How to stop doomscrolling before bed without going cold turkey?

I broke the habit by stacking small bits of friction rather than trying to quit outright. The biggest one was moving my charger to the dresser and using a cheap alarm clock, so I have to get out of bed if I really want the phone.

Then I gave my brain a default alternative by keeping a Kindle and a boring paperback within reach. On iPhone, I went to Settings > Screen Time and set Downtime from 9:30 pm to 7 am, plus App Limits of 10 minutes for Reddit, news, and YouTube, and I hit Ignore Limit only if I physically stand up. I also enable Sleep Focus at bedtime which hides notifications, and in Accessibility I turn on Color Filters to grayscale after 9, which makes feeds look dull and not worth it. Shortcuts runs an automation at 9:25 pm that switches on Low Power Mode, opens Kindle, and turns Wi‑Fi off, so the first tap is reading not scrolling. If you are on Android, Digital Wellbeing has Bedtime mode to do grayscale and Do Not Disturb, plus App timers on your trigger apps, and you can put the phone in Focus mode with only maps and messages allowed. I also use the One Sec app which inserts a breath and a confirmation screen when I try to open social apps, and after two delays I usually back out. Last thing that helped was a hard stop with a timer, so I set a 10 minute countdown on my bedside Echo or watch, and when it goes off I close whatever is open and switch to the book.

Everything out there wants me to pay to stop using the thing I already paid too much for. The fancy sunrise clocks cost half my grocery budget. The focus apps all want subscriptions for a glorified timer. Even the cute blue‑light glasses were a bust, and I still doomscroll while wearing them. Ridiculous.

What actually helped was buying a ten dollar outlet timer and plugging my router and living room lamp into it. At 9:45 the lamp goes off and the internet in my place dies, so I go read in bed with a library book and a five dollar thrift store alarm clock doing the wakeup. On my phone I use the built‑in bedtime mode and a passcode lock on the social apps, with my partner holding the code for the week. It is ugly and cheap and it works.

After I lost my backpack and phone in a bus station, I rebuilt my evenings to be low tech on purpose. During the day I save a few long articles to a read-later app, then at night the phone switches to grayscale and only that app works. Wi‑Fi shuts off at 10 on a cheap outlet timer and a sleepy podcast downloads earlier so I do not need the feed. The worst offenders get uninstalled at night with a focus mode schedule. It feels dramatic, but the small hassle is exactly what stops the thumb.

Automations at 10 force a context shift. iOS Shortcuts flips Bedtime Focus, blocks Reddit and news in Screen Time, lowers brightness, and starts an audiobook. If I tap the override, a follow‑up Shortcut logs the relapse to a sheet and schedules a morning review, which guilt works better than I expected.

Treat it like lights-out. Set a time, hit Do Not Disturb, and put the phone out of reach. A real alarm clock fixes the excuse. If you must scroll, set a five minute timer and stand up while you do it. When it rings, lights off, eyes closed. Discipline beats hacks.

Wildly excited to tell you the boring stuff works. All the clever systems fell apart for me, but two basics stuck and I still kind of cheer about them. Phone stays outside the bedroom, and a paperback sits on my pillow so my hands grab that first. A plug‑in lamp is on a cheap timer that clicks off at ten, which feels like a gentle coach telling me to wrap it up. I also keep a tiny notepad to dump the last worries so I am not tempted to check one more thing.

Easy. Toss the phone under the couch and go to sleep. Or hand it to me and I will keep it safe by watching your feeds for you. If you absolutely must use it, stare at the ceiling instead because the ceiling has fewer headlines. Also, drink some water or whatever. There, problem solved.

Schedule your router to go dark at 10 and put the phone on a charger across the room. Block the usual suspects with the built‑in app limits so you need a code to relapse. Your future self is a lazy admin, so make the network and the distance do the work.

Learned the hard way during custody swaps that I need the phone reachable but not scrollable. I put the phone on a charger in the hallway, Bedtime Focus on, and only Favorites can ring through for the kid and co-parent. Instagram, news, and Reddit are blocked after 9 with app limits plus a passcode I do not know. I keep a cheap paperback on the nightstand so my hands have something else to grab. If I backslide, I set a five minute timer and stop when it dings, no negotiation.

Those apps are engineered to beat you. Willpower will lose at midnight. Change the environment or nothing changes. Kill notifications, block or uninstall the worst ones after 9, and make your bed a no‑phone zone.

I track doomscroll minutes in a spreadsheet and shame works. For what it's worth, taking a few minutes to practice this in a calm setting usually helps it stick.

Bedtime Focus plus grayscale and charger in kitchen stopped mine.