Unlearn Negative Thoughts & Behaviors Patterns | Dr. Alok Kanojia (Healthy Gamer)

Dr. Kanojia trained as a monk for seven years before becoming a Harvard-trained psychiatrist. That dual lens revealed something Western psychology often overlooks: the ego. In Eastern traditions, the ego is any identity you claim after saying «I am.» It's not bad—we need it to function—but it becomes a problem when it drives all our motivation through comparison and external validation. Everyone is focused on changing behavior through willpower, but Dr. Kanojia asks: why not change the tendency itself? In psychotherapy, he's seen people with narcissistic personality disorder fundamentally rewire who they are. Willpower is only necessary when you're fighting against yourself. When the internal drive changes, behavior follows naturally. The real work isn't forcing yourself to act differently; it's editing the subconscious patterns that generate your thoughts and desires in the first place.

Dr. Kanojia describes the internet as selecting for emotional activation—not dopamine, but arousal. It cycles you through fear, anger, joy, and back again to maintain engagement. This constant emotional whiplash is cognitively exhausting and drains willpower. Worse, algorithms create echo chambers that radicalize perception. People no longer live in the same reality. AI compounds this: it's sycophantic by design, trained to make you feel good by agreeing with you. Dr. Kanojia now asks patients if they use AI the same way he asks about methamphetamine use—because heavy, customized AI use is emerging as a risk factor for psychosis. The use case is the risk factor. One case report documented AI-induced psychosis in a person with no prior psychiatric history. They were hospitalized, treated with antipsychotics, discharged—then became psychotic again after resuming AI use. The internet doesn't just influence you; it reprograms you.

Yoga nidra is a guided meditation that brings you into a state between waking and sleep—alert but deeply relaxed. Dr. Kanojia calls this the «edit mode» for your unconscious mind. In this state, you can implant a sankalpa, or resolve—a being statement like «I am whole» or «I deserve peace.» Unlike affirmations, which are surface-level repetition, a sankalpa sinks into the unconscious when your autonomic nervous system is in a unique parasympathetic-yet-alert state. This is not about telling yourself something over and over. It's about achieving the precise physiological conditions for neuroplasticity. Dr. Kanojia emphasizes: if you don't reach that state, repeating phrases is just gaslighting yourself. But when you do reach it, you can burn away samskaras—the emotional scars and learned patterns that unconsciously drive your behavior—and replace them with new, healthier programming. This is how you change who you are, not just what you do.