Speaker 1: Every time we go online, and every time we swipe
Speaker 1: or like something, or buy something or comment or hand
Speaker 1: pick an emoji to send to our friend, our brains
Speaker 1: experience a little bump of dopamine. Again, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that, so long as we know what's happening. The
Speaker 1: number one health and wellness podcast, Say Sety Jay Setty. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one mental health
Speaker 1: podcast in the world. Being here is an investment in
Speaker 1: your mental health as we dive into incredible conversations and
Speaker 1: insights to help you become happier, healthier, and more healed
Speaker 1: with the world's leading experts. Now, let's be honest for
Speaker 1: a second. How many of you feel like you've just
Speaker 1: been on your phone too much recently? Right, You've been
Speaker 1: sitting there and sometimes you're even doom scrolling and thinking
Speaker 1: why am I here? What am I doing? Maybe you've
Speaker 1: even thrown your phone, feeling a sense of anger or
Speaker 1: disgust with how you've spent your time. And I think
Speaker 1: all of us can relate. There's been moments where I've
Speaker 1: thought afterwards to myself, I wish I was more present
Speaker 1: with my friends. I wish I was more present with
Speaker 1: my family. Why am I constantly needing to be distracted
Speaker 1: from my phone even when I don't need it? Right,
Speaker 1: sometimes you're like, I know I don't need it. I
Speaker 1: know I don't get anything from it, but it still
Speaker 1: keeps pulling me back. It keeps pulling me in, It
Speaker 1: keeps sucking me in, even if I don't want to
Speaker 1: be there. And I think that's what we all experience,
Speaker 1: is this almost hopeless, helpless relationship. And that's why today's
Speaker 1: episode is called the cell phone diet or the cell
Speaker 1: phone detox. These are the devices through which most of
Speaker 1: us make our way online. Over the past few years,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that we've read as many articles about the
Speaker 1: miracles of technology as we have about some of the
Speaker 1: issues it's brought up for us as humans. That despite
Speaker 1: this wonderful newfound global connectivity, we have never felt less
Speaker 1: connected to friends and loved ones. How despite having more
Speaker 1: knowledge at our disposal than in any time in history,
Speaker 1: we have never been worse informed. How at home and
Speaker 1: at work, we're losing the ability to focus or concentrate,
Speaker 1: that we've gotten more impatient and impulsive. The ad to
Speaker 1: carte nature of the internet, where you want what you
Speaker 1: want when you want, can sometimes even trickle over to
Speaker 1: our real lives. A friend once confess to me that sometimes,
Speaker 1: when he finds himself in a traffic jam, without even
Speaker 1: thinking about it, he'll reach for his phone, not to
Speaker 1: change the music or refreshes GPS, or to start a
Speaker 1: new podcast, but to click himself out of the traffic jam,
Speaker 1: as if his phone somehow featured a magic button that,
Speaker 1: with a single click, could transport him home. One of
Speaker 1: the most interesting things about being alive in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four is that there are hundreds of millions of people
Speaker 1: in our midst, possibly your own parents and certainly your grandparents,
Speaker 1: who remember a time before cell phones and Wi Fi existed.
Speaker 1: They're dealing with two versions of reality, then and now,
Speaker 1: And because we're always prone to see the past as
Speaker 1: better than it was, it goes without saying that the
Speaker 1: pre internet error was better, filled with space and silence
Speaker 1: and stillness and opportunities for contemplation. Before long, the global
Speaker 1: population will be made up of people who know only
Speaker 1: one technological reality now. By now, we've also figured out
Speaker 1: various ways we can make our phones and the impulse
Speaker 1: to go online less attractive and alluring, less of a temptation.
Speaker 1: We can turn off our notifications. Instead of our phones
Speaker 1: ringing or chirping or making cricket noises, we can make
Speaker 1: them vibrate with a little fiddling in our settings. We
Speaker 1: can even turn our screens gray, which gets rid of
Speaker 1: the visual triggers that make our phones look a lot
Speaker 1: like a big bag of colorful candy. Maybe you've tried
Speaker 1: one or more of these things, but you still feel
Speaker 1: your reliance on the Internet is unhealthy and imbalanced, That
Speaker 1: even when you're not online, you're thinking about being online,
Speaker 1: That on those rare times your phone isn't within reach,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, where is it? Why do I feel so
Speaker 1: weirdly incomplete? This episode came about because of the many
Speaker 1: messages I get from all of you who feel you've
Speaker 1: lost control over your phone use, who don't trust yourself
Speaker 1: to monitor how much time you spend online, who get
Speaker 1: anxious whenever you're separated from your phone or a Wi
Speaker 1: Fi signal for more than a few minutes, who are
Speaker 1: coping with feelings of helplessness and shame. This episode is
Speaker 1: for anyone who thinks I should really get my phone
Speaker 1: in Wi Fi addiction under control one of these days,
Speaker 1: Except that day never seems to come. It's okay, though,
Speaker 1: because you're not alone. Everyone around you, from your thirteen
Speaker 1: year old cousin to your seventy five year old lant
Speaker 1: all the way through to me, seems to be wrestling
Speaker 1: with this same issue. The six steps of the cell
Speaker 1: phone detox are loosely repurposed from the steps you might
Speaker 1: take if you embark on an actual diet involving food
Speaker 1: and drink. As with any new regimen we start, you
Speaker 1: want to banish any thoughts of overnight change or success.
Speaker 1: Stop trying to change in twenty four hours. If you
Speaker 1: think you can build or break a habit in the
Speaker 1: next twenty four hours, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 1: The goal, as with any new plan we try out,
Speaker 1: is to adapt one or more of these steps as
Speaker 1: time goes on, in the hopes that before long a
Speaker 1: new habit will be in. I want to begin by
Speaker 1: acknowledging that our brains have a lot of heavyweight chemicals
Speaker 1: working on their behalf. There's gabba, glutamate, oxytocin, adrenaline, neuropenephrine,
Speaker 1: the list goes on. But of all these chemicals and hormones,
Speaker 1: the brain favors four of them, the most in no order.
Speaker 1: There's serotonin, which helps balance out our moods, and dolphins,
Speaker 1: which are our body's natural painkillers, which our brains generate
Speaker 1: when we fall in love, and that promotes trust and
Speaker 1: intimacy between partners and also among new parents and their infants.
Speaker 1: Of course, the best, most pleasure promoting chemical of these
Speaker 1: four is dopamine, the brain's pre eminent reward and pleasure zone.
Speaker 1: But dopamine isn't always well understood. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are under the impression that dopamine provides pleasure, that it
Speaker 1: gives us some mental or physical high, that in that way,
Speaker 1: it's like a drink or a drug. The truth is
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Instead of making us feel good, dopamine operates
Speaker 1: in our brain by motivating us to go out and
Speaker 1: seek pleasure, whether it's in the form of romance or
Speaker 1: going out to dinner with a good friend, or having
Speaker 1: a few drinks or going on a long bike ride
Speaker 1: in a beautiful landscape. There's nothing wrong with seeking pleasure.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's part of the wiring of our brains.
Speaker 1: Problems only arise when we go overboard in that pleasure
Speaker 1: seeking behavior and begin to expect rewards and another shot
Speaker 1: of dopamine every hour of the day. This is because
Speaker 1: of the very nature of dopamine. The more we seek
Speaker 1: out pleasure seeking activities falling in love or anticipating sex
Speaker 1: or romance, or a yoga class or a night out
Speaker 1: on the town or even an upcoming vacation, our brains,
Speaker 1: whose job it is to maintain homeostasis otherwise known as balance,
Speaker 1: compensate for this blizzard of dopamine by making us feel
Speaker 1: flatter and even a little bit depressed whenever we're not
Speaker 1: engaged in that thing. Think about it. It's mind blowing.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but in my experience, no
Speaker 1: one likes feeling flat. It's almost as though without dopamine,
Speaker 1: our own screens turn gray. We don't feel like doing much,
Speaker 1: and the things we feel like doing don't seem exciting.
Speaker 1: In response, most of us decide consciously or unconsciously to
Speaker 1: re engage with the same activity we now know brings us,
Speaker 1: if not pleasure, then the anticipation of pleasure. The thing
Speaker 1: about most pleasure seeking activities is that they have a
Speaker 1: built in time limit. We can only exercise for a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time before our bodies tell us we've
Speaker 1: had enough and we need a cold glass of water
Speaker 1: and a shower. If we go out and drink more
Speaker 1: than we should, our bodies and brains generally respond by
Speaker 1: making our eyelids heavier until at least we fall asleep.
Speaker 1: But as everyone knows, the internet is a twenty four
Speaker 1: hour bizarre and our phones are always on the Web
Speaker 1: never goes dark, never closes down, and never takes a vacation.
Speaker 1: And don't misunderstand me, the internet can be a completely
Speaker 1: magical place. It's like a city where the possibilities for
Speaker 1: window shopping and people watching are so varied and interesting
Speaker 1: that we could spend the rest of our lives there.
Speaker 1: But if we do, it can have consequences on both
Speaker 1: our mental and physical well being. This leads me back
Speaker 1: to dopamine. Every time we go online, and every time
Speaker 1: we swipe or like something, or buy something, or comment
Speaker 1: or hand pick an emoji to send to our friend,
Speaker 1: our brains experience a little bump of dopamine. This tells
Speaker 1: us our reward system has been stimulated. Again. There's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that, so long as we know what's happening,
Speaker 1: and so long as we keep our Internet use intentional
Speaker 1: and conscious, but that's not always easy or possible. For
Speaker 1: many of us. Our Internet use is automatic and unconscious,
Speaker 1: putting us in a place where we need more and
Speaker 1: more dopamine just to feel normal, just to feel like ourselves.
Speaker 1: Is there a connection between our dependence on our phones
Speaker 1: and the internet and our declining levels of happiness. No
Speaker 1: one can say for sure, but the answer is probably
Speaker 1: a bittersweet yes. According to the World Happiness Report, humans
Speaker 1: just aren't as happy as they used to be, especially
Speaker 1: people who live in hire income countries. This might have
Speaker 1: to do with that flattening effect I mentioned earlier, and
Speaker 1: how when we're not engaged online we feel not exactly unhappy,
Speaker 1: but not entirely happy either, as though we're missing something,
Speaker 1: as though we're somehow sidelined or not at the center
Speaker 1: of something we know exists, we just can't put our
Speaker 1: finger on what that thing is. The Internet diet is
Speaker 1: an attempt to provide at least the beginning of a
Speaker 1: solution to this problem. Why do I refer to it
Speaker 1: as a diet because I'm reminded of something that a
Speaker 1: high school teacher friend told me recently. At the end
Speaker 1: of each semester, my friend gives midterm and final exams
Speaker 1: to his students. No cell phones are allowed in the classroom,
Speaker 1: of course, while the students take their tests. In fact,
Speaker 1: before the exam gets underway, the students all write down
Speaker 1: their initials on their phones and place them in a
Speaker 1: box next to the teacher's desk. When the exam ends,
Speaker 1: they line up to collect them. But the interesting part
Speaker 1: of this story is when my friend described the moment
Speaker 1: his students were reunited with their phones, they clutched them
Speaker 1: as if they were food and they hadn't had anything
Speaker 1: to eat or drink for days. They appeared ravenous, and
Speaker 1: the behaviors they then carried out, including checking their texts
Speaker 1: and their inboxes going on to this and that website,
Speaker 1: made my friend think that for his students, their phones
Speaker 1: were a form of food or sustenance, a way to
Speaker 1: keep hunger at bay. When you think about it, there's
Speaker 1: a strong connection between food and the internet. Humans can't
Speaker 1: live without eating, and today the ninety four percent of
Speaker 1: all Americans with access to the Internet will tell you
Speaker 1: that life without Wi Fi would be unimaginable. Without GPS,
Speaker 1: how would we get from one location to another without
Speaker 1: social media and text messages. How would we keep up
Speaker 1: with friends and loved ones who live nearby and far
Speaker 1: away without the alarm clock on our phones. How would
Speaker 1: we manage to wake up in the morning. How would
Speaker 1: we make lunch, your dinner reservations or split the bill
Speaker 1: after a night out, or pay for groceries, or take
Speaker 1: photos of videos or check out the weather conditions in Dubai, Dublin,
Speaker 1: or Miami. According to the results of one study, I read,
Speaker 1: Americans check their cell phones approximately one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: four times a day. Even if we don't open our phones,
Speaker 1: we make physical contact with our phones on an average
Speaker 1: of two thousand, six hundred times a day just to
Speaker 1: make sure they're snug in our position. All in all,
Speaker 1: on average, this study says we spend nearly four and
Speaker 1: a half hours every day on our phones. But along
Speaker 1: with the reliable hits of dopamine that get released every
Speaker 1: time we punch in our code or here, swish or ding,
Speaker 1: we also get a bump of cortisol, the chemical that
Speaker 1: enters our bloodstream whenever we're about to go into high
Speaker 1: gear and take on a new day, or in this case,
Speaker 1: when we're about to come face to face with what
Speaker 1: being online means. As longtime listeners of this podcast know,
Speaker 1: Cortisol is the steroid hormone produced by our two adrenal
Speaker 1: glands which percha top our kidneys. Cortisol is the hormone
Speaker 1: that gives rise to the fight or flight impulse. But
Speaker 1: since most of us aren't about to get into a
Speaker 1: wrestling match, what ends up happening is that the energy
Speaker 1: supplied by all that cortisol sticks around inside our bodies.
Speaker 1: It stresses our muscles, our digestion, our breathing, and can
Speaker 1: even negatively affect our immune systems. What can sssimbly relieve
Speaker 1: these high levels of cortisol more dopamine, Because, after all,
Speaker 1: when we feel stressed or dread going online for fear,
Speaker 1: we might see a text or email we don't like.
Speaker 1: Our brains might as well balance out that fear by
Speaker 1: seeing if they can anticipate a positive reward Before we
Speaker 1: even know it. We've been online for an hour, two hours,
Speaker 1: or even longer. The internet, or rather the brain, has
Speaker 1: gotten the best of us. It's tough to resist it.
Speaker 1: We might as well throw in the towel, right. The
Speaker 1: good news is that the six steps of the Internet
Speaker 1: diet are focused on gradually reducing the amount of time
Speaker 1: you spend online or gazing at your phone. Following these steps,
Speaker 1: or even half of them, and you'll likely find yourself
Speaker 1: with significantly reduced anxiety levels, along with an increasing clarity,
Speaker 1: a greater, truer sense of perspective about yourself and the
Speaker 1: world around you, a deeper connection, and a deeper presence
Speaker 1: when you're a loan or surrounded by friends and loved ones,
Speaker 1: as you are now genuinely listening to what they're saying
Speaker 1: instead of quietly fretting that you need to respond to
Speaker 1: your latest text or email. Lastly, it's safe to say
Speaker 1: that the six steps of the Internet detox will increase
Speaker 1: your capacity for gratitude for your own life, for our
Speaker 1: five senses, for what you do have instead of what
Speaker 1: you don't, which we all know the internet is well
Speaker 1: known for eliciting. Before we begin, remember that, as with
Speaker 1: any behavioral change, the most important thing is to start small,
Speaker 1: take one step and see how you feel afterwards. All
Speaker 1: or nothing thinking doesn't work here, but all or nothing
Speaker 1: thinking never works. See if you can check off these
Speaker 1: steps one after the next, and take your time as
Speaker 1: you do it too. I'm not proposing you can cancel
Speaker 1: your WiFi or trade in your smartphone for a flip
Speaker 1: phone or a landline. What I am suggesting is that
Speaker 1: you begin to think about your phone and being online
Speaker 1: as the technological equivalents of the food you eat and
Speaker 1: the liquid you put inside your body. Most of us
Speaker 1: are careful about our nutrition and the ingredients in our foods.
Speaker 1: So all that I'm proposing is you give the same care,
Speaker 1: attention and respect to how you feed your brain, which
Speaker 1: means not overwhelming it with the digital equivalent of ultra
Speaker 1: processed ingredients additives transfats, potato, chips, salt, and sugar. Step
Speaker 1: one of the Internet dyet is simple, become more conscious.
Speaker 1: All I'm asking is that you become more aware of
Speaker 1: your Internet use, and that you do it without any
Speaker 1: judgment whatsoever. It's a fact that for many of us,
Speaker 1: our phones have become almost like physical extensions of ourselves,
Speaker 1: an extra hand or foot. One study I read reported
Speaker 1: that eighty nine percent of Americans reach for their phones
Speaker 1: within the first ten minutes of waking up. When you
Speaker 1: reach for your phone in the morning, what are you feeling,
Speaker 1: What are you looking for by wanting to reach for
Speaker 1: your phone? What are you trying to achieve. Does it
Speaker 1: make you anxious? And can we become more aware of that?
Speaker 1: What is the reason not just that you reach for
Speaker 1: your phone, but why are you doing it? What are
Speaker 1: you seeking in the morning, and how can we substitute
Speaker 1: it later on? Our phones are like mirrors. They reflect
Speaker 1: us back to ourselves. They have a lot of valuable
Speaker 1: information to tell us about who we are and what
Speaker 1: it is we want. You might tell yourself, of course
Speaker 1: I reach for my phone every morning, doesn't everyone. But
Speaker 1: that's different from taking a step back from the routine
Speaker 1: of it and asking why. For example, you might feel
Speaker 1: that while you were asleep, people are having fun without you,
Speaker 1: and you hate what it feels like to be excluded.
Speaker 1: You might begin the morning feeling bored or sad or understimulated,
Speaker 1: and consciously or unconsciously decide that the only way to
Speaker 1: solve that feeling is by going online. Or you might
Speaker 1: wake up feeling lonely or isolated and reach for your
Speaker 1: phone instead of getting in touch with a friend and
Speaker 1: making a plan to meet them later for coffee or
Speaker 1: a drink. You might worry that a crisis happened overnight,
Speaker 1: whether in your workplace or somewhere in the world, and
Speaker 1: you're the last person to know about it, which makes
Speaker 1: you worry your friends might not see you as hypervigilant
Speaker 1: and responsible and in charge. Again, the most important part
Speaker 1: of step one is observing your behavior without judgment. That
Speaker 1: increased consciousness leads me to step two, wait an hour
Speaker 1: before going online, but rather you sitting around wondering when
Speaker 1: the hour is up. Step two proposes that instead of
Speaker 1: going online, you replace that impulse with a better, healthier habit.
Speaker 1: You could take that time to meditate or make a
Speaker 1: list of the things in your life you're most grateful for.
Speaker 1: You could listen to beautiful music, or read a few
Speaker 1: chapters of a book, or do both at the same time.
Speaker 1: In my experience, from a reading perspective, being online is
Speaker 1: like taking one hundred quick showers a day. We're scanning
Speaker 1: headlines and perusing emails and texts, but are we really
Speaker 1: reading them. It's probably nearer the truth to say that
Speaker 1: the only thing we're doing is scanning pixelated words. This
Speaker 1: is why the early morning can be a fantastic time
Speaker 1: to delve deeply into a book, as opposed to a
Speaker 1: two minute shower. Reading a book is like syncing into
Speaker 1: a bath tub. It's a form of time travel as
Speaker 1: well as an exercise and empathy. In this way, you
Speaker 1: can give your brain the opportunity not just to awaken naturally,
Speaker 1: but to deepen your understanding of the world around you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be reading a whole chapter. You
Speaker 1: can read a quote, a paragraph of your favorite book scripture.
Speaker 1: It could also be listening to something that motivates you,
Speaker 1: that inspires you. Now, what if you rely on your
Speaker 1: phone as an alarm clock. Well, first recognize that our
Speaker 1: phones are intentionally engineered so that they're indispensable. Like big
Speaker 1: box department stores, they are for us anything anyone could
Speaker 1: ever need. There are mailboxes, our phone centers, our bookshelves,
Speaker 1: our jukeboxes, our maps, our photo albums, and our memory keepers.
Speaker 1: There are sources of news and friendship. Add a tape
Speaker 1: measure and an alarm clock, and your phone truly becomes
Speaker 1: what it was designed to be, a one stop shopping destination.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean you can't go someplace else. In
Speaker 1: this case, why not go and buy a real alarm clock.
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. Step three of the Internet
Speaker 1: diet or detox involves another deceptively simple change. I call
Speaker 1: it the Wi Fi free meal, and it's exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. A Wi Fi free meal is one
Speaker 1: where you make a conscious decision to enjoy your breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: or dinner while keeping your cell phone in your pocket
Speaker 1: or very yet in another room Entirely. This means that
Speaker 1: instead of using one hand to hold your fork or
Speaker 1: spoon and the other to scan for online information or
Speaker 1: browse social media, you're devoting one hundred percent of your
Speaker 1: attention and energy to the food and drink in front
Speaker 1: of you. I evaders suggests that we chew morsels of
Speaker 1: food sixteen to thirty two times. I promise you've if
Speaker 1: you try this, you'll forget that you ever had a
Speaker 1: phone in your hand. It's a really hyper mindfulness practice.
Speaker 1: For many of us, this will feel strange at first,
Speaker 1: as we've gotten into the habit of always doing two
Speaker 1: things at the same time. Shopping while gazing at our phones,
Speaker 1: for example, so we can see if another store offers
Speaker 1: a better price, taking a walk while listening to music,
Speaker 1: or driving a car while our GPS tells us which
Speaker 1: turn or road to take. In step three, I'm suggesting
Speaker 1: you do one thing at a time monotasking or solo
Speaker 1: tasking as it's called, and in this case, it involves
Speaker 1: eating and focusing on the textures and flavors of that food.
Speaker 1: And if you find yourself racing through the meal because
Speaker 1: your brain is busy anticipating the dopamine hit that's certain
Speaker 1: to arrive the moment you set down your fork and
Speaker 1: pick up your phone. Then set limits on yourself. Tell
Speaker 1: yourself that during the next fifteen minutes that you set
Speaker 1: aside for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you will not engage
Speaker 1: with your phone, and you will not go online false stop.
Speaker 1: The effects of taking that time to eat a meal
Speaker 1: will surprise you. You'll find that you eat more slowly and conscientiously,
Speaker 1: that you chew more properly, that you digest better, that
Speaker 1: you appreciate your food more, and that you become more
Speaker 1: conscious of your body's hunger cues and the effects food
Speaker 1: has on your feelings. Step three of the Internet diet
Speaker 1: has another strong thing to recommend. A study that was
Speaker 1: done in Brazil a few years ago concluded that using
Speaker 1: our phones while we eat increases our caloric intake by
Speaker 1: almost fifteen percent. This means that even though staring at
Speaker 1: our phone when we're dining out in a restaurant makes
Speaker 1: us look busy and occupied. It can have real life
Speaker 1: ramifications on our health and well being. In step four
Speaker 1: of the Internet diet, we scale things up a little.
Speaker 1: This time. I want to make a close analogy to
Speaker 1: the food and drink we put in our bodies and
Speaker 1: the content we take in online, because to my mind,
Speaker 1: they're very closely related. By now, we all know some
Speaker 1: foods just on that good for us, whereas certain other
Speaker 1: foods promote good health, increase vitality and longer lasting energy
Speaker 1: in the first group of things like sugar, salt, and
Speaker 1: trans fats, and in the second group you'll always find
Speaker 1: fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, nuts, and lagoons. Let me also
Speaker 1: add that while most of us are aware that potato
Speaker 1: chips and buttery popcorn aren't good for us, sometimes we
Speaker 1: just feel like having a snack, and there's no harm
Speaker 1: in that, so long as we don't do it every
Speaker 1: day for the rest of our lives. The same goes
Speaker 1: for the Internet. A lot of websites and digital apps
Speaker 1: are the digital equivalent of a trayfall of Nacho's or
Speaker 1: a chocolate milkshake or you can fill in the blank
Speaker 1: and name your favorite guilty or not so guilty pleasure.
Speaker 1: Junk content is harder to digest, just like junk food,
Speaker 1: and the more junk content we expose ourselves to, the
Speaker 1: unhealthier our minds get. Step five of the Internet diet
Speaker 1: is limit portions. I touched on this already in step two,
Speaker 1: which asked you to wait an hour after you awakened
Speaker 1: before you check your phone, and also in step three.
Speaker 1: Step five takes this idea even further. We all know
Speaker 1: what it means to limit our portions when we're preparing
Speaker 1: our or serving food. Studies have shown over time that
Speaker 1: our plates and cups and glasses have got larger, and
Speaker 1: so to have our portion sizes. You could equate that
Speaker 1: to how the amount of data that our phones can
Speaker 1: process now increases all the time. The amount of memory
Speaker 1: and storage our phones have increases over time, which means
Speaker 1: naturally our portions and desire to consume content also increases. Equivalently,
Speaker 1: remember when your data used to run out, Remember when
Speaker 1: there used to be a cap on the minutes you
Speaker 1: could speak to someone on your phone. That's all gone
Speaker 1: away now, and therefore there is no portion control. If
Speaker 1: you've managed the first five steps of the Internet detox.
Speaker 1: Step six probably won't come as a shock. It's intimate
Speaker 1: and fasting. We're probably all familiar with that phrase as
Speaker 1: it relates to food and placing boundaries on when we eat.
Speaker 1: In step six, I propose you adopt this same idea
Speaker 1: to your own online behavior. For example, one of the
Speaker 1: best known intimate and fasting plans around is what's known
Speaker 1: as the five point two plan. That's the one where
Speaker 1: you eat as you normally would for five days a week,
Speaker 1: but every Saturday and Sunday reduce your food intake into
Speaker 1: a single five hundred calorie meal. Try this same method
Speaker 1: with your own online use. Unless there's a pressing workplace
Speaker 1: emergency where you have no choice but to remain reachable
Speaker 1: over the weekend, why not start by turning off your
Speaker 1: phone every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Instead of spending your
Speaker 1: time off loosely tethered to technology, why not do something
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with it. Go outside, go hiking,
Speaker 1: go kayaking, ride your bike, play two sets of tennis
Speaker 1: or pickleball, or even three. The more time you spend
Speaker 1: without your phone and without access to a Wi Fi signal,
Speaker 1: the more confident you will be that you can regain
Speaker 1: control of your time, energy, mental and physical health. Just
Speaker 1: as we learn to eat when we're hungry and quit
Speaker 1: eating when we're full, the internet die. It also teaches
Speaker 1: us to take in information online when we want, and
Speaker 1: not just because it's there or because we have nothing
Speaker 1: better to do. By creating boundaries around your own online use,
Speaker 1: you'll start to experience a new feeling of control and
Speaker 1: authority across all aspects of your life. But remember, start small,
Speaker 1: go step by step. Too much too soon, and the
Speaker 1: brain's hypothalamus will act the same way it does when
Speaker 1: we don't have enough to eat. What we're really trying
Speaker 1: to do in any lifestyle change is create a new
Speaker 1: balance relationship between the time we spend online and the
Speaker 1: websites we ingest that are authentic, healthy and nutritious, which
Speaker 1: in turn will lead to a new relationship with ourselves,
Speaker 1: our friends, and the world around us. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Make sure you pass this on, maybe
Speaker 1: even pair up with a friend to be accountable for
Speaker 1: the new cell phone detox And remember I'm always in
Speaker 1: your corner and I'm forever rooting for you. Thank you,
Speaker 1: so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort
Speaker 1: is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking
Speaker 1: your hidden potential. If you know you want to be
Speaker 1: more and achieve more this year, go check it out
Speaker 1: right now. You set a goal today, you achieve it
Speaker 1: in six months, and then by the time it happens,
Speaker 1: it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose.
Speaker 1: You sort of expected it, and you would have been
Speaker 1: disappointed if it didn't happen.