My hijacked brain

When my alarm goes off a few minutes before 8:00 a.m., I can’t help but laugh at my situation. “Is this really the thing that keeps me from hitting snooze?”

It’s April 2003. I’m in the final weeks of my third year at university. You might think my alarm is going off so I can get up and study for exams or write a paper, but no, that’s not it.

I silence my alarm, grab my remote, and turn on my TV to TBS. The channel is running a daily 4-hour morning marathon of past Dawson’s Creek seasons leading up to next month’s series finale.

After the first couple of episodes, I start to feel it creep in: the guilt. I know I should be studying or writing papers. Each passing hour compounds the weight of my procrastination. I imagine my studious friends who would never let themselves waste an entire morning on a TV show they’ve already seen.

Despite knowing what I should be doing, I can’t seem to stop myself.

The irony? All of my courses this term are studying the brain.

Brain hijacking

I’ve been thinking a lot about brain hijacking lately. This is what I call it when I become derailed by a side obsession that gets its hooks in me and won’t let go¹.

Sometimes it’s minor and short-lived, like a novel I can’t tear myself away from. I may lose a few hours of sleep or take a half day off work when my schedule is clear. I call it minor because I can typically catch up on lost sleep or work in a day or two.

Those instances feel like a train delay. Movement is stalled temporarily before it gets moving again.

But other times, it’s a full derailment. In these cases, the train accelerates, gradually at first before gaining more and more speed until finally veering off the tracks and crashing. Although I’m not literally in a ditch beside the tracks, the word crash does capture how I feel physically and emotionally.

Whether it’s compromising my final exams rewatching Dawson’s Creek during university or letting work pile up as I recently spent every free moment binging a 2019 series on Netflix², the brain-hijacking obsession takes over, and I appear to lose any sense of control.

Shining a light

I had no intention to write about this publicly. That is, until I confessed my recent hijacking to a few friends whose immediate reactions were similar: “That’s so relatable.”

But it wasn’t until one of those friends asked sincerely, “So how do you stop yourself?” that I paused long enough to realize the truth. When my brain is hijacked, the most effective solution is external boundaries and support.

I explained how an appointment in my calendar, like the call we were having, is often enough for me to step away from the obsession and meet my external commitments (even if I’m not happy about it). During the Dawson’s Creek binge of 2003, I still attended classes and exams.

But, it also helps to talk about the hijacking with people I trust. Sharing helps to shine a light on what’s happening while it’s happening, and they can help me regroup. Sometimes that looks like slowing down or pausing. Sometimes it means getting off the train completely. Other times, it means they help me pick up the pieces after I’ve already crashed.

Finally, sharing also helps me feel less alone. I don’t know about you, but I feel isolated when I’m struggling with self-control. Hearing others confess their own runaway train experiences reminds me I’m not the only one. Other people do ‘get it’ and understand what it’s like. So instead of trying to hide what’s happening or pretend I’m not susceptible to brain hijacking, I’m putting it out there instead.

And who knows? Maybe by sharing my story, someone reading it might feel less alone, too.

[1] Dr. Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, calls it compulsive overconsumption.
[2] I explain this recent brain-hijacking obsession in this week’s podcast episode of The Momentum Experiment.

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