Ep. 121 Outsmarting Your Smartphone – The Science and Solutions You Need To Decrease Stress & Anxiety To Increase Midlife Calm

Is your smartphone  increasing your anxiety, decreasing your focus, and preventing you from being productive and happy? 
Discover the surprising science behind its impact—and how to take control.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How excessive phone use rewires your brain, diminishing your ability to focus and enjoy everyday activities.
2. The hidden ways your phone affects your sleep, relationships, and overall health—and why it’s more than just a matter of willpower.
3. How understanding the science behind cell phones can motivate you to adopt the ACT plan, helping you gain the benefits of your phone while reducing its negative impacts. (Ep. 118)

Take back control of your health, relationships, and life—press play now to uncover the science of outsmarting your smartphone!

Outsmarting Your Smartphone – The Science and Solutions You Need To Decrease Anxiety & Increase Midlife Calm

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About the Host: 

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

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. 

Transcript

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MJ Murray Vachon LCSW 0:00

In this episode, you'll learn the surprising science behind how your smartphone rewires your brain, increasing your anxiety and decreasing your sense of pleasure. Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife minds to overcome anxiety, stop feeling like crap and become more present with your family, all while achieving greater success at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensed clinical social worker with over 48, 000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast. In this new year, would you like to add two hours to your day? Maybe you want to get more sleep or not feel so anxious. Perhaps you want to be more productive, creative, or happy. How about doing something that actually improves your relationships? Well, I have one suggestion that can help you with all of these improvements. Learn to outsmart your smartphone. In today's episode, I'll break down the science behind why phone overuse happens and how it impacts your health. On Thursday, I'll return with my three step action plan, ACT, to help you outsmart your smartphone while still using it a manageable two hours a day. I often say, we don't have a mental health crisis, we have a lifestyle crisis. The number one culprit, you got it, your cell phone. Not all anxiety and depression is caused by cell phone use. It certainly does contribute. If you already struggle with mental health issues and aren't using your phone wisely, it will make your symptoms worse. Let me share with you a story from the couch. A few months ago, a former client of mine returned to therapy. She had moderate anxiety and depression. Her life otherwise was happy and stable. except for a downturn in her commission based job, something she had financially planned for and expected. With this extra downtime, she was anticipating feeling energized and excited to work less and play more, but she found herself anxious and depressed. As part of my assessment, I asked her to check her phone use. She took her cell phone, put it in front of her face, screen guilt, and said, Ugh. I know I'm on it too much. Yes, like the average American, my client was on her cell phone four and a half hours a day. She then came up with her own treatment plan. She looked me in the face and she said, I know I should get off the phone and do real things, but it's just so hard. Yes, it is. That's because the tech giants in Silicon Valley designed your phone using the latest neuroscience to keep you hooked on three things: connecting, communicating, and consuming. The phone is big business and you don't need me to tell you that it is wreaking havoc on your wellness. And here's the key. It isn't that you don't have willpower. Five days after learning the science and putting into place my three step plan, which I call ACT, she texted me and she said, I already feel so much better. Weird. But it's not weird. When you understand the science, you can build an infrastructure for your life and your home that helps you take control of your screen time. Welcome to science class. Fact number one, The phone is perfectly tuned to your brain's reward system. Whether you're seeing puppies, shoes, or pictures of loved ones, the burst of dopamine, a neurochemical that drives pleasure, feels great. But there's a catch. Your brain's dopamine system evolved to respond to natural rewards like foods, hugs, sunsets. Those rewards occur at a much slower pace than the rewards you get on the phone. With phones, iPads and video games, the rewards are rapid and intense and they trigger excessive dopamine release. Overtime, this stimulation can make your brain's dopamine receptors less responsive, leading to irritability or sluggishness after extended use. Perhaps you've been a well intended parent trying to get your ten year old off the video game knowing that once he's off, he's probably gonna have a tantrum. It's just too much for the brain. Fact number two. Frequent overstimulation reduces your brain's sensitivity to dopamine. What does that mean? It means that your baseline for feeling pleasure drops. If you're like many of my clients, once you hear this science fact, you recognize it in your own life. Activities like walking in the woods, chatting with friends, or engaging in hobbies like crafting, playing the piano, they seem a little less rewarding than they used to. Sometimes they can seem dull and boring. Of course, because your brain loves those intense and rapid rewards that the phone gives it. Fact number three, Your brain is always adapting. An overuse causes your brain to crave intense stimulation to feel satisfied. This cycle increases compulsive use and it decreases overall pleasure. Similar to a drug addiction. It's one reason that setting time limits on phones is so challenging. You just keep coming back to those first few minutes that felt so good, and you want more of that sensation. It makes it really hard to stop. Fact number four. Phones often encourage passive consumption rather than active creation. Twice a week, I get on my favorite social media app and I look for threads about parenting. To be honest, I am pretty impressed. There are a lot of Dr. Becky's out there. The advice is so good. People are pretty compassionate and supportive, but while it's easy to scroll through advice threads or inspirational content, these don't really translate into real life solutions when challenges arise. Is anyone on social media going to come and help you at two in the morning when you need someone to stay with your sleeping child so you can take your spouse or your other child to the ER? I don't think so. Devices give you the illusion of connection and productivity while distracting you from actively creating relationships, solving problems, and having meaningful experiences. Fact number 5. Phones emit blue light, which suppresses melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone that helps you fall asleep. The blue light that emits from your phone while you're scrolling and unwinding after work actually delays sleep onset and disrupts your sleep quality, leading to chronic fatigue and irritability. The foundation of wellness is sleep, and your little buddy, the phone, is disrupting your sleep. Even a few minutes negatively impacts your body's natural sleep and wake cycle. Fact number six. Constant notifications and social media comparisons increase stress and anxiety. The pressure to stay connected and respond quickly, creates a sense of urgency. You see other people's curated lives on social media and you can't help but feel inadequate or have FOMO, fear of missing out. This chronic overstimulation makes it difficult to relax, to unwind, and be present and content with what you have in your own life. Fact number seven, frequent phone use decreases attention span and focus. The constant switching between apps and notifications conditions your brain for short bursts of attention, making it harder to concentrate on tasks that require sustained mental effort, like reading or problem solving. Ask anyone who's a teacher, ask anyone who's a manager in the workplace, and they will tell you the attention span across the board is significantly impaired. Fact number eight. Excessive phone use diminishes the quality of in person interactions. These little devices are scientifically so powerful. As humans, we are wired to connect with each other. Unless there's a cell phone in between you and the person that you care about, in between you and the person that you're managing. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there's a cell phone between you and your child. Over time, the cell phone hinders the development of social skills, particularly in young people, and can lead to feelings of loneliness and disconnection. I'm sure you've seen all the data on loneliness, and it isn't just in 80 year olds. It is really across the board, and the cell phone is the culprit. Fact number nine. Prolonged phone use causes physical health issues. Tech neck occurs when we're looking down at the screen for extended periods. Digital eyestrain from staring at screens too long and sedentary behavior associated with screen time can also contribute to weight gain and health problems. Listen to episode 61. It is one of my favorite episodes where I followed a person who took herself off TikTok for six months. In the first month, not only did she lose eight pounds, but the person she lived with said, you are so much nicer off of TikTok. Fact number 11, when young people who have a developing brain use the cell phone, it can interfere with their prefrontal cortex. What's the prefrontal cortex? It's the part of your brain right behind your forehead. It's often called the CEO of the brain because it's responsible for impulse control and decision making. This makes it harder for young people to regulate their emotions, have good focus, and delay gratification, potentially increasing the risk of mental health issues. Not to mention, if you look at all these facts through the lens of child development. You can imagine how difficult it is to teach a second grader to read because learning to read is a slow and laborious process. Very different than learning how to master the levels of a video game that are rewarding you all the way through. In this episode, I shared with you the science behind why it's so easy to use your cell phone excessively, and how excessive use, Beyond two hours a day disrupts your mental, physical, and relational health. Your inner challenge this week is to take back your health, take back your power, and accept that the only way you can take it back is to create a plan to use your cell phone wisely. And that's exactly what I will give you on Thursday. Thanks for listening to Creating Midlife Calm.