Silent pandemic

Introduction:

We live in a time when the algorithms of apps control our existence, designed to trigger the release of dopamine in our brains. They keep hundreds of millions of people literally distracted, staring at a screen, without thinking. It’s a phenomenon that, although it affects almost all of society, is especially harmful to the new generations who live trapped in a manufactured reality, constantly seeking immediate gratification and pleasure, comfort, external validation, approval on social media, personal satisfaction buying experiences like traveling and consuming more than they need and even over economic possibilities.

The algorithms have created a fictional reality designed so that people are constantly valued and judged by others based on our appearance, lifestyle, and material possessions. The constant use of screen devices, the increasing consumption and dependence on digital-format content is making it so that, instead of living and existing, we remain distracted by irrelevant content and the lives of strangers on a screen. Our life feels like we are in a river current at sea, pulling us along. Living no longer is living; it’s an ongoing competition for greater academic success, earning more money, owning more things, more trips, more clothes, the perfect face, the perfect hair, the perfect figure, and so on. Only because they convince us that we’re not good enough as we are, and we try to match the same level and lifestyle that complete strangers show.

And since we are constantly absorbed by the digital world, we live in constant competition. We have to post the best photo with the best scenery, the most spectacular dinner at the best restaurant, dress in the latest fashion, drive a luxurious car. We need the latest smartphone, exotic trips, and to sleep in dream hotels, to have a bigger house, and so on. We drown in an ocean of information and a fabricated reality, immersed in a marathon that turns people into consumeristic, materialistic, selfish, superficial zombies obsessed with receiving immediate gratification.

We are stopping to experience life, to seek, to learn, to be present. The damage is deeper than we can imagine. We choose the browser’s generated answers or an AI because it’s more convenient and faster than finding the answer ourselves. Food delivery instead of learning how to cook. A perfect fake life on our internet profile, and a miserable life without purpose or meaning.

The phenomenon known as cognitive decline resulting from excessive consumption of digital content leads to emotional numbness, cognitive overload, and a negative self-perception; it promotes individualism and egocentrism, and worst of all, it causes the loss of empathy, the human capacity to connect and interact with others and with the world around us. The same ones who promised us that screens and the internet were the future, that they would connect us more with the whole world. The same ones who said this technology would make our lives better, they lied to us and fooled everyone, because they knew exactly what effect it would have on our brains. The last two generations show the highest numbers of diseases and mental disorders after World War II.

Now it’s young people who are depressed, lost, and anguished, psychologically fragmented. We live in a world where it has become normalized for children and adolescents to take anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication or to commit suicide. We are facing an invisible and silent pandemic suffered by hundreds of millions of people. Proof that the technology that one day promised to connect people and improve our lives is producing exactly the opposite effect. And it’s not a coincidence. Technology is good if used in the right way and in the right measure; otherwise, its effects on brain chemistry and our minds are catastrophic. They are transforming people and societies, replacing values such as personal sacrifice, loving and caring for others, growing and being strong, sharing our time, for selfish and narcissistic behaviors, individualism and materialism. In other words, they are destroying the foundations on which we build civilization, the very fabric of society. Because to build the world they want, they need to replace it with one built on other values that match their ambitions.

The reason is simple: the future they have in mind is a world where we live depressed, ignorant, addicted, incomplete, distracted, alone, and dissatisfied. They try to convince us that the lifestyle, traveling, making money, sharing photos, and consuming, is what really matters and the path to happiness. People don’t learn to cook; they eat processed food. They buy things they don’t need. They spend more than they can. They take photos retouched with filters because they believe they don’t look good enough. They live fast and don’t have patience. They don’t invest in the future because they don’t see a future. Most people pursue professional and financial success because it’s the only thing that gives them a sense of security, but their lives become a banality of consumption and materialism, believing that will give meaning to their miserable lives.

Many people distance themselves from the only good, reliable, unconditional and authentic thing that we´ll ever have, our family, because they think it takes away their freedom and independence; they surround themselves with people who don’t love them and are just as lost as they are. But they’re wrong, because even having everything, they keep asking for more. An interesting fact is that multiple sociological studies have found that this phenomenon affects people born starting in 1999, and there is a common underlying pattern. Children who grew up without a father are the highest-risk group in that category. Those children are now teenagers and young adults who grew up without the paternal figure, the one that conveys trust, strength, independence, security, and value.

Tech corporations understood that this would make them rich; it’s no coincidence that streaming platforms and social media emerged between 2005 and 2008. However, the purpose of life has nothing to do with anything that can be obtained with money or by staring at a screen, and that’s what worries those corporations, lobbyists, and governments. They know that a person who grows up whole, emotionally mature and mentally stable, and feels secure receives extraordinary power. They don’t feel the need for anything because they feel like they already have everything; they feel complete. They grew up with the love of a mother and a father; they received their mother’s attachment, emotion, and tenderness, and they obtained their father’s security, trust, and strength. All the fears and concerns that punish young people, desire and anxiety, doubts, low self-esteem, depression, fear of failing, fear of not being good enough, fear of being exposed, fear of being rejected, fear of not having friends, fear of the future, being in a bad mood without knowing why, are all related to childhood.

But all of that dissipates and disappears when you discover that you already have everything you need to make your life an extraordinary journey. The answers to your doubts come to you on their own, one after another, through your own lived experience. Your life gains meaning little by little through significant life experiences that will deeply shape you, experiences that matter and that will deeply mold and evolve who you are. The fragile kid who felt insignificant and empty transforms into a complete person who no longer feels the need for external stimulation; doesn’t move on impulse; emotions don’t dominate; doesn’t need to have the phone nearby or unlock it every ten minutes.

Has stopped seeking other people’s approval and no longer shares its private life online. Is a person who has matured, transformed into an adult, secure and happy to be who it is. It’s someone who has understood that she lacks nothing because has realized that already had everything within; its family is the node of life, it accepts and loves just the way it is. No longer wastes time or sleep on people and things that don’t help it grow or that harm. That person has realized that life is too important and too brief to reduce it to collecting retouched photos, short vacation trips, pretending to have a prefabricated life, or worrying about external appearance.

Do you understand better why many things happen around us and the behavior of those who surround us? Living while running, without purpose, isn’t living. On the internet and social media, people drown us like tiny drops in an infinite ocean of noise and information, we are invisible, irrelevant. And to get attention, we create a fictional identity based on trivialities. We wait for a comment or a like to feel satisfaction, but we deceive ourselves. The network is so vast and moves at such speed that everything we do or say blurs within minutes, nothing is ever enough. And that is the trap: we always need more, more photos, more moments, more likes, but we eventually dissipate until we find ourselves trapped in an endless loop, depressed and unsatisfied.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we are unique and irreplaceable beings; our actions and decisions matter. They leave a mark that lasts over time. In the real world, we can do anything we set our minds to if we’re able to be ourselves and listen to the voice inside us. We can feel the warmth of being with our family or partner. Cognitive decline is associated with harmful behaviors such as endless screen scrolling, addiction to social media, chats, and digital content platforms. All studies have revealed that they are directly linked to psychological distress problems, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dissociation. They affect young people especially because they use technology they are not emotionally or psychologically prepared for, since the brain is still forming. These factors negatively affect the brain’s executive functions, including long-term memory, planning, and decision-making. A common direct symptom and effect among youth is that it becomes difficult for them to remember their childhood or childhood memories.

The ambiguity and ubiquity of digital media, driven by feedback loops mediated by dopamine, worsens these effects. They eliminate critical thinking, our ability to identify and pay attention, to think deeply and be aware, to understand complex problems, to be present, and to use our time and intelligence for what truly matters. We are allowing the advance of the digital world to turn us into automated beings, ignorant, seeking external stimuli to feel small, continuous doses of temporary pleasure and immediate gratification (dopamine). The mind drowns in an ocean of information and irrelevant content, designed to keep us perpetually dissatisfied, incomplete, and depressed, while we watch prefabricated lives of complete strangers or spend hours looking at irrelevant videos. Meanwhile, instead of learning to think, developing our cognitive abilities, expanding our personality, forging our character, and improving our lives, we progressively become passive observers of ourselves and of what others do, until we end up as complete strangers living inside our own bodies.

We overlook what really matters because our eyes and our brains are hijacked by screens, notifications, apps, messaging, short videos, stupid memes, and irrelevant distractions, watching what others do, following fashions and trends, our impulses and desires. We waste the one thing we truly possess in life, our mind, and the limited time we have. Why keep wasting time on absurd, irrelevant content that harms our brain, worrying about how other people perceive us, instead of taking care of it and using our time and intelligence to build a real life with meaning and be happy?

Nothing, absolutely nothing can replace the enriching experience of being physically in contact with another human being, with our family, sharing a deep conversation, having independent and critical thinking, investing our time with those who love us. Happiness isn’t found by traveling or taking retouched photos with filters and calculated poses, nor by sharing our everyday life, nor by consuming to feel good. In other words, that’s not living; it’s imitating what others do. There are no shortcuts to finding the purpose of our life or to being happy. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s designed to steal our attention, to hijack our subconscious, and to reprogram it so that we live depressed, dependent, staring at a screen, distracted. Because a distracted mind is a poor mind, and a poor mind is a weak and obedient one. So why not disconnect from digital noise and the rot invading our minds while we still can? We can choose what deserves our attention; we can choose what we invest our scarce time in; we can regain control of our brain; we can be owners of our thoughts and live our own lives by making our own decisions; connect with ourselves and with the world around us. We can build authentic relationships, have deep conversations, grow inwardly, be consistent, give meaning to our lives, love and be loved.

That is the path to happiness and to the answer about the purpose of our life. It’s real, measurable, and provides lasting satisfaction and happiness, but it’s slow and requires effort. That’s why the tech giants behind the algorithms are not going to stop in this battle to control our minds, our tastes, our decisions, our values, our actions, our lives.

Your brain and you, two parts of the same being:

Your brain is deciding right now what will determine whether in 6 months, you’ll be the same person or someone completely different. And the most striking thing is that you’re not aware of it. This is due to how the brain is designed and how it works, something we’ll talk about on another occasion because it’s a very broad topic.

What I’m going to share with you is not abstract theory or cheap motivation or empty self-help from a charlatan, nor an attempt to put your own ideas into your brain; it´s pure neuroscience, science applied to something as simple as creating a healthy habit: the habit of reading a book for 20 minutes every day. And before you think you already know what this is about, let me tell you that what’s happening in your brain while you read is far more powerful and goes far beyond simply acquiring information. Multiple studies have found that since 2008 and 2009 there has been an increase in the number of brain-related diseases, and that this increase in mental health problems correlates with the increased use of screen devices and digital media in everyday life; in other words, there is a silent epidemic that nobody is talking about enough, something known in neuroscience as progressive neuronal disconnection. A mechanism that recalibrates the brain for superficiality, for fast stimulation and instant gratification; at the same time, it degrades cognitive abilities, memory, and produces multiple mental disorders such as depression, chronic anxiety, panic, social isolation, hedonism, and changes in personality.

These are conditions that are suffered without those affected being aware of them because they don’t have obvious symptoms. They are noticeable to external observers, and any attempt to help affected people usually results in violent behavior or rejection. This is something hundreds of millions of people, if not more, are experiencing, and maybe you too right now, because as I mentioned earlier, they don’t feel it. You may feel like you need to find or recover something, but you don’t know exactly what it is or when you lose it. Stay until the end because I’m going to share with you a specific protocol that’s designed so you can recalibrate your brain and return it to its original healthy state. The process has noticeable effects within weeks; the disconnection and the meaninglessness that society has normalized can be reversed.

Now, before giving you the full solution, I need you to understand exactly what’s happening in your brain at this very moment. Every time you unlock your phone, every time you move from one video to another, every time we read someone’s post, every time we read a text without delving into the full article, every time we compulsively check every chat, every time we feel the urge to drink something sweet or eat something with an intense flavor, every time we choose the option that provides easy and immediate pleasure, you’re training your brain without realizing it, but not in the way you think. We’re talking about training neural networks, synaptic connections, and the release of neurotransmitters. And this training has a very specific intention: it’s turning you into someone who can’t sustain voluntary sustained attention. Sustained attention is the ability to keep your focus on a single thing for an extended period of time without interruptions.

Emotions, pleasure, satisfaction, and gratification are generated in the limbic system of your brain; a large and ancient part of the brain we call the emotional brain. This is where the amygdala is located, an important fact because it’s the gland responsible for emotions: fear, anger, anxiety, depression, hatred, and so on. While the ability to concentrate and control your brain depends on the prefrontal cortex, a smaller and younger part of the brain is located just behind your forehead. And that’s where the capacity lies that seems so simple, so basic, but is in fact the most valuable superpower that exists in the 21st century. The ability to be fully present and concentrate voluntarily is the greatest power of the brain, and the one that’s disappearing fastest over the last 20 years.

Let me explain why this is so serious. Your brain’s prefrontal cortex, the part right behind your forehead, is responsible for the higher executive functions. We’re talking about the ability to plan, make decisions, control impulses and emotions, abstract thinking, deep empathy, and genuine creativity. Everything that makes you essentially human depends on your prefrontal cortex working properly. And here’s the problem: this area of the brain needs practice; it needs to be exercised constantly, just like a muscle; otherwise, older and deeply rooted areas of the brain regain control, as is the case with the limbic system. And here lies the root of the problem: digital content, due to its ambiguous nature, stimulates the limbic system, a primitive part of your brain.

Sugary drinks with intense flavors, immediate gratifications, and pleasure stimulate that area of the brain, emotions. They use brain chemistry, dopamine, creating a cycle of pleasure and abstinence, satisfaction, and sadness. Internet technology companies feed on social media and digital content; neuroscience and human behavior applied to business. In other words, habits centered on effortless pleasure and immediate gratification strengthen the limbic system while damaging the prefrontal cortex. This is not a coincidence; it’s an industry built and designed by some of the best neuroscientists and technology companies, which make billions every year by exploiting the weaknesses of our brain. They need us to stay glued to the screen, addicted to pleasure, to likes, to sweet drinks, to tasty snacks. They need us to feel dissatisfied, depressed, anxious, consuming, constantly looking for new and greater stimuli to satisfy the need for dopamine, the need to belong, to feel alive. Living in a rollercoaster of ups and downs of dopamine.

But don’t worry, I have good news: the protocol I mentioned at the beginning can change this and repair the damage. Fortunately, our brain is not only a wonderful machine, but it also has the capacity to regenerate and recalibrate. And guess what kind of activity exercises better than any other. Exactly: sustained reading. Not scrolling, not short videos, and not having background music to focus on. The technique is deep focused on reading without interruptions. 20 minutes a day may seem like nothing, but we’re talking about an extremely powerful neurology intervention. When you read for 20 consecutive minutes, you force your brain to do something that seems unnatural in our current environment: to slow down, stop, and think.

Your brain has to process abstract symbols, turn them into words, those words into concepts, those concepts into mental images, those images into emotions, and all of this while you keep in your working memory the context of what you’ve read on the previous pages. It’s an incredibly complex cognitive exercise. And here’s something most people don’t know. This process activates parts of the brain that normally lie in dormant when you consume passive audiovisual content. I’m talking about areas related to the theory of mind, your ability to put yourself in someone else’s place, and to mentally simulate experiences you’ve never experienced. But let’s go further, because what I’m about to tell you is what truly makes the difference between someone who reads occasionally and someone who has made daily reading a solid habit.

I don’t know whether a process called neurogenesis sounds familiar to you. For decades, scientists believed that you were born with all the neurons you would ever have in your life and that, after a certain age, you could only lose them. Thanks to decades of scientific study and research, we now know that is completely false. Your brain generates new neurons every day, especially in a region called the hippocampus, which is essential for memory and learning. And guess what activity massively boosts neurogenesis in the hippocampus: sustained reading combined with deep reflection. We’re not talking about reading superficially; we’re talking about reading with presence, with mindfulness, allowing ideas to enter your mind, to resonate, to connect with your lived experience. This is what creates new neurons, strengthens synaptic connections, and what literally expands your capacity for thinking. And there’s more, much more. But I want you to understand something important before you continue.

What I’m sharing with you isn’t just information — it’s a roadmap to recover something you’ve probably lost without realizing it: your ability to think deeply, to feel deeply, to connect deeply with yourself.

Even if right now you feel like you don’t have time, that you can’t concentrate unless it’s mandatory, that you’ve lost the habit of reading, you need to stay until the end because every piece of information I’m giving you connects to the next one. You don’t have any onset of pathological cognitive decline; what’s happening is that your brain has become unaccustomed to sustaining voluntary attention. Read the news, narrative, if it’s fiction even better, essays, poetry, philosophy, whatever genuinely requires sustained attention. At first, it may be boring and you may want to stop; you might feel physical anxiety, an almost compulsive need to check your mobile phone. Do you know what that is? It’s your brain experiencing withdrawal from a lack of dopamine in the brain region responsible for pleasure.

Now I need you to understand something fundamental about how the brain works, because without this understanding, what I’m going to propose next won’t have the impact it should. Your brain has a reward system based on a hormone we call dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of motivation, anticipating pleasure, of driving action. Every time you get a like on a perfect photo, every time you watch a new video, every time you receive a notification, every time you share something from your life or a trip, a small dose of dopamine is released, producing momentary pleasure. And here’s the problem: the brain adapts. When it receives dopamine doses very frequently, even if they’re small, your brain adjusts its neural receptors to receive more dopamine. So, the brain needs more stimulation to feel the same satisfaction. It’s exactly the same mechanism as addiction, but more subtle, more socially accepted, and harder to identify. And while this is happening, your ability to get satisfaction from other activities and stimuli that release dopamine more slowly but more steadily, like reading, deep conversation, reflective thinking, starts to atrophy. It’s not that these activities are less valuable or that you like them less; it’s that your brain has been recalibrated so it can’t appreciate them anymore.

But there is hope: this process is completely reversible. Just as your brain recalibrated itself to want more dopamine, you can reprogram it back to its original design. When you establish a daily reading habit of 20 minutes, you’re doing several things simultaneously at a neurological level.

First, you’re reconfiguring your dopamine receptors by reducing their activity; you’re allowing your brain to find satisfaction again in slow, sustained reward activities. Second, you’re strengthening sustained attention circuits in your prefrontal cortex. Third, you’re reducing activation of your amygdala, do you remember? The center of the brain responsible for fear, depression, self-esteem, and anxiety, among other things. This last point is crucial and almost nobody talks about it. Sustained reading, especially narrative fiction, has been shown in multiple studies to significantly reduce cortisol levels, the stress hormone. This isn’t passive relaxation like watching TV or scrolling short videos on your phone; it’s active relaxation where your mind is engaged, but your nervous system is calm. Why? Because when you read a story, your brain enters a state that neuroscientists call “narrative trance.” Your amygdala interprets that you’re in a safe environment because you’re sitting still and processing information at your own pace, without immediate threats. At the same time, your prefrontal cortex is actively involved in building and visualizing the world of the book you’re reading in your mind. It’s a perfect combination: cognitive activation with stress deactivation. But this is where things get really interesting: sustained reading radically transforms your memory. And I’m not just talking about remembering what you read better, I’m talking about transforming your autobiographical memory, your ability to recall your own life with clarity and depth. Let me explain why this is so important. Your memory doesn’t work like a hard drive where objective events are stored. Your memory is a multidimensional narrative construction that’s built constantly. Every time you remember something, your brain is literally rebuilding that memory, connecting it to your present identity, giving it meaning. And here’s the problem with modern life. When you live in survival mode, when you’re constantly reactive, doing things on autopilot, jumping from one task to another without a pause, your brain doesn’t get the chance to consolidate meaningful memories. Days go by and you don’t remember anything specific. Weeks blur, months melt together, and you wake up one day wondering where the time went. It gets to the point where you can’t even remember your own childhood, and this effect is cumulative, which means that over the years, past experiences will blend until they appear blurry in your memory. Daily reading interrupts this destructive pattern. When you read for 20 minutes a day, you’re creating a temporal anchor; you’re telling your brain that this moment matters. This experience deserves attention, and your brain responds: it starts consolidating not only what you read, but also the context of your life while you were reading, especially if you read before bed. Do you know why that happens? Because reading before sleep makes it easier for a process called “memory consolidation” to take place during sleep. When you read something meaningful before bed, your brain works overnight, integrating those ideas with your long-term memory and simultaneously consolidating better the memories of the day you just lived. It’s as if, when you read, you tell your brain: Hey! These mental experiences are important, store them well. And your brain generalizes that command every experience from the day. Now I want to talk to you about something that is rarely discussed but is transformative: the impact of reading on emotional regulation. Many people feel like they’ve lost touch with their inner emotional world. It’s not that they don’t feel emotions; they feel them intensely. The problem is they don’t know how to name them, process them, and integrate them. They live on an emotional roller coaster where they automatically react to everything that happens to them, without the ability to observe their own emotions with perspective, staying distracted in order to avoid confronting their thoughts and what they feel. This is known as functional alexithymia. It’s the inability to identify and describe one’s own emotions, and even one’s thoughts, and it’s dramatically increasing in the population, especially among young people. And do you know what activity has been shown to be one of the most effective for developing emotional sophistication? Reading literary fiction. When you read a well-written novel, you’re constantly interpreting the characters’ mental states. You wonder why they did what they did, what they were feeling, what hidden motivations they had. This constant mental exercise of mind strengthens your ability to do the same with yourself and with the real people in your life. It’s like a gym for your emotional intelligence, but there’s something even deeper. When you read about characters going through intense emotional experiences, such as pain, loss, joy, love, your brain simulates those experiences. It doesn’t experience them directly, but it simulates them at a surprisingly similar neurological level. And in that simulation, you learn that pain is survivable, that people can change; that emotional complexity is natural. Anxiety has been shown to be strongly related to an inability to tolerate emotional uncertainty. In other words, any ambiguous emotion, any situation with no clear answer, generates a state of panic. Reading literary fiction, especially novels where characters navigate ambiguous and emotionally complex situations, has surprising results. Reading literary fiction novels can cure anxiety, but it doesn’t cure it on its own; it serves as a tool to overcome anxiety. The effects are often noticeable within three months: reading about how characters face uncertainty helps you understand that we can do it too. It’s as if you had lived those experiences yourself, but in a safe environment. That’s exactly what reading does: it lets you experience thousands of lives, thousands of emotional situations, thousands of ways of being human, all from the safety of your sofa.

Now I need to talk to you about something you probably didn’t expect. Daily reading awakens your sleeping creativity in a way that no other activity can. We live in a culture obsessed with innovation, thinking about tomorrow, with creativity, but at the same time we’ve created an environment that systematically kills creativity and dies for lack of space to practice it. It kills what’s known as neuroplasticity and prevents brain and mental reconfiguration. Think of it this way: genuine creativity can’t emerge in constant noise, while you’re distracted. Creativity comes from silence and contemplation, from unexpected connections between ideas that seemed like they had nothing to do with each other. And these connections can only happen when your mind has time and space to wander productively. Reading creates that space, especially when you read fiction: your brain is constantly doing something fascinating; it’s filling in the blanks. The author describes a scene, but it’s your brain that visualizes the scene and recreates the specific details. The author describes a character, but it’s your brain that gives them a voice, a face, and the way they move. This creation process activates areas of your brain related to visual imagination, sensory simulation, narrative building, and here’s the magic. The more you exercise these areas of your brain through reading, the more active they are in your everyday life. You start to see creative solutions where you previously only saw problems; you begin making connections between concepts that once seemed completely separate. Your thinking becomes more flexible, more original, more agile, more yours. A lot of people say: Ever since I read every day, I constantly have ideas in the shower, walking, eating, before going to sleep. It’s like my brain has woken up, and it’s not imagination, it’s neuroplasticity in action. Your brain is designed and optimized to do what you repeatedly do; effectively, your brain is lazy, it loves routine. If you spend your time consuming pre-packaged digital content like short videos, social media, and television, your brain optimizes for passive consumption. On the other hand, if you spend your time creating mental worlds from words on a page, your brain optimizes for active creation. It’s that simple, and it’s that powerful.

But this is where I need to be brutally honest with you. Implementing the habit of daily reading is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve done in a long time. And not because reading is hard, but because your brain is going to resist. In the first days, maybe even in the first few weeks, you’ll feel physical discomfort when you try to read for 20 minutes straight, forcing it. You’ll feel an itch, you’ll want to check your mobile phone, you’ll invent excuses, even get up right now to do anything else. It’s okay, this isn’t weakness or lack of willpower. It’s your brain experiencing withdrawal from fast stimulation generated by dopamine. And you need to understand this clearly: if you give in to that discomfort, if you interrupt your reading every time that urge shows up, you will never break the addictive dopamine cycle. You’ll keep being a slave to mental distraction for the rest of your life. It sounds harsh, but it’s the truth, and you deserve the truth. That’s why I’m talking to you.

I understand that having grown up in the earlier 21 century, you’ve lived in a system and a society where the right side of the brain isn’t even talked about. Only rational skills are cultivated, and academic and professional performance is rewarded, tangible results and materialism. In your frantic youth years, you stopped training and feeding the brain’s right hemisphere, where personal development, creativity, critical and independent thinking, the management of our emotions and empathy, how to relate to others on a deep level, and so on, the big answers to the big questions of life, and so on reside.

There is good news and is that this resistance doesn’t last forever. Research shows that generally, after two to three weeks of consistent daily reading, something changes. The discomfort drops dramatically. You start to anticipate your reading time. You start to crave those 20 minutes of deep immersion. You start reading for longer.

Do you know what is happening neurologically in your brain? Dopamine receptors are recalibrating; your neural networks for sustained attention are strengthening; your prefrontal cortex is regaining control over your impulses and emotions. Literally, you’re rebuilding your brain, establishing priorities. And when you reach day 30, 40, 50 of uninterrupted daily reading, you experience something that many people describe as waking up. It’s as if for years you’ve been seeing the world through a dirty window and then, suddenly, you remove the grime. Colors are more vivid, ideas are clearer, your mind feels more agile, and you think more fluidly. Deep and abstract thinking becomes natural; you’re no longer bothered by having your thoughts. Your mind starts to feel like it’s yours. Over time, you’ll stop feeling like you need your phone stuck to you. You’ll be more present, noticing every detail of every moment. Your long-term memory will improve, and you’ll be able to remember moments you thought you’d lost.

Now let me share with you a technique that can multiply the benefits of your reading practice exponentially. The time of day you read matters enormously. There are two optimal times to read those 20 minutes every day. The first is early in the morning, ideally within the first 90 minutes after waking up. Why? Because your prefrontal cortex is at its highest level of functioning, your willpower is fully charged, and you haven’t spent your mental energy on decisions and tasks. Reading at this time sets the cognitive tone for the entire day. It’s like telling your brain, “Today we’ll operate in deep mode, not in superficial mode.” There’s also evidence that morning reading significantly improves your executive function during the following hours. You make better decisions, repair the damage caused by digital overstimulation, manage stress better, and communicate more clearly.

The second optimal time is my personal favorite, reading before bed. Reading before sleep has multiple benefits that reinforce each other. First, it creates a transition ritual between your active day and your sleep. Your brain needs slowing down time. When you shift from looking at screens to being in bed, your brain stays accelerated and sleep becomes superficial and fragmented. Reading creates the perfect bridge between the waking mind and sleep. Second, the white and blue light from screens suppresses melatonin, the hormone that makes you feel sleepy. A physical book has the opposite effect, you’re telling your brain it’s time to start preparing for sleep. Third, and this is fascinating, the most recent information you process right before you fall asleep plays a very important role in memory consolidation overnight. If the last thing you do is watch videos on a screen or browse social media, your brain spends the night processing fragmented and generally negative content. If, on the other hand, the last thing you do is read something meaningful, your brain processes it and integrates it at a much deeper level; within two weeks, sleep quality improves.

And here’s something crucial that can make or break your practice: what you read is as important as reading. Not all written content creates the same brain changes. Reading news headlines for 20 minutes won’t recalibrate your brain; reading social media threads won’t cultivate deep attention. You need material that requires immersion, that demands sustained concentration, that makes you think and feel simultaneously. High-quality literary fiction is best for this; I mean narrative that explores human complexity, doesn’t give you easy answers, and makes you question the nature of experience.

Why is fiction so powerful neurologically? Because it activates multiple brain systems at the same time. While you read a novel, your visual brain creates the images, your language processing system decodes the words, your prefrontal cortex follows the plot, your limbic system processes the characters’ emotions, and your “mirror neurons” simulate their actions. It’s a complete brain exercise, but quality nonfiction is also incredibly beneficial. Philosophical essays, deep biographies, well-written science books: all these train abstract thinking, your ability to follow complex arguments, and your skill at integrating information from multiple sources. What you should avoid is material that doesn’t require cognitive effort. Be careful: if you can read it on autopilot or in a superficial way, it isn’t exercising your brain the way you need. Choose something more complex.

And here’s a counterintuitive tip: it’s okay if you don’t understand everything you read — in fact, it’s desirable that you don’t. When you come across a sentence that makes you pause, that makes you reread, that makes you think, that’s exactly the kind of cognitive friction that strengthens your neural circuits. Look at it this way: easy or occasional reading is like lifting 1-kilo weights. Theoretically you’re exercising, but you’re not building muscle.

And now we arrive at one of the most exciting aspects of all this: the benefits of daily reading transfer to all the other areas of your life in ways you can’t even imagine. This is what’s known as “cognitive transfer.” When you improve a specific mental skill, like sustained attention, through reading, that improvement affects other activities that are completely different. Reading also improves your ability to listen to conversations, your patience with other people, your ability to focus on work, and your ability to enjoy food when you eat without distractions. Why? Because all these activities require the same fundamental cognitive muscle, sustained attention. And that muscle, like any other, gets stronger with consistent practice. But there’s something subtler and deeper, regular reading changes your relationship with time itself.

We live in a culture of instantaneity where waiting feels like torture. We expect results to be instantaneous, problems to be solved immediately, rewards to arrive without delay — and this creates constant anxiety because real life and your biology don’t work that way. Reading teaches you to focus and to have patience; it teaches you that things require time. A 500-page novel can’t be read in 20 minutes; the deepest satisfaction comes from the gradual accumulation of experience, not from the number of experiences or instant gratification. This lesson gets integrated at an unconscious level and starts to show up in how you handle everything else — your relationships, your projects, your personal development, and so on. You learn to be patient, think clearly, not get overwhelmed by emotions, and gain in confidence and self-esteem. And little by little you stop feeling like, instead of living, you’re being dragged along by a powerful current.

Let me tell you about something I constantly see and that breaks my heart. The epidemic of loneliness and disconnection that millions of people are experiencing as a society. Even though everyone is more connected than ever through technology and the internet, we feel lonelier than ever. And there’s a neurological reason for this: real human connection requires being present; it requires your prefrontal cortex to be fully activated, your mirror neuron system to be working, and your attention to be completely with the other person. But when your brain is constantly fragmented, jumping from one stimulus to another, from one chat to another, from one video to another, from one headline to another, from one thread to another, you lose the ability to truly be present with someone. You’re there physically, but mentally absent, the other person feels it, and you feel it too, and this strange experience forms: being together, surrounded by people, yet feeling alone.

Many people think that keeping your phone in your bag is enough, but it works only because it stays within reach. A phone isn’t a body part, and therefore it shouldn’t be with us all the time. Reading, especially fiction that explores deep human relationships, is direct training for relational presence. When you read about a character who is really listening to someone else, who pays attention to the nuances of their communication, who responds from authenticity, your brain is simulating that experience, and that simulation creates neural pathways that then become available in your real interactions. I’ve seen people improve their relationships because they started reading regularly, not because they were reading books about relationships, but because reading restored their capacity for deep attention, and that capacity naturally carried over into how they listened to others.

Alright, we’ve reached the point where I explain the protocol I mentioned at the beginning: the specific way to implement these 20 minutes of daily reading so that they truly reconfigure your brain. Because it’s not just about reading for 20 minutes a day; it’s about how you do it, when you do it, where you do it, and what support structures you put in place.

First, it’s non-negotiable. Those 20 minutes are sacred; they’re not optional; they don’t count as excuses like “I don’t have time.” They need to be scheduled into your day the way brushing your teeth is. Same time and same place every day. Consistency is critical because you’re creating a new habit; a new neural pattern, and neural patterns require consistent repetition. Second, the environment: remove every possible distraction, phones, Tablets, smartwatches, laptops, or computers quiet or turned off; television and radio turned off; music turned off. You let it be known that you don’t want to be interrupted for the next 20 or 30 minutes; that’s a protected time. Create a physical space: even if it’s just a corner of a room that becomes your reading spot, but not so comfortable that it encourages sleep. Third, choose the reading: start with something you genuinely care about, not something you think you should read. If you normally read nonfiction, try fiction; if you normally read fiction, try essays. Novelty is stimulating and helps the brain create new connections. Fourth, and this is crucial, make it difficult.

In the first few days you’ll feel resistance; your mind will wander; you’ll feel restless. Don’t interpret this as weakness or failure. It’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. Your brain is being challenged, and that challenge is precisely what creates change. When your mind wanders, simply notice it without judgment and bring your attention back to the text again and again and again. That act of noticing and returning is the exercise. It’s like a gym repetition for your attention. Fifth, tracking: keep a simple log of your reading days on a calendar. Seeing a chain of consecutive days creates a powerful psychological momentum that improves your confidence in yourself. Sixth, celebrate the small wins: after your first full week, acknowledge it; after two weeks, notice how your mind feels different. These progress signals fuel your motivation and reinforce the new neural circuits.

Now I need to tell you about the specific obstacles that come up, because if they catch you by surprise, they can completely discourage you.

Obstacle number one: I don’t have time, what everyone says, but I’m going to be clear with you. It’s a lie you tell yourself; we all do it. You have time; what you don’t have is a clear priority. Twenty minutes is less than 2% of the time you’re awake on any given day. If you tell yourself, you don’t have 20 minutes to do something that will transform and improve your mental health and your quality of life, then you need to look closely at what you’re doing with your time, because it may be a time-management problem. The solution is to identify specifically where you can get those 20 minutes from. For example: Can you get up 20 minutes earlier in the morning? Can you cut 20 minutes of Chat, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, X? Can you read before bed?

Obstacle number two: I fall asleep when I read. This usually means one of three things: you’re tired and need to sleep, or you’re reading in a place that’s too comfortable, or you’re keeping a too-relaxed posture. The solution is simple: sit down, read in a chair with good posture, and good lighting. Your brain associates lying down with sleep, so don’t make it easy for it.

Obstacle number three: I can’t find books that interest me. This is resistance disguised as a problem. There are millions of books on any imaginable topic. The problem might be that you’re looking for the perfect choice instead of simply starting. Pick any book that sounds at least somewhat interesting and start reading. If, after 50 pages it doesn’t hook you, choose another one, no problem.

Obstacle number four, the most dangerous one: “I tried it for a few days, and I didn’t notice any difference.” Significant neurological changes take time. You’re not going to change your body after three days of going to the gym. You need at least three weeks of consistent practice before evaluating any results.

This reminds me of something fundamental that will determine whether this practice becomes a permanent habit or just another failed attempt. You need to understand the science of habits. Every habit has three components: cue, routine, and reward. If you want daily reading to become automatic, you need to intentionally design these three elements. First, the cue is the trigger that starts the behavior; it can be a specific time of day, a specific place, or a prior action. For example: after morning coffee, or when I get into bed at night. The more specific and consistent the activating cue is, the stronger the neural association will be. Second, the routine is the behavior itself: the 20 minutes of reading. But here’s an important detail: make it as easy as possible — especially at the beginning. Have the book you’re reading in a visible and accessible place. If you have to go look for the book every time, you’re adding friction, and friction kills new habits. And third, the reward is crucial and often misunderstood. The reward of reading can’t be only that someday you’ll have a healthier brain. You need an immediate reward. For some it’s the pleasure of the story itself; for others it’s the sense of achievement of sticking with the habit; for others it’s the ritual of a cup of tea or coffee that they only take during their reading time. Experiment until you find out which reward works for you and consciously reinforce it, especially in the first few weeks.

And now I want to talk to you about the tipping point: that magical moment most people experience around day 20 to 30 of consistent practice. Suddenly, something changed. Reading stops feeling like an obligation and starts feeling like a need, not in the negative sense of dependence, but in the positive sense that your brain and your body now expect and desire that experience. This is when the new neural circuit has been strengthened enough to compete with the old neural patterns. It happens when reading stops being something you’re trying to do and becomes something automatic, something you simply do without effort: reading. And once you reach this point, the benefits accelerate exponentially. Your ability to concentrate starts improving noticeably, your memory gets sharper, your dreams become more vivid, your conversations are deeper, and your creativity flourishes. Many people describe it as reconnecting with themselves, as if for years they had been a scattered, incomplete version of themselves, and now they feel whole again. That’s exactly what neuronal rebuilding does: it brings you back to yourself.

Now I’m going to talk about something that, even though it might sound crazy, is absolutely real: the spiritual dimension of deep reading. I’m not necessarily talking about spirituality in a religious sense, though it could be. I’m talking about the experience of connecting with something bigger than your everyday self, touching truths that go beyond your individual experience. When you read a passage that perfectly expresses something you’ve always felt but never been able to put into words; when you find in a book written 100 years ago a mind that understands your present struggle exactly; when you get so deeply lost in a story that your sense of time dissolves, you’re experiencing states of consciousness that, in our fast-paced modern life, we are rarely allowed to experience. And these states aren’t just pleasant: they’re healing; they’re necessary for complete psychological well-being. Dr. Viktor Frankl spoke about the human search for meaning as the fundamental motivation in life. And the way you create the habit of reading adds meaning that you don’t find in superficial stimuli, but in depth, in reflection, and in the connection with ideas and experiences that transcend us.

Deep reading is one of the most accessible portals to this dimension of meaning. It doesn’t require religious affiliation; it doesn’t require years of meditative practice, only that you set aside 20 minutes to immerse yourself in something that matters to you. And now I want you to imagine something with me: imagine what would happen if everyone around you, your family, your friends, your colleagues, started reading 20 minutes every day. Conversations would change. Instead of trading headlines and superficial opinions, living distracted with irrelevant content on screens, we would be sharing deep ideas, nuanced perspectives, and personal reflections. Decisions would improve; people with a greater capacity for sustained attention and deep thinking make better decisions, more ethical, more considerate of long-term consequences. Empathy would increase people who regularly dive into the internal experiences of diverse characters to develop greater understanding and compassion for human diversity. Cultural anxiety would decrease.

Much of our collective anxiety comes from living in a constant state of superficial reactivity. The practice of deep reading cultivates an inner calm that shows the outside. It’s not an exaggeration to say that mass daily reading could fundamentally transform our society, and that transformation begins with you. You can’t control whether others decide to rebuild their brains through reading, but you can control your own decision, and your personal change creates ripples that affect everyone around you.

So here is my final invitation for you. I’m not asking you to blindly trust what I’ve told you. I’m asking you to try it, to run the experiment in your own brain, in your own life. Commit to 20 minutes of daily reading for 30 consecutive days, just 30 days, a one-month experiment and observe what happens. Notice how your concentration ability changes. Notice how it affects your dreams. Notice how your conversations evolve. Notice how your mind feels. Do the experiment and let the results speak for themselves. And here’s the secret: after 30 days of consistent daily reading, you might not want to stop. If the habit has been deeply integrated, letting it go will feel like giving up a valuable part of yourself, like what you felt before when you needed to unlock your phone. But first you have to start. And to start, you must choose a book today, not tomorrow, not next week, now.

Before doing anything else, think about what kind of book you’ll choose. If you don’t have one on hand, download one, borrow one, buy one, but do it now while motivation is still present. If I’ve managed to motivate you because here’s the uncomfortable truth: you’ll think, “This sounds good,” and then you’ll go right on doing exactly what you were doing before. Don’t be that person. Be a person who acts, who experiments, who commits to their own personal, mental, intellectual, and emotional growth.

Your brain is the most important organ you have. It’s the most powerful tool that exists, and through it you experience absolutely everything in your life. I think it’s worth investing just 20 minutes a day to take care of it, keeping it healthy, strong, flexible, and deep. I’ve shared with you the neuroscience of attention, the impact of reading on memory and emotions, the transformation of your creativity, your relational capacity, and your very experience of being alive. And all of this comes down to a simple practice: 20 minutes a day with a book in your hands, your full attention on its pages. Simple, but not easy. Simple, but deeply transformative.

I want you to know something important: this letter is a map that can guide you toward a better version of yourself — a version where your mind belongs to you, where you can think deeply without feeling overwhelmed, where you can feel and connect deeply. That version of you is waiting, and the path to it lies in those 20 minutes of daily reading.

Final thoughts and reflection:

The effects of depression and mental scatter, the inability to voluntarily concentrate, not because you have to, but on demand, the feeling of not being connected with yourself and others, the need to unlock your phone even while sitting in a room with 10 people, these are symptoms of a silent pandemic that you don’t see, that you don’t hear much about, but that is real and affects millions of people. Will you commit to 20 minutes of uninterrupted daily reading? If you take on the challenge, tell me what changes you’ve noticed and what obstacles you’ve encountered. And if it produced a positive effect on you, maybe you can recommend this protocol to others, especially those who always complain about how hard it is for them to focus. Congratulations! You’ve already taken the first step just by reading this letter.

In life, everything has a price, so when something good is free, you are the product. Every video or link shared, every like, the apps you install and use, the pages you visit, who you communicate with, what you say, where you live, what your job is, where you work, where you study, what you study, what and when you eat, what you do, your sex, your personal preferences, your values, and so on. They get all of that from us. The information we provide is sold to marketing and advertising companies that later will design a product you’ll want to buy. They will show you a lifestyle you’ll want to imitate, influence where you want to live, which places you want to visit, what you do with your free time, what food you want to eat, what clothes you want to wear. This isn’t a fictional story. It’s the power of brain chemistry.

If we can’t commit voluntarily to something as simple as reading a book, what will we be able to achieve in the face of life’s relentless, harsh reality? We are facing a social revolution, in which the unlimited ambition of the big tech companies and lobbies wants to impose their vision of what humanity should be. In the end, everything comes down to an individual decision, and our decisions today will determine what world we will live in, and what the new generations will live in twenty or thirty years from now.

We are at war. They want to end 12,000 years of human civilization, replacing the old values with new ones. These values are Love things, Use people and Worship yourself. All for money and power. I don’t know what you think, but I don’t want that world for our children or for those who haven’t been born yet.

Thank you for reading.