Break Free From Digital Addiction

Your Brain Is Not Reacting — It Is Predicting Explain Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett's predictive brain model and understand why digital habits feel so automatic and so difficult to interrupt.

The Dopamine System: Wanting vs Liking Distinguish between wanting and liking in the dopamine system and explain how social media exploits the gap between the two.

The Pleasure-Pain Seesaw Describe Dr. Anna Lembke's pleasure-pain balance model and explain why stopping feels so uncomfortable and why that discomfort is a sign of recovery.

Your Body Budget: Why Stress Makes Everything Worse Apply Dr. Barrett's body budget concept to your own life and identify the specific factors that make you most vulnerable to compulsive digital use.

The Trauma Connection: Why The Pain Was There First Understand Dr. Gabor Maté's perspective on the emotional roots of addictive behaviour and approach your own digital use with greater compassion and less self-blame.

Your Brain Can Change: The Science of Hope Summarise the neuroscientific evidence for neuroplasticity and dopamine restoration and feel genuinely hopeful about the possibility of lasting change.

The Meaning Crisis: When Life Feels Empty Identify the meaning gap that makes people vulnerable to digital dependency and apply Arthur Brooks' happiness macronutrients framework to your own life.

Boredom Is Not the Enemy — It Is the Gateway Reframe boredom as neurologically valuable rather than a problem to be solved and practise the STOP technique as a pattern interrupt in urge moments

Stop Chasing Feelings — Start Building a Life Distinguish between pursuing happiness directly and building the conditions in which happiness naturally arises and understand why only one of those approaches works

The Three Things You Actually Need Apply Arthur Brooks' three happiness macronutrients to your specific situation and complete the Values Clarification Worksheet as a foundation for everything that follows.

The CBT Framework: Thoughts, Feelings, Behaviours Explain the CBT model of interconnected thoughts, feelings and behaviours and understand how intervening at any point in the loop creates change across all three.

Identifying Your Triggers: The ABC Model Use the ABC model to identify your specific digital addiction triggers and begin building your Personal Trigger Map using the downloadable worksheet.

Urge Management: Your Complete Toolkit Apply three in-the-moment urge management tools — urge surfing, self-talk reframing and the Self-Compassion Pause — and identify which works best for you in different situations.

Changing Beliefs at the Felt Level: A Three-Step Practice Complete the three-step Belief Change Practice — identifying a negative cognition, constructing a positive alternative and installing it through guided imagination — using the accompanying audio.

Radical Honesty: The Unexpected Recovery Tool Explain why radical honesty with yourself and others is one of the most reliable tools in recovery and identify one specific way to practise it this week.

Environmental Design: Making the Right Choice Easier Redesign your physical and digital environment using the Environmental Design Checklist to reduce reliance on willpower and make the right choices more automatic.

Behavioural Activation: Filling the Void with Something Real Build a personal Replacement Behaviour Menu with options at different energy levels and understand why acting before you feel ready is more effective than waiting for motivation.

The Morning Protocol: How You Start the Day Changes Everything Design a personal morning protocol using the Morning Protocol Planner that protects the neurochemical window after waking and sets a foundation for recovery throughout the day.

Preparing for Your Reset: Before You Begin Complete your reset preparation using Resource 5A, sign your Personal Contract and enter Day One with a clear target, a prepared environment and a realistic understanding of what to expect.

Days 1–10: Surviving the Storm Recognise the symptoms of the dopamine deficit state as normal and temporary and apply the physiological sigh and craving plan to navigate the most difficult window of the reset.

Days 11–20: The Clouds Begin to Clear Identify the specific vulnerabilities of the messy middle and use the Mid-Reset Journal Prompts to begin making sense of what the quiet is revealing.

Days 21–30: Reclaiming Natural Reward Recognise the neurological changes underway in the final third of the reset and understand what to do with the renewed capacity for natural pleasure as it returns.

Relapse: What It Means and What to Do Distinguish between a slip and a collapse and apply the Relapse Recovery Plan with honesty and self-compassion rather than shame.

Relapse as Part of the Recovery Process Understand why relapse is a statistically normal part of sustained recovery, reframe it as information rather than failure and leave this lecture with a fundamentally different relationship to the concept of setback.

Real Connection in a Disconnected World Identify the specific ways screen use has eroded genuine connection in your life and make one concrete commitment to rebuilding it.

Finding Meaning: Not Your Passion, Your Purpose Distinguish between passion-seeking and purpose-building using Arthur Brooks' framework and identify one way to contribute something meaningful to the world around you.

Technology Boundaries for the Long Term Complete your Personal Technology Policy — a document of your own values and choices about technology that will guide your relationship with screens going forward.

Supporting Someone You Love Apply the research-based approach to supporting a partner, friend or teenager with problematic digital use without triggering defensive resistance.

Maintenance: Staying Free for the Long Term Build your Long-Term Maintenance Plan including weekly check-ins, monthly audits, early warning signs and the identity shift that makes sustained recovery more natural than effortful.

Conclusion and Next Steps Consolidate everything you have learned and built across the course and leave with a clear sense of where you are going and what you are carrying forward.