What nachos and your ex have in common

I set a time limit on my Instagram app.

1.5 hours every day.

I use the app for content research most of the time cause I create content for a living (sort of), but I find myself falling into the doom scrolling trap so often.

Thank God for that notification on my phone that literally wakes me up.

But every single time I hit “snooze for another 15 min” I feel depleted and uninspired and I can’t produce anything, I cannot write, I cannot create, I cannot properly connect ideas anymore.

It’s doing something to your brain.

I really believe that.

And it made me wonder: how did we get here? Why did we allow this to happen?

I always loved math.

Math is actually what made me realise I needed to get out of my 9 to 5. I literally calculated the hours I would spend in that office doing something I was super good at but didn’t necessarily love. Something that was only scratching the surface of what I was capable of.

And I did the math again after I set my timer.

1.5 hours every day (and this is really on the low end for the average user) times 365 days. You do the math. In 16 years of scrolling at that rate, you hand over one full year of your life to an algorithm that gives you nothing in return.

One year.

And that’s just one app. Now count how many other apps we use.

It just makes us less inspired, less creative, less in love with life. Almost like we’re under some kind of anaesthesia.

I noticed that on the days when I kill time scrolling, I’m also snacking more.

I snack on plain nacho chips. I don’t like any flavours, I hate them even. I just like the dry and plain ones. Idk, it makes me feel like I’m not overconsuming junk. Somehow they feel a bit more “healthy” but junk enough to satisfy that craving.

And on those days, when I scroll and snack, I also catch myself ruminating more. Fantasising about people and stories, creating a whole universe in my head.

I was talking to a friend and we were trying to decompose her limerence over a guy she barely knows. We ended up on the same conclusion: that limerence was just a way of the brain to fill a gap.

The nachos, the ex, the scroll. Same gap, different costume.

So what actually is the gap?

It’s not boredom in the way we usually mean it.

It’s deeper than that.

It’s the hunger for real connection. The kind where you meet someone and ideas just flow, you’re on the same frequency, you get each other with no effort. You speak the same language and you both know it immediately. That rare feeling of being fully met.

It’s the gap that opens when you’ve plateaued. In your routines, in your work, in the spaces you move through every day. When you’re not in love with what you’re building. When you haven’t yet touched what you’re actually capable of, the skills, the talents, the version of yourself that’s still waiting somewhere just underneath the surface.

It’s the gap between the life you’re living and the life you can feel exists just outside of what you’ve allowed yourself to reach for yet.

And because that gap is uncomfortable, we numb it.

Some do it through scrolling and living excitement through a screen. Watching other people travel, succeed, have adventures, build beautiful things. We consume their aliveness because we haven’t fully claimed our own.

The limerence is the same thing. You’re not obsessing over him. You’re obsessing over the feeling of being fully alive that you associate with him.

The nachos are the same thing.

And I’m writing this not to add shame to your self narrative. But to offer perspective.

The scroll, the fantasies, the ruminating, all of it is pointing at the same question.

What would it look like if you stopped watching other people live and started building something that makes you forget to check your phone?

The brain science of that scroll

Here’s what’s actually happening underneath all of it.

When you’re not focused on anything specific, not creating, not learning, not absorbed in something real, your brain switches into what neuroscientists call the default mode network. And left unoccupied, it goes straight to rumination. Fantasising, replaying, spiralling on things you can’t change, obsessing over people who aren’t thinking about you half as much as you’re thinking about them.

Scrolling feels like it fills that space.

But it doesn’t.

Dopamine is not the pleasure chemical most people think it is. It’s the anticipation chemical. It fires on novelty, on discovery, on challenge. Not on passive consumption. Your brain keeps scrolling looking for the thing that will finally feel like enough.

But it never comes.

So even 1.5 hours feels like it’s not enough.

What the difference actually feels like

I remember when building muscle became an obsession.

I started reading the science. I changed my group of friends. I found people with the same passion and suddenly every conversation had novelty in it, every week had a milestone. Something new to learn, something new to feel in my body, something new to talk about at 10pm on a Tuesday because I genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I felt energised in a way I didn’t have a word for at the time.

Compare that to the days I scroll.

I usually don’t realise how flat the day was until I look back at it in the evening and I can’t name a single highlight. Everything was the same intensity. It feels like opening a cold bottle of sparkling water on a hot summer day, desperate for it, and taking the first sip only to realise it’s flat. It’s just lukewarm, still water.

That’s what a scroll day feels like in your body.

And that’s the difference between filling the gap and actually closing it.

Psychological sunshine

I am good at creating mini obsessions.

Some might describe it as addictive behaviour but for me it’s pure pleasure.

I come across a topic, I start to dig, and I dig and I just cannot stop. Every book, podcast, article, conversation needs to be in that direction, otherwise I’m bored. Usually they last anywhere between 2 weeks to 3 or 4 months at a time. And I often come back to them.

The menstrual cycle was one of those obsessions. But it was one that I just couldn’t drop. It just kept expanding.

For me, this thirst for knowledge is one way to fill the gap.

It’s what creates my psychological sunshine.

There’s no time when I’m in it. I don’t reach for any nachos. I have no need for confirmation from other people that I’m worth it, that I’m valuable. Which is that imaginary validation we get when we fantasise or develop limerence.

The obsession makes you self-sufficient.

The scroll makes you dependent.

How to fill the gap with something that’s actually yours

If you find yourself thinking about your ex too much, about the possibilities, fantasising about a life that isn’t yours, ruminating on decisions you regret, if you snack too much, if you scroll too much: you have a gap that all of these are filling.

You only need to make your world bigger.

And I’m not saying do more things and avoid understanding what message is in those gaps. It’s about enriching your life with your passions.

Try a new sport. Find a topic you can’t stop talking about. Try bellydancing. Ride a motorcycle.

I started a bucket list a while ago and it keeps growing…

Because if I do the math again, I’m already 1 + 1 + 1 + 1… well… I’m 32. And I don’t know how many 1s I’ll keep adding.

I just want to make each one richer and richer and I want the same for you.

Love, Teo

P.S. What’s your current obsession or the one you want to start? Drop it in the comments. I want to know what lights you up.

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