How to Stop Doomscrolling: 5 Methods That Actually Work

What actually works to stop doomscrolling:

• Move your phone to another room during high-risk times

• Use friction-based tools like ScreenBuddy that force a pause before opening apps

• Notice physical stress signals while scrolling and treat them as stop signs

• Replace scrolling with movement or connection, not empty space

• Limit yourself to a few trusted news sources and unfollow the rest

The Direct Answer

Set firm time and location limits for your news consumption, then enforce them with accountability tools. Research confirms that doomscrolling increases depression and anxiety while feeding your brain a constant stream of cortisol, the stress hormone. The solution isn't willpower alone. It's building barriers between you and your phone at high-risk moments.

The Methods

1. Create Physical Distance at High-Risk Times

The most effective change you can make costs nothing. Move your phone to another room during the times you're most likely to scroll, particularly first thing in the morning and before bed.

Dr. Susan Albers, a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic, calls this "localizing" the behavior: limiting when, where, and for how long you allow yourself to check news. If you typically reach for your phone from bed, charge it across the room. Complete your morning routine before you allow any news consumption.

2. Use an App That Creates Friction

Screen time limits that you can override with one tap don't work. Your brain in "just one more scroll" mode will dismiss every gentle reminder. What does work is friction: something that forces you to pause and consciously decide whether you actually need to open that app.

ScreenBuddy uses a 25-second countdown with haptic feedback before allowing access to distracting apps. That pause creates space between impulse and action, giving you time to recognize you're about to doomscroll and choose differently. Unlike hard blocks that feel punishing, this approach works with your habits rather than against them.

3. Pay Attention to How Your Body Responds

Most doomscrolling happens on autopilot. Dr. Albers recommends practicing awareness of how negative content makes you feel physically as you scroll.

Are your shoulders hunched up near your ears? Is your jaw clenched? Is your heart racing? These physical signals are your body telling you to stop. Noticing them while you're mid-scroll is more likely to motivate you to put the phone down than any abstract goal about screen time reduction.

4. Replace the Habit, Don't Just Remove It

Doomscrolling fills a gap. Maybe it's boredom, maybe it's anxiety seeking reassurance, maybe it's just habit. Whatever the underlying need, you're more likely to succeed if you replace the behavior rather than leaving a void.

Dr. Adam Borland, another Cleveland Clinic psychologist, suggests going for a walk, starting a hobby, or doing something positive for your mental health once you've hit your screen time limit. Physical movement is particularly effective because exercise helps increase serotonin levels, counteracting the cortisol flooding from all that bad news.

5. Curate Your Feeds Aggressively

Unfollow news sources that rely on outrage. Limit yourself to two or three trusted outlets rather than a dozen competing feeds. Every additional source increases the chances you'll encounter conflicting information that keeps you scrolling for clarity that never comes.

Dr. Albers describes this conflicting information phenomenon as "crazymaking": one source says one thing, another says the opposite, and your brain keeps scrolling trying to reconcile the two. Fewer sources means less noise and less temptation.

Personal Experience

I built ScreenBuddy to solve my own scrolling problem. Before using it, I spent nearly 7 hours daily on my phone, much of that consuming content that left me feeling worse, not better. Two months later, I'm down to 3 hours daily, a 55% reduction. The difference wasn't motivation or discipline. It was having a tool that interrupted my autopilot habits and made me conscious of what I was doing with my time.