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Wisdom Wednesdays: Your brain thanks you for even a small smartphone break · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today
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  Speaker 1: we are going to dive into something that affects pretty
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  Speaker 1: much all of us, our relationship with our smartphones, and
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  Speaker 1: more importantly, what happens when.
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  Speaker 2: We actually take a break from them.
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  Speaker 1: So a new study just dropped and I found it
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  Speaker 1: pretty fascinating and a little bit confronting as well. And
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  Speaker 1: it turns out that three days of reduced smartphone use,
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  Speaker 1: not even quitting entirely, can actually measurably change your brain.
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  Speaker 2: So let's dive into it.
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  Speaker 1: So researchers in Germany brought together a group of twenty
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  Speaker 1: five healthy adults and asked them to drastically limit their
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  Speaker 1: smartphone use for seventy two hours. Now, they weren't told
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  Speaker 1: to get rid of their smartphones, and they just had
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  Speaker 1: to use them only for essentials, for calls, for navigating
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  Speaker 1: for emergency, so pretty much turn them into dumb phones
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  Speaker 1: with a bit of navigation skills. Now here's the interesting part.
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  Speaker 1: Before and after those three days, the participants had their
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  Speaker 1: brain scanned using neuroimaging, and what the researchers found was
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  Speaker 1: that certain brain areas, and especially the ones that are
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  Speaker 1: linked to both reward and impulse control. These are areas
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  Speaker 1: like the middle frontal jaris and the superior parietal.
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  Speaker 2: Lobe if you really want to know.
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  Speaker 1: But these areas literally changed activity after the break from
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  Speaker 1: their smartphones, and specifically, these brain areas let up less
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  Speaker 1: when participants looked at images.
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  Speaker 2: Of a part on smartphone.
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  Speaker 1: Sorry, And what that suggests is that the brain's craving
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  Speaker 1: circuits were.
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  Speaker 2: Cooling down, so to speak.
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  Speaker 1: And interestingly, these participants didn't report feeling much different, So
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  Speaker 1: the brain was changing even if the people weren't consciously
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  Speaker 1: aware of it. Let's put this into a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of context. What this is really tapping into is neuroplasticity,
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  Speaker 1: the ability of the brain to rewire itself, and we
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  Speaker 1: know that it does this continuously based on the stimuli
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  Speaker 1: that you feed it, so whether it's food, exercise, stress,
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  Speaker 1: or screen time, this actually conditions the brain. And other
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  Speaker 1: studies actually back this up. Excessive smartphone use has been
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  Speaker 1: linked to lower connectivity in brain regions responsible for attention, memory,
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  Speaker 1: and self control, and therefore inducing more ADHD like behaviors.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just about screen addiction, it's how much time
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  Speaker 1: we spend in that constant state of partial attention. Our
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  Speaker 1: phones have become a kind of slot machine in our pocket.
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  Speaker 1: Each ding buzz or notification gives us a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of dopamine hit and over time that shapes the brain
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  Speaker 1: in subtle but significant ways.
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  Speaker 2: So a detox, even.
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  Speaker 1: A short one, can start to reverse that process and
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  Speaker 1: reverse the reward or the pull that we actually feel
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  Speaker 1: towards it. Now, what if you went beyond three days? Well,
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  Speaker 1: another study, this one out of the UK, asks people
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  Speaker 1: to block mobile internet for two full weeks and the
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  Speaker 1: results were improved focus, better mood, better sleep, and a
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  Speaker 1: feeling of being more present. And get this, participants said
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  Speaker 1: they felt like their brains were ten years younger, and
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  Speaker 1: that is pretty compelling. In fact, the improvements in mental
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  Speaker 1: well being were actually clinically significant. It's like having someone
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  Speaker 1: with depression have an intervention that reverses their depression. So
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  Speaker 1: why does this actually matter? Well, most of us don't
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  Speaker 1: even realize how often we're checking our phones, and the
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  Speaker 1: average person taps or swipes their screen over a thousand
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  Speaker 1: times a day, and that's just the average. All of
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  Speaker 1: this takes a toll on our attention spans, our stress levels,
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  Speaker 1: our sleep, and our relationships. And this isn't about being
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  Speaker 1: anti tech, because I'm not anti tech at all, but
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  Speaker 1: it is about being aware of how much tech is
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  Speaker 1: shaping us and what we can do to take back
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  Speaker 1: some level of control. So what do we actually do
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  Speaker 1: with this information? Here's a few simple tips. Firstly, try
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  Speaker 1: the seventy two hour reset that they date in this
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  Speaker 1: just three days. Keep your phones just for calls, emergencies,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe navigation on Google Maps or whatever. Everything else
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  Speaker 1: social media news messages that goes on pause. Leaving little
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  Speaker 1: things like storing your phone in a drawer when you
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  Speaker 1: get home to work actually makes a difference. That physical
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  Speaker 1: distance makes the difference. You're far less likely to mindlessly
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  Speaker 1: reach for it. Also, turn off notifications, which I did
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  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. They are just dopamine bombs,
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  Speaker 1: and disable anything that is not urgent, so you can
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  Speaker 1: let your brain breathe a little bit. And then they've
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  Speaker 1: even shown that putting your phone in grayscale mode makes
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  Speaker 1: it less enticing, so no bright, shiny apps to lure
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  Speaker 1: you in. And then the other thing that we're massive
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  Speaker 1: on in this house is create no phone zone. So
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  Speaker 1: every time we go out to a restaurant, nobody has
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  Speaker 1: allowed their phone on the table, and lots of other
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  Speaker 1: families are just most of them are, not all of
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  Speaker 1: them are on their phone. Things like so all meal times, bedtime,
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  Speaker 1: eight o'clock, nine o'clock, whatever it might be, put the phone.
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  Speaker 2: Away morning routine.
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  Speaker 1: I've always said, if your eyes hit your phone before
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  Speaker 1: your feet hit the floor in the morning, your life
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  Speaker 1: is pretty fucked. So there are some things that you
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  Speaker 1: can actually do just to tie that short digital break
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  Speaker 1: to see if you can start to rewind your brain,
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  Speaker 1: and then if it's good, go for a longer break
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  Speaker 1: to see what happens.
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  Speaker 2: So that's it for this week, folks, Catch you next time.