Does Quitting Social Media Help Anxiety? My Anxiety Attacks Stopped

Does quitting social media help anxiety? For me, it helped, but I'll be honest: most of my anxiety came from not sleeping. Social media was the daily fuel on top of it. Removing that fuel is part of why my anxiety attacks stopped.

I'm not a doctor or a therapist. Anxiety has many causes. If yours is strong, or if you have panic attacks, talk to a professional. This is just what happened to me, with the good and the honest parts.

What my anxiety looked like

I was anxious all the time, and some days it turned into anxiety attacks.

It wasn't one big thing. It was a constant background noise:

• A foggy head that never fully woke up.
• Comparing myself to everyone, all day.
• And sometimes, out of nowhere, an anxiety attack.

I thought it was just who I was. An anxious guy. It took me years to see what was feeding it: mostly broken sleep, and 6 hours a day of the feed on top.

Can social media cause anxiety?

I can't speak for everyone. For me, it fed my anxiety every single day.

Here's what the feed did to me:

Open Instagram → see people succeeding.
People succeeding → envy.
Envy → sometimes even hate toward them.
Then → hating myself even more for being stuck.

Do that 6 hours a day, and your brain never gets a quiet minute. Every scroll was a small comparison. Every comparison was a small hit of stress.

But to be clear, social media wasn't the main cause. Most of my anxiety came from my nights: a tight pelvic floor kept waking me up (I tell that story in what a hypertonic pelvic floor did to me). No sleep, then stress, then more anxiety, then even less sleep. A vicious circle. The feed just added fuel to it, every single day.

Does deleting social media help with anxiety?

Deleting the apps didn't help me, because I always reinstalled them.

I deleted the apps. A few days later they were back, "just to check my messages". I blocked Twitter, and found a copy of it called Nitter. Every exit I closed, I reopened.

So my anxiety got a new layer: the shame of failing to quit, again.

You can't calm down in a room where the alarm can ring any second, and you're the one holding the button.

What I did instead: keep the apps, kill the feed

I kept what I needed from social media and locked away what was hurting me.

One day I asked myself the dumbest question: what if the feed just couldn't load anymore, even when I wanted it to? Not deleting my life. Just removing the part that made me compare, envy and scroll.

• Social apps without the feed: the stories and the endless videos are gone. Messages and search still work.
• A blocker on my Android phone and my computer that covers apps, sites and videos, and turning it off takes a delay. Anxiety wants relief right now. The delay says no.

The first setups didn't hold. Too strict, and I felt cut off, so I loosened it until it was useless. Too loose, and I found the one gap. It took months to find the balance.

The balance is the hard part: locked enough to stop the scroll, open enough that you don't feel cut off. Step 2 of my method gives you the exact setup that found it.

Signs social media is feeding your anxiety

You don't need a test. Check these:

• You feel worse after scrolling than before, almost every time.
• You compare your life to other people's posts, and you always lose.
• You pick up your phone the moment you feel uncomfortable.
• You can't sit with nothing to do for 5 minutes.
• You've tried to cut down, and you always come back.

If you check 3 or more, the feed is probably part of your problem.

Why the feed makes you feel behind

Because you're comparing your whole life to everyone else's best moments.

You see the promotion, the trip, the body, the new car. You don't see the doubts, the debts, the bad days. Your brain doesn't make the difference. It just concludes: everyone is ahead, except me.

Do that hundreds of times a day, and "I'm behind" stops being a thought. It becomes how you feel all the time. That was my background noise.

The first week without the feed

Expect boredom, not panic.

For me, the first days were mostly boring. There was nothing to open. Then the empty space started to feel like quiet. And quiet is exactly what an anxious brain had been missing.

"But what if I miss something?"

You won't miss what matters. The people who matter will text you.

The fear of missing out is one of the things that keeps you scrolling. What if something happens? What if everyone talks about it and I don't know?

Here's what I found: the important things reach me anyway. My friends message me. Big news usually finds you in a conversation anyway. What I miss is the noise: the drama, the hot takes, the posts that made me feel behind.

That's exactly why I kept my messages and removed only the feed. Connection stays. Comparison goes.

Can phone addiction cause anxiety?

I can't give you a medical answer. I can tell you how it worked in my head.

In my case, the phone wasn't the main cause. My broken nights were. But the feed added a constant stream of comparisons on top: people succeeding, me stuck. Envy, then hate, then hating myself. That's fuel an anxious brain doesn't need.

Removing the feed took that fuel away.

Does quitting social media help anxiety? What happened to mine

The anxiety attacks stopped. The background noise got much quieter.

• No more anxiety attacks.
• A clear head in the morning, instead of fog.
• No more comparing all day. I don't see other people's highlight reels anymore, so I don't measure myself against them.
• More present. I listen when people talk to me. I'm kinder.
• Calmer body. Gym every week. 10 kg heavier.

To be honest: several things changed at once. I quit porn and social media with the same lock, and my pelvic floor slowly got better, so I sleep more. I can't tell you which one did what. I just know that without the feed adding fuel every day, and with more sleep, my anxiety calmed down.

The first days weren't scary, by the way. Mostly boring. And bored, I called my friends and went out way more. Real people did more for my anxiety than any feed ever did.

When to get help for anxiety

If your anxiety stops you from living normally, see a professional, whatever you do with your phone.

• Panic attacks, or attacks that come back often.
• Anxiety that ruins your sleep, your work or your relationships.
• Dark thoughts, or feeling hopeless.

A doctor or a therapist can help. Quitting the feed helped me, but it's not a treatment.

Give your brain a quiet minute

Your brain can't calm down if you keep feeding it comparisons all day.

If you recognize yourself, the full method is here: how I stopped doomscrolling for good. If your evenings are the worst part, start with how to stop doomscrolling at night.

The feed will still be there tomorrow, ready to make you feel behind. You can keep scrolling and hoping it gets better. Or you can lock it today and find out what calm feels like.