I got my brain out of its phone addiction – here’s how to do it
If you find yourself mindlessly scrolling on your phone when you should be working, you’re not alone.
Self-proclaimed productivity guru Arsia Sasha, 30, shared a tip on how to get your brain to be more productive on his TikTok account.
Sasha, who creates content to help people stay focused and achieve their goals, said he also fell victim to the addictive temptation to check his smartphone.
“Whenever I wasn’t actively working on something, I would just completely lose focus, grab my phone, and then be derailed for the next 15 or 20 minutes,” the market strategy and operations expert said in an interview TikTok video posted last month.
According to a survey by Reviews.org, Americans check their phones an average of 144 times a day. People spend around 4 hours and 25 minutes on their phones every day, which equates to a whopping 65 days or two months a year.
Sasha from California explained why people are drawn to their phones and how they can teach themselves to stop.
“What you’ll notice is that this is basically just a habit, meaning it’s something you’ve memorized over and over again,” Sasha said.
The reason checking your cell phone is so addictive is because it triggers a surge of dopamine in the brain, the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure. The phone also serves as a handy crutch when your brain doesn’t know what to do next.
“Usually you’re working on something you don’t want to do or don’t know how to move forward with,” he said.
“Your brain doesn’t like uncertainty, so it asks itself, ‘Uh, uh, what should I do now?’ Then your phone sees it – dopamine hits.”
Sasha said next time you feel the urge to stare at your tiny screen, try this “scientific brain exercise.”
“The next time you feel the urge to grab your phone, you’re going to stop yourself and cheat yourself,” he said.
The trick?” Sasha explained, “You’ll tell yourself you’re going to pick up your phone in about five minutes, and then you just keep working.”
He said the simple hack will help people realize that the “urge” to check a phone is “not that great.”
“You get stronger and stronger at building up a resistance to just picking up the phone, and so you develop a counter-habit,” he said.
“It’s just science.”
Not only do phones prevent people from getting their work done, they can also cause parents to ignore their children in favor of a technological solution instead.
This year, students attacked their teachers for taking away their smartphones.
Another study found that our smartphone addiction leads to significant sleep loss. is literally killing us.
