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Comment by third_I | Hacker News Reader

The idea is nice, great even, but...

No but seriously.

Who, in 2020, grabs their phone first thing before hitting a drink, or bathroom, or wash your face or whatever you do when you wake up?

I (37M) find it weird. In 2010, sure, it was all new and I was younger maybe. Nowadays I just don't even have to refrain myself, it could be 10, 20 minutes before I look at any screen. It would usually be my laptop actually.

Am I the exception? I'd think a technologically mature crowd to be much less... dependent, less hooked to their phone. I would think of this being an actual challenge for the mainstream Facebooking / Instagramming / Twittering, but not people like us...

[work notwithstanding, evidently, sometimes we need to grab the phone but that's irrelevant to my observations]

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Same. I keep my phone face down and on do not disturb, on my nightstand, and only pick it up once I'm ready to start the work day.

I find even seeing the app icons for notifications on my lock screen can lead me down a nonstop work path where you end up in you PJ's at 11h30 with zero caffeine in you and a feeling of a day already passed.

> even seeing the app icons for notifications on my lock screen can lead me down a nonstop work path

I totally know the feeling! I think it's really biological, low-level:

- dopamine! It's like a shot, the brain gets triggered.

- familiarity: "feels like home", habits take us to our comfort zone.

> you end up in you PJ's at 11h30 with zero caffeine in you and a feeling of a day already passed.

Haha, yeah... I've been there so often in my teens / twenties.

I think it was self-love + discipline that let me exit that loop. Treating myself like a (inner) child and their parent all-in-one person: forces one to think about well-being first, it gives a feeling it's the "right thing to do" to let yourself chill and avoid that kind of time vortex.

21-year-old here, I do that pretty often. Most days when I wake up I feel super groggy and/or have very little motivation to get out of bed, so mindlessly scrolling Reddit/Facebook or reading the news gives me a slow start to gather some energy to get out of bed.

However, recently I _have_ been wondering whether being on my phone all the time contributes to those symptoms.

That's a very good question. I used to be you. As I said above, my 'secret' was to dissociate 'me' (the body, with an inner child inside) from 'my thinking brain', the overarching parent/boss up there who makes decisions.

So parent takes care of the child and is able to say "nope, don't do that". Developing this approach is what made me an adult I think (I was in my 30s already, it didn't come naturally to me).

A great trick was audiobooks. You just listen and that wakes the brain up, but a book is really, really so much better than random posts. 30 minutes as you wake up, then get up, have breakfast etc. is sure mind opener.

It becomes a habit, maybe a need even, but it's a good need. Books and exercises is the winning combination for success and happiness (seriously, just these two things put you in the top 5%, or so I hear).

Places like librivox have tons of free content. A well thought-out podcast is good too I think (long-form content). It's the idea of a passive but mind-opening activity.

Then when I'm working during the day I put the phone away silent for ~30 minutes, then take a break and chill for 5-10 minutes, then back at it, rinse and repeat. That's what got me off the dopamine hook I think.

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