A Refreshing Take on “Brain Rot”

Schauer Thoughts

Sarah Schauer & Studio71

Comedy, Education

4.8 • 669 Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we’re tackling brain rot, brain fog, social media addiction, and stopping to smell the roses! Join me on a cognitive journey to the land of untapped and undervalued sensory input, the nose. Remember, this is about a harm reduction method, it alone will not “cure” you - also feel free to run absolutely all of this by a licensed medical professional and thoroughly review the resources for yourself. As always, it’s been a pleasure having you in the communal Schauer, I hope my STEAM (du-dun-tss) of consciousness (and extended research) provides some refreshing mental clarity. For more information on my book club visit: Substack: https://sarahschauer.substack.com/p/schauer-thoughts-book-club-additional?utm_source=activity_item Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/sarahschauer/membership Books: Horror on the Brain: The Neuroscience Behind Science Fiction - Austin Lim, PhD Attention: Beyond Mindfulness - Gay Watson Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance - Elise Vernon Pearlstine Plant Lore and Legend: The Wisdom and Wonder of Plants and Flowers Revealed - Ruth Binney Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihály Csizkszentmihalyi Articles: Demystifying the New Dilemma of Brain Rot in the Digital Era: A Review https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11939997/ The Psychological Conditioning of Brainrot https://www.fau.edu/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/psychological_conditioning_brainrot/brainrot/ Defining brain fog across medical conditions https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166223625000177 Does Exposure to Air Pollution Cause “Brain Fog”? https://hudsonvalleypress.com/2025/08/13/does-exposure-to-air-pollution-cause-brain-fog/ Screen Apnea: What happens to our breath when we type, tap, and scroll https://www.npr.org/2024/06/10/1247296780/screen-apnea-why-screens-cause-shallow-breathing A New Reason to Stop and Smell the Roses https://www.bottomlineinc.com/health/mental-health/a-new-reason-to-stop-and-smell-the-roses/ Memory Air Research Page https://memoryair.com/pages/science Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulated Cognitive Function https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5148230/ To smell the immune system: olfaction, autoimmunity and brain involvement https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17110318/ The Connections Between smell, memory, and health https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/connections-between-smell-memory-and-health Transforming the understanding of brain immunity https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7649 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, guys, welcome back to Shower Thoughts. My name is Sarah Shower. This is a podcast for left and right brainers, middle brainers, anyone with a peripheral central nervous system. This is, you know, we're just going to be talking about my shower thoughts. Specifically, the topic today is going to be brain rot. What is it? Who has it? It is closely tied to social media addiction. We're going to get into it. But before we get into it, we're going to relax. We're going to get into my week. How has my week been? It's been good. I've been having book club. I love my book club.
0:38.6	And I also, the next two chapters that we're reading are on Playfulness and DIY. And it's a book on, like,
0:45.1	psychological richness and psychologically rich experiences and how to develop them. And I assign homework
0:51.7	that people don't have to do, but it's fun to assign homework for a book club on psychological richness because we're trying to develop a habit of fun and playfulness.
1:01.4	And it's easier to develop habits with a group, right?
1:05.0	And so society's narrative against playfulness and fun is pretty dark.
1:10.6	You know, don't have fun. That's what kids do. So
1:12.6	it really does help to have a group to build the importance of playfulness and fun. But my homework
1:18.4	for the book club for next time when we discuss playfulness and DIY is it's going to be after
1:24.9	Halloween. So I've told everyone to come in costume.
1:30.8	They don't have to come in full costume. I actually think the sloppier, the better.
1:35.9	I also think it would be hilarious if someone came in a very intricate costume, just the stark contrast.
1:42.9	Because in the DIY chapter, they do discuss Marx's idea of alienation.
1:49.0	And so I think it would be hilarious because we do this on Google Meet and I record it and I post it on Patreon the next day. I think it's going to be hilarious to pose a question about, you know, Marx's idea of alienation and division of cognitive labor.
1:56.0	And for the camera to then switch to someone in a very crude SpongeBob outfit, you know, like, hey, Sarah, like, just to piggyback off of that.
2:04.6	So when it comes to, like, traditional, like, communist and socialist theory,
2:08.6	Marx actually does disagree quite heavily.
2:11.6	And it's just, like, a very distorted SpongeBob,
2:14.6	like, giving a very serious, you know, discussion of, like, Marxism. I also think
2:18.8	it's going to be funny because, you know, like, you know that meme where it's, the guy from
2:26.4	the scary movie, he's the gay one, he wears a top hat, his name is, what's the gay,
2:32.7	scary movie character that's everyone is
	...

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