Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Ep. 76 Mental Wellness: Coping Skills to Tame Cell Phone Anxiety: Finding Balance in a Digital World!”

• MJ Murray Vachon LCSW • Season 3

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It's summertime! Time for the beach, walks and sitting outside with friends-real friends not virtual friends. In one of her favorite episodes MJ  talks with a neuroscience major who becomes her own cell phone therapist. This episode will give you not only the science of why it is hard to stop using our phones but little known solutions for this BIG problem. Are you tired of this 3x6 inch tech marvel controlling you, listen and take back your SUMMER!



Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.




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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

About Inner Challenge:
Inner Challenge was created in 1995 as a summer camp for girls, and spent 20 years being tested and "refined" by junior high students who insisted on practical Mental Wellness skills that made them feel better. Inner Challenge has been used in many businesses, and community organizations. In 2017-2018 Inner Challenge was a class for freshman football players at the University of Notre Dame. It was these students who encouraged MJ to face her fear of technology and create a podcast. Inner Challenge will soon be a Master Class available for those who want to stop feeling like crap.

To connect with MJ Murray Vachon LCSW, learn more about the Inner Challenge or inquire about being a guest on the podcast visit mjmurrayvachon.com.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, l...

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Welcome to the podcast today. Today we're going to talk about probably the most complicated relationship most of us have. Nope, not our parents, our children, our siblings, not even a romantic partner. I think the most complicated relationship most of us are in is with our phone. Yep. The average American spends five and a half hours a day with this special buddy. We probably hold our phones more than we hold our babies or spouses. Imagine how our life would change if we paid as much attention to our friends and family as we do our phone. For many, this relationship is not mutual, but rather dominating, controlling, and even addicting. The science is in, and we all know it. The phone is terrible for our mental and physical health. The phone hurts our relationship with self and others. I could bore you with statistics that prove that the phone has a significant role in causing depression and anxiety in teens, and even depression in adults. I could ponder why our country does not regulate phones like they do other pleasures that can be harmful. Cigarettes, alcohol, cars, even fireworks. In fact, you might prefer that kind of episode because it talks about the problem instead of sharing some solutions. To help all of us create a relationship with our phone, that is life giving, not life sucking. I want to begin to welcome our guest today, who herself is on a journey to try to create a relationship with her phone where she is managing it and it is not managing her. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Guest:

Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Oh, that's wonderful. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Guest:

Yeah, of course. I'm a college student. I'm originally from Oklahoma and I am studying neuroscience and behavior with a minor in compassionate care in medicine. I eventually plan to go to medical school.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Oh, wonderful. You came to me through another guest that I had and I said to you, look at the first 13 episodes, which are the fundamentals, or look at your life, and you chose to have a conversation with me about managing your phone. You listened to episode 10, which is called, is Your Phone Managing You? And you had already been on this journey long before you talked to me. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your own experience of trying to manage your phone effectively?

Guest:

Around December, I download this app called One Sec, because I saw on TikTok, ironically. It was a deflection app to prevent, when you open your phone and the muscle memory of automatically going to social media. When I first downloaded it, I thought, why am I doing this? This is crazy. And then immediately I saw my screen time go down. I saw that I was spending more time reading books. I was more aware of the times I'm sitting in the bathroom or sitting on my phone with my friends or around other people and mindlessly scrolling. Now I become a lot more aware of what I'm doing on my phone and what are my intentions behind it? And then I listened to your episode and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm already doing these things. This is incredible. To see how there's already a path to being more aware of your phone.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

You said two things that I want to highlight. One is, you are already on this path and my experience as a clinician is most people want to feel mentally well. And they're doing things throughout the day to help their mood. When we think of mental wellness, I think of, how's your spirit? How's your mood? And I usually start the episode, which I forgot, I often do, cuz I get excited for the topic by asking people to define, how do you define mental wellness?

Guest:

For me personally, it's when I don't feel tired. Last year, I really struggled with depression and anxiety because I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't taking care of myself. For me, whenever I'm getting enough sleep and I'm feeling awake enough to go do the things that bring me joy, see my friends or take a walk or go to class and really be there and present to learn. When I have the energy to feel like myself, I feel the most mentally well and I've learned how to take lots of steps and have boundaries in order to maintain that kind of energy and joy so I can feel like myself and not a zombie walking around.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

You found that getting enough sleep was significant in being able to have that sense of happiness and joy?

Guest:

Oh absolutely. I had an 8: 20 last spring and then I would stay in the library till three or four in the morning cuz I was just so overloaded and unable to focus cuz I was also spending an insane amount of time on my phone because I was just trying to escape all my stress and sit there and doom scroll basically. This summer I like got home and slept for two weeks after the semester. I was, okay, something's gotta change. I spent the summer sleeping and figuring out how I can build better habits. And then going to the school year, my sleep habits were much better, but I was still spending a ton of time on my phone. Once I got the sleep fix and really said Hey, I need to go to bed, I need to wake up on time and not, spend all day sleeping whenever I get the chance. I really saw a difference in my Mental and Wellness.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Two things. One is I was gonna ask you, do you think that there was a relationship between your sleep deprivation and mindless scrolling? But you also said once you got your sleep better, you were still scrolling a lot.

Guest:

I really think that I was using my phone as an escape. I was in some pretty stressful classes and dealing with a lot. It was much easier to sit and scroll on TikTok or Instagram for two, three hours instead of, realizing, hey, like maybe I need to go get tutoring for this class, or maybe I need to deal with The physical or social side that I struggle with. It was much easier to sit there and look at cute videos or read a book or on my phone or do anything that wasn't me actually holding myself accountable for my mental wellness. Then I think I just had the habit that I established during that unhealthy time that just kept going. When I started feeling better and still had this thing that was weighing on my Mental time and a mental load. I wanted to break that habit and make a change.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

I hope everyone 35 or 40 and over just heard what you said because one of the things that people 40 and over say to me all the time is, what are these young people so stressed about? What I say to them is, adolescence has always been stressful, but they have in their back pocket a way to escape the stress. When you were going through adolescence because you didn't have it you were forced to find ways to cope and to move and to work through the stress, and that gave you this whole toolbox such as, I have this class, I'm really overwhelmed and I'm gonna find a way to get tutoring in order to lower my stress. That is a really healthy tool. Avoiding it with the phone is a really unhealthy tool. Once we understand that the brain is naturally lazy. The brain is lazy. It is so happy to be a couch potato, which was the term in my generation, where people watch tv, but it's also really happy to mindlessly scroll for hours and hours. You did the first thing of, I'm gonna get sleep. And then you realize, oh my gosh, I still have this phone problem. So take us from there. How did you then begin to think about. The second part of self-care, which is how do I get some control over this phone?

Guest:

Yeah. So the first thing I did your phone actually has a setting where you can set time limits for certain apps. So I did that first and I was like, okay, like I'm gonna, limit my time. But it also has this handy dandy feature where once it times out, you can add 15 minutes. With basically no consequence you can infinitely add 15 more minutes. While the time limit was working, I would just sit there in 15 more minutes. 15 more minutes, 15 more minutes. And so it wasn't working and I was just sitting there Ugh, like this sucks. And then I randomly came across a TikTok that was talking about this app, which is called One Sec. And I was like, you know what? I'll try it. And even my parents were, You're crazy. You're a college student, you're a teenager, why are you trying to spend less time on your phone? That's what you guys do. Yes, but I don't wanna sit there. And my friends like to call it rotting oh, I've been rotting all day just on my phone. I have things to do. I'm have a lot of high goals. Like I can't sit there for 10 hours a day on my phone. And at first I was really annoyed with the app. There's no getting around it. Basically like I've tried. You cannot out open the apps you program it to without going through these interventions. I can actually show you I know which won't come up on the audio. If I click it this is one of the interventions where it turns my screen black for seven seconds and there's nothing I can do in those seven seconds other than sit and wait for it to cue me to open. Once it does, which while we wait, I'm gonna have two buttons. The bigger white button says I don't want to open Instagram. And the smaller button says continue Instagram. And so if I click continue Instagram, it asks me my intention, and it's got all these different things programmed from bored, stressed, tired can't sleep. If I click an intention, then I can go on the app. At first I was like, okay, yeah, I'm bored. Obviously, I'm going on Instagram. And then I kept clicking and clicking. Eventually it clicked. Hey, I'm procrastinating. Maybe I should just do my work. Or I'm sitting there and I'm having to spin my phone in class and I'm like, maybe I should just pay attention. I think it was the frustration and a little bit of the Embarrassment of I have to be on my phone right now and do this silly thing to open it. That really led to me like starting to break the habit and I'm still on my phone, like I am still like a 20 something college student. But I'm much more intentional about how I use it. And if I'm procrastinating, I'm gonna say I'm procrastinating. Like you'd said in your episode, set a timer, set an intention of I've been studying for two hours. I need like a 30 minute break. I'm just gonna sit and scroll. I will turn off the app sometimes whenever I'm home this is my rest period I'm resetting. It's my prerogative to scroll on TikTok. A lot of my friends are like, oh man, your app is going again. You ha. But some of them been like, wow I really like that. I think that's a really good idea. I'm on my phone all the time. So that's my thought process behind it.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

The app is one sec. O N E S E C?

Guest:

Yes.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

In a nutshell, it makes your brain not be lazy.

Guest:

Exactly.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

And it does frustration. When you showed me in the studio here, seven seconds that felt like 15. I was like, come on, this is longer than seven seconds. So I can see where A, it says a lot about my ability to wait, but that it really does begin to generate some frustration, which is better than a lazy brain.

Guest:

Yeah. It's like a brain treadmill, right? Like you don't wanna do it. There's other ones where it's take a deep breath, or there's one which I have not programmed, where it turns into a mirror and turns your front facing camera on. And I was like, that's a little too much for me. I don't need that. I don't wanna see what I'm looking like.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Yeah. We don't wanna scare ourselves. We just wanna manage the phone. Exactly. Also, I'm really interested in your parents. Who were come on, just keep going on your phone. When you think of that, what's your thought?

Guest:

Yeah, it was more of you're this super motivate college kid, you're the only kid I know who would intentionally set up limits for themselves. Which is also weird to think about in a nutshell of if the expectation is this active addiction what does that say about my generation and how we're expected to function with this technology? The fact that when I'm taking steps to change it or break that cycle, how normalized something that was invented in the past 20 years has come to our society. It's really crazy to think about.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

I'm not sure anything has ever been so pervasive. There are now more smartphones in the world than people.

Guest:

Yeah. I can believe it. I work as a nanny sometimes in the summers every kid I've nann ied the past five years has had some sort of iPad or easy access to technology. I babysat this family with two young boys and one day their mom's Hey, they've been awful, no iPad time. And those kids were radically different than the kids who had regular iPad time. They were more irritable. They were not happy to have no iPad. After a couple hours of realizing hey, the iPad's not coming out they were able to flip a switch and we went into the pool and we hung out But it was crazy those first few hours they didn't have access to the thing that was making their brain light up and give them pleasurable dopamine. These were young kids under 12. What does that say about like their brain development and their attention span when they get older? It's very scary to think about, honestly.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

It's scary or it's empowering because this isn't something that we don't have control of. This is something that we can learn to manage and what you said is really important and it's what I see as a clinician. The hardest part of my job, besides trying to encourage people to meditate for Seven or 11 minutes a day is working with parents who say everything we've said that these are causing depression, they're causing anxiety. They see it in their children, but they will not set limits. And these are high functioning, very good parents. That's what you experience with your parents. This normalization. How many parents would say to a 20 year old, Hey, if you wanna do cocaine, five and a half hours a day. You're a college student, have at it, especially when you're going to a school that costs a ton of money. Yes. Because it gets in the way of learning. We know that with the phone that it gets in the way of learning. It gets in the way of getting the most out of this once in a lifetime experience to be an undergraduate. I really applaud you. For being able to have really a clear idea of the importance of learning to manage this because it's a great tool. But it's not meant to be a tool that we're on five and a half hours a day mindlessly. Do you have any buddy in this journey or are you just walking alone?

Guest:

No, I do not. A lot of them, are highly motivated students who have found ways to do what's similar, like whether it's putting their phone on do not disturb or turning off their phone or putting across the room or or even if it's shorter breaks back and forth. Nobody's gone so far as I have to set up an app on their phone. But I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some of them did eventually. Especially going into applying for postgraduate things or internships or jobs where, you can't really just have that lack of focus. When you are learning how to have that sustained focus that's required, outside of college for the workforce. I think some of them might take me up on that. Some of them are even worse than I was whenever I was at my worst with my phone. And it's just like a constant Always with our phones. Always on them.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Yeah. I always say to my children the people in your generation that will win are those that can have self-care. I define self-care as NESTS, good nutrition, enough exercise, proper sleep, proper use of technology as well as stress management. I have a lot of sessions with people who are managing younger people and they come in completely frustrated and stressed cuz they can't get them off their phone at work. One of the statistics actually shows that people use their phones more at work for pleasure than they do at night during the weekday. When you think about how that disrupts the whole economy because we need people to be at work working, and people check TikTok for a five minute break and it's 20 minutes. I hear that in my office on a regular basis. I really wanna applaud that you're trying to get on top of this, and I think it really will give you a very different future than your peers who may be just as smart, just as hardworking. But this is changing our brains. And we know that the National Institute of Health has followed for probably 30 years now, 12 year old boys starting at 12, and they follow them yearly who are gamers and their brains are really different. And that's because all the overstimulation. Because you're a neuroscience major, can you talk a little bit about how the phone affects our brain?

Guest:

Yeah. So the phone hijacks the system in our brain. It's the meso limbo cortical production, which is a mouthful. But basically it's this pathway in our brain that contains dopamine cell bodies. Dopamine it's one of the 10 classical neurotransmitters and it's basically associated with those feelings of pleasure we get, or feelings of euphoria. Whenever we do things that are good for us, like eating or sleeping or seeing our friends, we get a small hit of dopamine. It's an evolutionary thing that establishes a pattern in our brain. Like a neural pathway and it makes us wanna do it again. It makes us want to eat healthy foods again or, go on walks or do these things because they're good for us. Things like drugs, alcohol, gambling, these send an overload of dopamine in the system way more than the small, normal hit we get every day which completely shocks our system. If it's getting a trickle before, now it's getting a hurricane. So your brain goes, wow, that was fantastic. I wanna do that again. It's gonna seek out that level of dopamine over and over again. But the problem is the brain gets desensitized whenever it is getting a constant flow of neurotransmitters. So then the receptors get less reactive than it would've been before to that same hurricane of neurotransmitters. And so worked before, what level of dopamine would get that winning feeling isn't enough anymore, so you have to do more. And then, that works for a little bit and then you have to do more and you have to do more. And you are literally rewiring your brain to expect this high level of dopamine. And like you said, the brain is lazy and it wants to maintain these neural patterns. And that's why addiction is so hard to break because your brain's actively searching for these things that make it feel good. It doesn't feel good to go into sobriety. It doesn't feel good to rewire those pathways whenever it feels so good to drink or take drugs or gamble. Or be on the phone. Or be on the phone. The phone is perfectly designed to trick these systems because it used something called a variable award system, which was invented by Skinner in the thirties. He did this experiment with rats where if they push lever, they got food, but not on a regular schedule. They would push a lever and they wouldn't always get a piece of food. But there was no shock associated. There was no negative consequence. And so he found that rats would push the lever more than they would if there was a shock or there was a regular pattern because they were essentially gambling on if they were getting to the food reward or not. Our phones and the algorithms do the exact same thing. When you're just scrolling and you're just like one more post or one more TikTok you are essentially the rat scrolling to get the hit of dopamine, of something pleasurable, like a video that you like or is like going to trigger that dopamine hit. That's why social media apps are specifically designed to keep you on them. TikTok, for example, never has a bottom. You just keep scrolling. You never have to get to the bottom and refresh. Instagram the same way you can go on the explorer page and scroll forever. Twitter, like Facebook, all these things are never ending, and every time you go on them, you are reestablishing that pattern of, I don't know what's coming next, but it could be good. And so your brain is associating that dopamine hit with this thing you keep in your pocket. All the time. Not to mention, you also get the cognitive neuroscience of seeing pleasurable things like smiling faces or happy videos. That's something we're evolutionarily trained to find dopamine from because it's good for our survival. When we see smiling pictures of our friends, of cute dogs, of these things that make us happy, we're going build those patterns of looking for those positive things on our phone.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

That's really well said. I'm not sure people understand that the tech companies, they're more like teenagers because there's no regulation on any of these devices. They can do what they wanna do. I think most people don't know that other countries have regulation. I was in Spain in October, and everyone was sitting at the cafes laughing and talking, and I thought, this is so odd because when I go into Starbucks, no one's talking. Everybody's on their phone or on their computer or iPad or whatever their favorite device is. I asked a taxi driver and he said, oh, we're not wealthy like the United States. We all have time limits on our phone, which I can remember back at the beginning, everybody was very careful to not go over the time limits. So we all started back in the day with time limits, and the phones were not taking over our life. Not only are the apps designed, but now our phone plans, the majority of people have unlimited text and data. These are to make money. These are not public service. These are not like roads and stop signs. These, the tech companies are legitimate businesses. They're fabulous businesses. I love tech. I don't like tech when it's taking teenagers down a road that leads them to depression and anxiety, because they were so smart to use neuroscience. Advertising used it initially in the eighties and then tech began to use it. So they developed products that sync up perfectly. The three goals of social media apps are engagement, as much use as possible, and growth to always have more and more engagement and advertising. That's how they make money. You might not pay for Instagram, but the ads pay for Instagram. It's really important that people understand that these are businesses and what they're doing is worrying about the bottom line. With no government regulation like we have with alcohol and cars, it's not perfect, but at least there's a sense that these can be helpful cars take us places. They can be harmful if we don't know how to use them correctly. That's great for our listeners, for you to help them really understand that these are synced up perfectly to the reward system in our brain. Are you able to give us the neuroscience of what happens with the kids that you babysit when they get pulled off these rewarding devices?

Guest:

Kids are still developing their nervous system, they're still figuring out how to regulate themselves and regulate their behaviors. They've built this neural habit of getting that pleasurable dopamine hit whenever they feel like it. Essentially it's like going into withdrawal when they don't have that easy gratification and they have to have the delayed gratification that comes with playing outside or playing with their siblings or doing something that's not as easy as our lazy brains would like. Whenever they don't have that easy access to dopamine, their brains are freaking out because they're like, My access is gone. What am I gonna do? And I think a lot of people think kids are horrible, they're just running around rampant with iPads. No, their brains aren't fully developed and we see it and they just don't know how to function because their life up until that point they've understood that the iPad and that dopamine system is gonna be a part of it. So when it's taking away as part of a punishment and there have not been limits previously, it's total system shut down. Sometimes. I've seen many meltdowns because they don't have that access. Which is crazy to think about.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

I read in the book Dopamine Nation, so correct me if I'm wrong. That part of that irritability when they get pulled off is just as you said, their brain is flooded with dopamine and the brain can only make so much dopamine in a day. Part of the irritation is that they've used a ton of their dopamine and then their brain has to work at re, what would be the word?

Guest:

Probably like the re-uptake Overcoming the synaptic depression that has exhausted the synapses which is not fun. Um the synaptic cycle, like the really standard transmitters is pretty quick. Whenever it's stimulated by an action potential. But the whole cycle of regenerating the neurotransmitters takes about a minute. So we can release neurotransmitters in a millisecond, but to really re-uptake those dopamine from the synopsis cycle, which is the space in between two neurons and repackaging it and moving it back to where it's supposed to be released, that takes a little bit of time. When it's not being actively triggered by your phone or your iPad your brain's is gonna be irritable cuz it's not getting that pleasurable hit.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

I often think of it like waterboarding. That when someone is on a device and they're really engaged and they're on it for too long, then their dopamine system gets water boarded. Then when they stop, they're dazed and they are irritable. I see it all the time When I'm around all age people, and I think that what happens is then people get irritable and then they look to find something that makes them feel better. So they get in this really terrible cycle. They get back on the phone or they fall asleep and they really wanted to go work out and it's this repetitive cycle. One of the things I learned today from you was about the App, One Sec, which is really exciting to me

Transcribing...

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

When I said that the tech companies are like teenagers, they're like, we've got things on our phones, time limits for apps, and we want everyone to be really conscious and use these well, and you said they have the time limit. You can set it and then it gives you another 15 minutes and it's effortless. That's what the company does. But your app, One Sec, which actually looks a lot like my program, right?

Guest:

Yes. Even it's like exactly like your program, which I thought was so interesting.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

I'm so happy because I'm in a little world by myself creating this stuff. Not that I don't consult here and there with people, but my goal was seven years ago when I talked to people was to turn it into an App, but, I didn't have the time to do that, so I don't care if I made the App, I'm thrilled because my five step process is to do notice, do an internal selfie, how are you feeling? Which is exactly what that stage in your app was where you're actually saying, how am I feeling? And that allows you to figure out why am I getting on the phone? Am I bored? Am I just wanting to connect with friends? Am I really wanting to get on the phone cause I wanna seek out information. That is so helpful because it's making us come to the present and it's doing it by frustrating you initially, but it, but the whole time you have to work to get on the phone and my five step process notice is really then, people say, why am I doing this? Set a timer and then run your own scientific experiment. When you get off, do you feel better? We can feel better when we get off our phones. That's really possible when we control and manage them. We can use them in a way that's very pleasurable, that's educational, that helps us work out. There's a million good things. Unfortunately, if people aren't really conscious, the phone will manage us. So I'm never gonna tell anybody about my little thing again because once, because One Sec is better it's on the device itself. I'm really happy to offer that to our listeners today as a way to be able to manage their phones and help their children manage their phones.

Guest:

I feel like with One Sec I've been able to know when 15 minutes have passed. Cause I'm huh, I've been on my phone a hot second and then all of a sudden my time limit go off. You could also set notifications that have say, hey check your intention. Are you still doing what you planned on doing. And I think it's a really cool thing. I'll take any amount of ribbing from it because I've really seen a difference in my life ever since downloading it.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW:

Wow. We gotta stop cause you gotta go to class. Thank you so much for being on this. You were fabulous. Here are my Inner Challenge insights: Insight number one: Sometimes a guest just says it's so much better than I ever could from the brain of a neuroscience major."When you're scrolling and looking for just one more post or one more tick tock video, you are essentially the rat trying to get that hit of dopamine. Our phones are making us a bunch of rats. Do you like rats? I don't. Insight number two: I care deeply about kids, not just my kids. I care about your kids, your grandkids, the kids who play in the park across the street from my office. We have to help today's parents and grandparents understand how damaging devices are not just to kids' brains, but to their abilities, to have patience necessary for school. Again, from my guest's neuroscience training. She says,"kids are still developing their nervous system. They're still figuring out how to regulate themselves and regulate their behaviors. They've built this neural habit of getting that pleasurable dopamine hit whenever they feel like it essentially it's like going into withdrawal when they don't have that easy gratification. And they have to have the delayed gratification that comes with, listen to this, playing outside or playing with their siblings or doing something that's not as easy as our lazy brains would like. Whenever they don't have that easy access to dopamine, their brains are freaking out because they're like, ah, My access has gone."This does not bode well for future math scores. Insight number three. Want a shocking moment from the couch in my office. Many of my clients come to therapy, anxious and depressed. Are they anxious about a failing marriage? Are they depressed because they've lost a loved one. Much of the time. But to be honest, in the last five to 10 years, about 25% of my new clients, I am not able to assess because they are so sleep deprived. The biggest culprit. The phone. In my assessments, I ask clients to guess their daily phone usage for the last two weeks. Most guess somewhere between three and six hours, I then ask them to read to me from their phones usage log. And often it is eight to 15 hours. If you're shocked, you should see the looks on their faces. All of them are students and full-time workers. Most of these people have not been using their phone excessively like this forever, but began to overuse it when they went through a hard time. The phone helped them numb the pain of a breakup. Avoid the dread of tons of homework as today's guest did. Or fill the boredom and loneliness experience connected to remote work. One day turned to two to turn to three. And before you know it, they sound just like my guests did today. Anxious, depressed, and not themselves. The good news is most of these people just by becoming aware of how much they're using their phones. Are able to turn it around. They feel so much better and they fire me. Insight number four: if you are a physician or mental health professional, join the club and ask your patients and clients to share with you their phone usage. I believe this important piece of mental health information is often missed. The beauty in asking is most clients have the data right there in your office. I deeply believe we can no longer have an accurate assessment if we do not have this piece of information. After the shock, I have found most of my clients to be grateful. Parents. I encourage you to do the same. Insight number five: is it just me that finds it information age, a misnomer. Yes. We use our phones to look up the capital Yugoslavia, or how to spell predicament or maybe to do online banking. But in the U S. Unlimited minutes has ushered in a lifestyle where we use the phone, mostly for texting, picture taking and entertainment. You know, tic tok videos, sports replays, and movies, not to mention porn. I think we are living in the entertainment age, not the information age. My question for you to ponder is how do we keep a country going when we are unknowingly playing more than working? Insight number six: Let's not make having a healthier relationship with our phones complicated. Take back your power. Turn off notifications. Don't sleep with it in your room. There are these really neat things they're called alarm clocks. Put the One Sec app on your phone. Try to stay around two hours a day and check your usage daily. Take back your power. Your brain will. Thank you. Your family will. Thank you. Your friends will. Thank you. Your job will thank you. Your country will. Thank you. And you well, thank you. Thanks for listening. You don't need to break up with your phone. You just need to be your own therapist and put it in its rightful place. This is your Inner Challenge.