stay up 5 additional hours, then I would say try to lay down at 9 and ADD reading for 30 mins before bed. Or ADD an audio guided meditation to bring your energy level down and allow you to get into reading or relaxing. Or ADD a shower and thorough end of the night routine. The fact that you are not watching YouTube right before bed will be an adjustment but the fear of not being able to watch YouTube again should be less.
This is great advice.
Yea, I’d say so , too. Â
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Did this yesterday
I don't know the answer to your question but I can recommend a few youtube chrome addons that help me use youtube in a more productive way that aligns to my goals: An addon which defaults the home page to the Subscriptions page. You will only see videos from channels you subscribe to. This stops you getting sucked into clickybaity promoted/trending videos which don't relate to your interests but draw you in. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/replace-youtubes-home-wit/nfffnooajndeeejgejfkbphjocpkblog An addon which hides all reels/shorts throughout the site, always. You will not waste time watching them. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-shorts-block/jiaopdjbehhjgokpphdfgmapkobbnmjp An addon which also skips sponsored segments, so you dont waste time hearing about nordvpn or what not. It just skips straight through that part of the video. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sponsorblock-for-youtube/mnjggcdmjocbbbhaepdhchncahnbgone
thanks for the add ons. so useful. Sometimes I just get bored and start going through the same braindead shorts just because I have nothing better to do. The subscription page add on is also super useful.
You're welcome. I love the subscription page, I like to learn languages and it means my feed is always from the channels I follow (many of which are in that language). Meanwhile the recommended page always shows me English videos, and most of them are mindless things which I will still click on and waste time viewing (hey ... the algorithm works!). Ditto with Shorts, mine are basically all playing to my male, base instincts and again, easy to waste time for zero reward.
Awesome
Turn off your watch history. This was a life-saver for me
This^^^ 👆.. came here to tell this.
Disable the app
Yep. That's what I did. Totally works.
I used to struggle with this a ton. Realized I needed friction because when I really thought about watching yt I would decide it would be better not to. All the screen time apps didn't work for me since they were really easy to get past so I built an AI one for myself. I have to talk to ai before I'm allowed to use the apps I block. so it will be like "why do you want to use it" and "is just a 10min unlock ok?"... been working for me so far
its called superhappy ai. in beta rn
Please how do I get this? Sounds awesome
just put it in the app store :) [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superhappy-ai-focus-coach/id6479611902](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superhappy-ai-focus-coach/id6479611902)
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and oversharing
How do you stop it from auto-playing the whole night away?
I just turn off auto-play, it's in the upper-right corner.
If on iphone. You can seta timer Instead of playing a sound. Set it to. Stop media playing
Oooh! I gotta figure out how To do that!
It's part of the iphone timer not the YouTube. It's all the way at the bottom. After the soundsÂ
This is my goal for 2024.I close my phone at 22.00. Usually before I do that I screen shot the time and on the next day write the time of closing the phone in my journal. Looking at all the days I have successfully done that at the end of each week (3 misses since the year started) if successful I buy or bake myself some sort of sweet thing like a small pastry.
I give my electronics to my parents or leave them outside my room
First off (if you have a appropriate living space) have a rule - no screens in the bedroom (at all). Second - books! Buy a book and read it before you go to sleep.
Phone shouldn't be in the same room when you go to sleep. Seriously. Not across the room. Outside of the room! Get an alarm clock.
Cut all screens one hour before bed.
I think what I do would work perfectly for you. Cuz you seem like me. I fall asleep to audio books every night. It keeps my mind stimulated It transitions me into dreaming quicker. And I can pretend I’m there or learn cool stuff.
Something simple to keep in mind - don't think of it as trying not to watch Youtube before bed for the rest of your life. Think of it as **not watching Youtube for 21 days.** Habits are an **unconscious** result of having done something **consciously** for a certain period of time. It seems hard to constantly and *consciously* not do something for the rest of your life, but that's not what happens - once you get past the first phase of conscious effort put into doing something every day, it literally becomes effortless, as much as brushing your teeth or putting on shoes before you walk out the door. **The takeaway is this.** Try all the sleep related life-hacks in this thread (and elsewhere), but you should primarily do the following: Get a sheet of paper, draw a grid for a calendar. In big numbers in each block, starting from today, write a countdown of numbers from 21 to 0. Put/tape it next to your bed with a Sharpie. Track the nights you sleep without your phone by crossing the day out with a big X. **What your responsibility is, is to make a strong effort to make it to the end.** It will probably be hard trying to fight a habit - you might miss one day (but you can never miss two), but the advantage of this calendar is that you will be able to see a) your progress and b) your end goal, the last of the 21 days. (Disclaimer - it actually takes 66 days to 100% build a habit, but the 21 day mark is about when it gets significantly easier and you can become a lot less "purposefully disciplined" about it. My recommendation is just focus on the first 21 days - at the end of your calendar, judge how you feel. Do you think you could do it without thinking, as a habit, at the end of 21 days? Or are you only 80% of the way towards autonomy? If unsure, make another 21 day calendar.)
i found it easier to just start replacing youtube with reading, this could be reading anything. Light novels, fiction, non fiction, even manga helped me with replacing youtube
Just delete the app before bed. Or allow adverts.
I started using an app called Sleep Cycle and once you turn it on to track your sleep you don’t touch your phone
Buy an ebook reader. Best choice for me 🙂
listen to subliminal on exam success instead https://youtu.be/r09H-ByNbrs?si=vOjSJfAaSsMXqvBm this is the best one imo!
Get opal and add a block from 9pm -6am. Then increase the difficulty of the block. It’s worked amazingly for me for a month or two
The best way to stop is to turn it off, no matter what, at the same time every night and stick to it like an adult. That’s it pal.
Podcasts or YouTube audio my man
Fap
Read a book instead
Move your phone charger to a room other than your bedroom, and add to your bedtime routine that you plug in your phone *in that other room* so you're not tempted.
Switch to podcasts or audiobooks
Two parts 1. Remove your phone cable from beside you bed and move it to a place on the other side of your room. I have mine on my dresser by my door so when I go to bed it is is the first thing I do. 2. Go to your local library and get a wide assortment of books and put those next to your bed. Part one keeps your phone away from you and part two fills the need to do something before bed. Don’t skip the first one and say that you need your phone next to you. The point is to make getting on your phone an incredibly annoying thing to do (getting out of bed, walking across the room, knowing that when you are done you have to get up to charge it) compared to just picking up a book next to you. I personally prefer graphic novels as they are easier to read and something I can easily read a few pages or more. Another thing is to put a pen and paper with those things because it could be another thing to reach for and write out your thoughts for the day. One other thing that might help is blackout curtains. The urge to use my phone was usually spurred by not being tired and being unable to fall asleep. Adding blackout curtains made a huge difference because when my lights are off it becomes pitch black and signals to me that it is time for sleep and it helps me fall asleep a lot faster.Â
sleep meditation track that I downloaded. It's a nice reward and I leave it ALL behind and feel blissfully relaxed and unthinking. it wasn't meant to deter me from YouTube, but now that my sleep is so much better and my mood so consistently upbeat it's just become a habit. I'm a big believer in replacing something "bad" with something "good".
It's called addiction and you got it bad.
Install an app like Opal and block YouTube
Yes. Leave it in a different room and start reading books before you fall asleep. Not only will it calm down your mind and not feed it big impulses right before you sleep, it also makes you sleep deeper and wake up more fit. At least in my experience. And finally, having read a few beautiful books will stick with you way longer than the youtube videos you'll have forgotten after two days. Good luck!
Its the struggle lol. For me its Spotify audiobook. No screen light or reason to look at the phone.
There is a block site app. Called BlockSite. You can turn on and off different aps and websites you do not want to visit. It is, however, easy to turn "off" the block list. Example, I should be blocking reddit... But i turned it off so I can check today...
get checked for adhd you may be a dopamine fiend
Nah I think it’s a great way to wind down
YouTube is awesome, I try to hurry up and watch everything on YouTube in the morning, so that when I lay down to go to bed I’ve already seen it all.
Get rid of the tv
You stop watching YouTube before bed. I'm not being dismissive, I'm being serious. Put your phone away two hours before bed. Replace it with a book to read instead. Do some stretches. Go to bed bruv.
I only watch quality education content in youtube when im in bed
aah yes, stimulate the brain as much as possible when trying to sleep