Looking at your phone as soon as you open your eyes is the worst habit you can have, so if you're looking to set a goal for yourself this year, what you need to do is break this habit.
Neuroscientist, Emily McDonald has emphasized that among bad habits such as: staying on the phone for a long time, excessive sugar consumption, high volume in headphones and little sleep; using the phone as soon as you open your eyes is the worst.
According to studies, the reason why we find it so difficult to leave the phone is the "reward" effect that comes as a signal to the brain when we make predictions wrong. This causes dopamine levels to rise. To put it another way with an example; when we "surf" on social networks, we automatically cannot predict what we will see and when the information we receive is interesting and unexpected, the brain gets the same effect as if it were in front of a casino machine, when we are waiting to win. This detail is the main driver of the creation of these habits.
But why should this action be avoided when we are just awake?
When we wake up, our brain waves are stronger than ever and have the power to take the first information we give them as the basis of our mood for the day. When we access social networks as soon as we wake up, dopamine increases and thus we have a predisposition for the brain to be distracted throughout the day to look at the phone more, with the increased desire to "consume" information quickly.
In other words, the brain suffers the same effect that the body has when we eat sweets in the morning, blood glucose increases a lot and we continue to crave sweets all day long.
Studies in recent years have revealed that our attention span has decreased from 12 to 8 seconds, but the impact of the phone on our brain has even more serious consequences than that, as it is linked to a chain of mental health problems.
The tips that are suggested are: To avoid being caught, leave the phone in another room, not the one where you sleep. I turn off notifications and be very careful with the profiles I follow on social networks. Make sure the latter are valid with the information they provide.
