How Can I Remedy My Subtle Addiction?

[The White Belt]

My subtle addiction is my smart phone.

When I am watching a film I am thinking about what is going on with my phone.

I am thinking about Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp.

I like the feeling when I get a 'Like' on something, I get a little hit of serotonin.

I am on my phone too much, I can replace the time with more mindfulness. 

How can I break out of the chains of my subtle addiction?

[YaNanNallari]

Honestly quit anything you can out of those. This acts as a reminder that you don't need them and your experience from before has showed them to affect you in certain ways. Anyway I like an acceptance approach from this video, there's an intro and I linked where the practice starts from.

Because if you keep resisting it there's going to be something left out there and you'll either find another addiction or return to the same one after a while most likely.

When you crave for some stimulation use feeling your body or breath as that instead of a smartphone or something else. Even though the reward is not as instant you will then feel the feeling without rejecting it and it will pass. Then it is much easier over time to do this, as you'll begin to see that the thought of having to use your smartphone or something else is just a thought and you don't need to take action on it. It also is a habit so if you open your smartphone out of habit there's no need to panic. Just put it away and feel your body even if you feel anxious.

It might take some time for you to deal with this addiction so whenever you're discouraged don't worry too much about it. No need to judge anything. Just keep trying and remind yourself that you're doing good because worrying about things only slows down your progress.