How Social Media Threatens Your Mental Health and Ruins Relationships

There’s so much to love about social media.

It allows us to stay connected with family and friends, see what they’re up to, and enjoy photos of loved ones and their vacations — not to mention the funny videos people love to share!

There is definitely a healthy and fulfilling side of social media, and that’s nice. That’s the good stuff.

However, there is also a bad and even dangerous side, and I want to share with you how social media threatens our mental health and can even ruin our relationships!

In this post, I’m going to share the big “red flags” you want to watch out for, and what you can do to protect yourself, stay healthy, and continue to build fulfilling relationships.

It’s Like a Candy Bar

Social media is fun and can make you feel good — like a candy bar!

But just because a candy bar tastes good or makes you feel good in the moment, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. What happens when we scroll social media is similar to what happens when we eat something full of sugar, like a candy bar.

Brain chemicals that make us feel good get released. The main brain chemical I’m talking about is dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that gets produced by the brain with the introduction of anything new, different, or dangerous.

When you are on social media, you’re seeing new and different experiences that other people are having — and that’s gonna make the brain release dopamine and feel good.

The problem there is that you start comparing what you’re seeing from other people with what you’re experiencing in your own life. The brain thinks: “Oh, are they having more than me?” and starts to compare. We may see people smiling, people on vacation, people happy and celebrating as if that’s all that’s going on in the world.

This is something our brain does with every perception — we compare. This is going on subconsciously in the brain all the time.

By watching what happens on social media, the brain is constantly overstimulated by comparing, and when you compare, there’s danger.

You start to think:

• Why does that person have more than me?
• What does that mean about me?
• What if that person has achieved more than me? 
• What does that mean about me?

With social media, you can get a very unrealistic picture of the world, and you’re comparing it to your own experience.

Comparing stimulates and releases dopamine because it reveals danger; it’s an uncertainty.

Side Note: This can also happen when you watch the news and see something that’s new. You have to ask: “How do I adapt to that? Is that good? Is that bad?” All of that comparing stimulates high levels of dopamine.

Dopamine Imbalance Reduces Happiness and Passion

Now, intuitively it’s hard to understand why high levels of dopamine can cause a lack of happiness or passion. After all, this is a chemical that makes you feel good! It creates high alertness, motivation, and the ability to run or go fast.

But it’s also an addictive brain chemical.

We can get addicted to it, just like being addicted to something like a candy bar! Think about it: If a child, for example, has never been exposed to sugar and you give them broccoli, they’ll go: “Yum, this broccoli tastes great!” But as soon as they’re exposed to sugar — which stimulates high dopamine levels — it will desensitize their brain to pleasure.

This is because when you experience higher levels of dopamine than normal, it desensitizes the dopamine receptors in the brain. 

At this point, you’ll need higher levels of stimulation to feel pleasure because normal stimulation (which we could say is low stimulation, i.e. the broccoli) doesn’t taste good anymore. Now, you want the candy bar!

So this is the danger: High dopamine stimulation over a short period of time actually changes the brain in a measurable way. You lose dopamine receptor sites, and the symptom of that is that normal experiences become boring and flat or anxiety-producing.

This may mean that having a simple conversation with your wife, husband, or children or going for a walk in nature might start to feel boring or flat. You might begin to need a level of high stimulation in order to feel pleasure.

Being addicted to high stimulation — like you get with social media — can be a gateway drug to more serious and dangerous addictions, like internet pornography, opioids, or cocaine.

This is very risky to both your mental health and relationships because:

• Becoming desensitized may mean you’ll need fantasy partners or new and different partners to become stimulated, which could lead to using or abusing internet pornography.
• The more you use internet porn, the lower your testosterone levels go, and the less interest you’ll have in your wife or husband — which has a huge impact on your intimacy and connection.
• You may begin to resent your partner because you feel like it’s just the same thing over and over.
• As opposed to seeing the best in your partner, when we’re desensitized, we tend to see the worst. This means that marriages can fall apart.
• You may also lose passion for your work or job. Something you once loved may feel quite boring and even stressful to you.
• This may lead some to drug use as well — not just the drugs you buy on the street but the drugs your doctors prescribe, like antidepressants or sleeping pills.

All of this may be the result of a simple imbalance of dopamine function in the brain!

How to Know If You’re Addicted & What to Do If You Are

As I mentioned, people who are desensitized to dopamine may experience terrible boredness, flatness, depression, or despair. That’s all a normal symptom of overstimulation of the brain with dopamine.

So how do you know if you’re addicted to social media, or if too much social media is what is causing your feelings of boredness or despair?

Well, my first recommendation is to go off of social media for three days and see if you feel uncomfortable!

You might have symptoms of irritability, anxiety, or you might feel tired or extremely bored. These are all the symptoms of being addicted to social media.

How do you correct that?

When your mood goes out of balance due to an imbalance in brain chemistry, correcting that is a matter of:

• Reducing the high stimulation levels
• Getting regular doses of low stimulation (i.e. taking a walk in the woods, having a casual conversation with friends, or playing a board game)
• Restoring your natural and ideal balance with supplementation 

Fortunately, our MarsVenus Wellness Solution can help restore normal brain function.

When your dopamine receptors are working optimally again and you have normal brain function, you won’t experience the same despair, boredom, anxiety, or flatness anymore. The simple things in life will once again be engaging and fulfilling for you!

You’ll find that:

• You feel confident — and even smarter — because your brain is sharp and clear
• Your work is exciting again and full of purpose
• Your time with loved ones is truly fun and fulfilling
• You have a renewed sense of passion in the bedroom (even if you’ve been married or together for a long time)
• You may even lose some excess weight if that’s out of balance too!

The MarsVenus Wellness Solution was designed to balance both brain and body to help you experience a truly radiant and energized life.

And because men and women are different — even in their brain chemistry — we’ve made sure there are two specific formulations for your individual, hormonal needs: one for women and girls and one for men and boys.

It’s worth backing off from so much social media to restore your brain chemistry. But at the same time, you want to make sure that you have the correct nutritional and supplementary support to get the most out of your little “detox” so you can both break the addiction and restore your mental health and wellness.
 

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Grow in love,