Your Morning Routine is Ruining Your Happiness

If you use your phone as your alarm and it your notifications suck you into opening the phone, you may be reinforcing a very bad habit, that will increasingly get harder to kick. This type of morning routine is the opposite way to start your day, and could ultimately ruin your happiness, as it seeps into your the way your mind works, and decreases your productivity.

If you want to know some better morning rituals, that reinforce being happy, watch the vid :)

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A dopamine feedback loop is a self perpetuating circuit that is key in promoting future motivation. Sometimes this can be a good thing, like with information. If you learn something new, you get a hit of domain for feeling smarter, and it encourages you to want to learn more.

With phones and social media, not so good. So you cancel that alarm, and what do you immediately see? The list of notifications from all that time away from your phone.
Considering the fact that it is very difficult to turn down this flashing dopamine signal, you open up your phone. You have now immediately reinforced the dopamine hit and strengthened it for next time. And unlike books, there's not satiety in most of the apps on your phone.

Now you’ve introduced your brain to a high amount of dopamine early in the morning, meaning that it will want to return to that point for the rest of the day. Other, more productive tasks will seem mundane and boring, so getting a quick hit of social media later on is even more tempting.

If you continue to let this pattern repeat day after day, there’s even more drawbacks. You could possibly lose control over your day to day actions.
Feeling like we are in control, masters of our own fate is one of the best ways to drive wellbeing and performance.
A national study of the workforce found that greater feeling of control at work led to greater satisfaction in almost every aspect in life: family, job, relationships, etc.

What are the ways that we can be most productive?

Well the answer can be as simple as getting an actual alarm clock instead of using your phone, or using the downtime feature to block app usage in the morning. Go completely dark and catch up, only after you have gotten through what you needed to that day.
Some people take it even further and do something called a dopamine detox.
Ultimately detoxes work, but not because they make productive things seem more exciting. It works simply because it allows you to relax, think about your thoughts, meditate, and be mindful.

So I still encourage dopamine detoxing, but focus mostly on mindfulness, which can help you come up with ways to deal with difficult things you’ll encounter daily, while still enjoying everyday life.

To practice mindfulness, the next time you find yourself reaching for your phone in the morning to scroll through it mindlessly, instead, pause and take note of what you’re thinking and how your body feels. Then choose something else to do instead, like make some tea or journal about your past day.

Or take it one step further with meditation.
Neuroscientists found that people who spend years meditating actually grow their left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most responsible for feeling happy.

Studies also show that in the minutes right after meditation, our brain experiences a feeling of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. It even shows that meditation can rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness, lower stress, and improve immune function.

So I ask you to try it out sometime.

Sources:
https://www.sciencealert.com/dopamine-fasting-is-silicon-valley-s-latest-trend-here-s-what-an-expert-has-to-say
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-is-dopamine-fasting
https://now.northropgrumman.com/this-is-your-brain-on-instagram-effects-of-social-media-on-the-brain/
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/dopamine-driven-feedback-loop
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/199967/20170302/survey-finds-people-check-smartphones-before-getting-out-bed.htm
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/facebook-encourages-short-term-dopamine-driven-feedback-loops-that-are-destroying-society-ex-facebook-vp-of-user-growth-4254243.html
https://disturbmenot.co/meditation-statistics/

Видео Your Morning Routine is Ruining Your Happiness канала Chasing Down Chano