Transcription
If you are checking your phone first thing when you wake up, well, you are in deep trouble, especially if you have ADHD. What that does is an array of many things that are harmful for your brain that you're probably already familiar with, but still your brain still does it anyway. Why is that? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to explain to you in this video.
I'm going to show you a little bit of a loop or a circuit that's happening inside your brain every time that happens, especially if you do check your phone first thing in the morning. And this will be finally the one video that helps it uh like click for you such that you're able to do something about it. I'm going to tell you what to do about it.
And the reason you should listen to me is I am someone who has extreme ADHD, but I'm also someone who is a full-time systems engineer. I'm post-doctoral researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. And I build systems for spacecraft. I build systems for the ground. I build systems for all sorts of things. I also run a company called Next Level Systems where I help people with ADHD and entrepreneurs in general build systems for their personal lives and for their businesses. So, I'm someone who is obsessed over systems, which is the solution, but I'm also someone who has the problem ADHD, and I've obsessed over that as well, and I've studied the neuroscience behind it.
So, real quick, if you go ahead and check your phone first thing, um, and yes, like you you've probably heard like people in, uh, YouTube what not, they say, "Oh, you're in a reactive state and whatnot, and then that throws your dopamine, this, dopamine that, what not." And yes, that's all true to an extent. And the dopamine resistance is true, but I think it's a little bit misexplained. I'm going to explain over here. I think the bigger problem here is not so much the dopamine resistance, but rather the change of state inertia. But this is also good news cuz I'm going to show you a way that you can actually go around this. But let me explain the difference.
What is the dopamine resistance and what is the change of state um inertia? So dopamine resistance is the idea that some people with ADHD on average have lower dopamine levels floating around. U especially if there's a topic of interest that there's like that you're not really really interested in. Usually dopamine is the action and the curiosity molecule. So if there's something you're super interested in, then your brain releases dopamine and it attacks your your dopamine receptors and it latches onto them and then you can go ahead and get the task done. If something like you're really really dreading, then you already have lower dopamine baseline on average compared to the neurotypical person and you're unable to get that that thing done or that thing started.
Now the state change inertia is something that's extremely extremely important because this is something people with ADHD due to this dopamine issue and executive function go through and you you've experienced this like where you're doomcrolling for example. Doom scrolling is a classic example of state change inertia is like there's something you're doing you just know you you should not be doing it. You know this is awful, but you just cannot get yourself to stop. You just keep on doing it. Keep on doing it.
Another thing that's awful, unfortunately, is if you wake up and grab your phone first thing in the morning and you start checking your phone, you check email, you check messages. What that is doing is it's creating a certain state, right? A certain state where your dopamine levels are are are are being engaged with the messages, with the emails, with whatever it is you're you're clicking on that's creating a bit of curiosity, a bit of intrigue, and that's keeping your dopamine circuitry um engaged. The problem with that is if you go ahead and do that, like the longer you do that, the longer you're going to stay in that state and it's going to be very hard for you to get out of bed. That's why people who grab their phone first thing in the morning if they have ADHD, uh you've probably experienced this where if you had a day where you may have laid in bed for maybe an hour or two hours and and then the worst part is you feel shame about it. You feel awful. You feel like it's some philosophical internal thing that's absolutely wrong with you. But the reality is that's not what's going on at all. What's going on is that this is all just like brain chemistry. And if you understand what's going on in here and the thing I'm going to show you, then you have good news because you can actually go and solve it.
So again, what happens is you're in a current comfort state. And by the way, this is the worst thing that you can do. Like if you can put yourself at the beginning of the day in a comfort state to start off with, you're you're you're already like half lost the battle. Like if you're already in a comfort state, again, if you're in bed, you're you're you're on your phone, you're cozy, you're checking emails, you're checking messages, what not, and and you're just kind of in that very comfortable state, uh you've already kind of dug yourself in a hole. And I'm going to talk about ways we can prevent that from happening. But let's say that's usually what happens. Um and then you have the desire to avoid discomfort. You don't you don't really want to like it's even though you know it's good for you, like getting out of bed and doing your work and starting your morning and whatnot, even though conceptually you know it's good for you, you're still resisting it. you're still like resisting it because it's still uncomfortable uh in the short term. What's happening is you're not selling yourself on on the first action in the short term. I'm going to explain how that can be done. And even though you tell yourself like, oh, I really want want to like uh I I really think I should get up, but deep down you're like, oh man, I don't want to get up. Like this is what's what's called the state change inertia is your body like your brain knows that that that you need to in order for you to get up and do something else, you got to get out and leave your current comfort. And your brain does not want to do that. Uh, and then a much easier alternative that's right in your face is your brain like is like, let's let's just check one more message. Let's just check one more email. Let's just check one more thing. Let's just go ahead and do that. And your brain keeps telling you these things because it's a much easier path to get dopamine versus the state of change that you're about to execute.
Now, one way you can go ahead and avoid all of this is by preventing yourself from getting into the comfortable state in the first place. So, the easiest thing easiest thing you can do, and I know this is is probably hard for a lot of people, but the reason it's hard is because they're they haven't sold themselves on it properly, is if you can somehow get your phone to be not near your bed. So, for example, my bed is over here. I'm recording this from my room. I have a little um like table over there next to my light with a phone lock box. Um and I don't even lock my phone anymore. It used to be like two years a year and a half ago, my agency was so bad. I would literally like lock my phone for 12 hours just so I don't have to access it. But it just acts as like psychological trigger for me to know that I need to put it in the box so that way I don't have it near me in my bed. And then alternatively, I have books next to me in my bed.
Now, what that does is if I do wake up and I have my alarm across the room, I have to get up and turn it off. That's one way to immediately like bypass this whole argument with your brain and just immediately kill the comfort state and and access the change of state. But another thing you can do is you can even if you don't set an alarm like let's say you want to wake up with an alarm and you want to get a full night's uh sleep then that's totally fine. What you can do is you can just simply wake up and out of the sheer boredom of your brain by not having the uh like uh phone or any type of dopamine inducing activity. You're going to eventually get up and and and because you're going to be bored. You're going to either like sleep more which maybe that's not necessarily the worst thing if you're tired. You should probably sleep more or you're just literally going to get up to grab your phone or to do something. Remember, dopamine is all about action and it's all about curiosity. If your brain like wants to do something and it has no alternative, then you're going to go ahead and do it. That's why Jerry Seinfeld, who's a comedian, uh he likely has a very strong ADHD, he said when he would write his jokes, he would take himself in a hotel and he would just have a pen and a paper and he would tell himself, "Either I sit down and I write jokes or I do nothing at all. It's either boredom or I do my work." And that's a really good example of environment design. And again, bypassing that whole inertia state in the first place is by simply just allowing yourself to be in a place where like the only dopamine you can get is from the work you you you can do or like you just get bored and and the human brain hates boredom. So, alternatively, if you don't have your phone near you in your bed, you can just wake up and you can just like either be bored to death or you can just like get up and like either grab your phone or do something something else.
But here's the crazy part. Usually once you go ahead and actually initiate the the the state switch uh you usually actually feel relief and you feel energy and you feel amazing things and and this is one of the biggest paradoxes uh in the ADHD brain is like every time you go and do something that's good for you like let's say you go for a run you go take a shower a cold shower especially like you go do something you sit down and you initiate the task and you actually get into flow state and you have music and whatnot like you know conceptually that once you do it you'll feel good but like why do you still not do it? And that's where the dopamine resistance really really kicks in. If you don't understand, if you fully don't understand how dopamine works or or how some some of the elements in your brain uh for ADHD work, I went ahead and I made a separate video on that. So, you can go ahead and watch it and I'll see you over there. Peace, love.