Addiction is a big deal and one of the most addicting things now is that mobile
device. How to stop being addicted to your phone? Okay, Live On Ourpose family,
we're getting serious about this today. And we joke about it sometimes. That, "Oh,
I'm addicted to my phone." You know what? It's a real issue. And so, I brought in a
real expert. Blu Robinson is an addiction specialist. He's a certified
Live On Purpose coach and he's the founder of Addict To Athlete. He knows
what he's talking about when it comes to addiction. Is this a real thing Blu?
-Doctor Paul, this is absolutely a real thing. And it's something very new that a
lot of us don't quite understand because it doesn't seem to be as devastating. Say,
as a illicit drug. But it can be just devastating.
-Well, it certainly can. And the the kind of time and energy, I think of it as
precious life energy. Which is what you bring to all of your relationships to
your work, to everything in your life. Your precious life energy can be
consumed by this. -And so, how will you even know? How you identify if you do in
fact, have an addiction to that mobile device? Well, the first thing is when you
can't find it, what do we do? We panic, right? Part of that panic also comes with
the understanding that, "I need this. It's part of me." It's like you having
someone remove your arm. You kind of need that arm and it's a part of us, is
extension of us. And so that panic throws you into almost an immediate withdrawal.
"I don't know where this is." Now granted, some of these phones and mobile devices
are quite expensive and that plays a factor in this. But the real anxiety
comes from "who's looking at it?" Now, this is a scary topic too because there are
mobile devices don't apps and things that can put you in world that are very
dark. Pornography and all kinds of other scary parts of that whole world
experience. -Oh, yeah. -And so, literally if you're walking by and say you have a
child that has a phone, you grab the phone and you take a look at it. What does a
kid do? As a kid like keeping you that kind of side I like, "What are you doing
mom?" Are they panic? That's an indicator that there's something wrong. But for us,
individually, think about this. What's the last thing you look at and what's the
first thing you look at and then we going to bed and waking up in the
morning? Now, you are spending that much time, you know? Getting yourself why
I'm down with the phone or waking up to find the next email or to find out
what's on the headlines. We've got to look at that as saying being able to
create some kind of balance. -What about that... And this is embarrassing maybe if
this has happened to you. But how many of us have had that experience where we
drop the phone on our face because we just fell asleep. -Yeah. I'm actually sad
to say that I've done that with my phone. And so I went to a smaller phone which
was quite nice. Because then I don't use it as much as I would. Because think
about it, viewers .We have a device in our hands
now that's a camera that is instant information. That is you know Road
conditions or GPS. The role that it plays in our life is significant. We can't
downplay that. But there also has to be a time when we are interacting with real
relationships and being able to expose ourselves to real situations because
when we're sitting behind that screen for so long, our time out, our experiences
are all governed by how much battery life we have. And that's the kind of a
sad experience. -Blu, can we back up just a little bit? Because we're using the
word addiction and then we're tying it to a mobile device. When typically... And we
covered this a little bit in the beginning. We we usually think of
addiction in terms of substance abuse. Alcohol and other drugs that become
physiologically addicting. Could you just give us a little overview on what
addiction means and why this applies to a mobile device? -Absolutely. So, if we get
back to what addiction is, it's a repetitive behavior that has some kind of negative
aspect to it. Meaning how much time, how much investment? -Right. -Withdrawal
symptoms. You know, feelings of feeling scarce when
it's not around. Or like that any anxiety. And denpedents of how much battery
life is there again. But more importantly, it's the behaviors associated with it.
Your behaviors that we do that we create are what kind of create that first kind
of glance of, "Maybe I've got a problem." You ever had a phone in your pocket and
you feel that vibration and you check and you don't have a phone there. Call
them phantom vibrations. See, that's a classic sign of withdrawal. Your body's
telling you that something's supposed to be here and it should be vibrating or
ringing right about now. And we have those things. If you're starting to
experience those things, you're probably using it a lot more than you think. -So,
becoming aware of it is obviously one of those important first steps. And before
we started the the recording today, Blu, we're talking about how a lot of the
operating systems now have a way to track your screen time, your usage time.
-They do. -And it might surprise you just how much you're using it. You're probably
using it right now. Which I mean there's legitimate use for it, your device. But let
being aware of how much am I actually using this, it can be a good step toward
overcoming... -It can be. -Dependent pattern. -And if you have that ability on your
mobile device. Look at it frequently, be able to understand what that information
gives you. Because if we had that same information on the side of a bottle of
say, opiates. That says you're using a little too much. Maybe we could back off...
-Or a lot too much. -It'd be the same thing that this kind of
displays in your life. Meaning you know, check it out. See how much time you're
spending on social media. And see how much time you're spending on entertainment.
And then kind of govern yourself. And if you need help, ask for help. Don't try to
do this alone. So, it's kind of silly but you might need some support in this. -You
might need some help. One of my clients recently did this.
Checked her phone usage. How much time is she on that screen. And she was shocked
to find that she had spent over 7 and a half hours on her screen. -Yeah. -In
one day. Now, is that a lot? -That's 7 and a half hours. -You know, the sad thing about this
too is you look around. Take the next day or two to look around at your social
life. Go to the store. See how many parents are walking around with their
phones looking at it as their shopping. Meanwhile, the kids are there in the cart.
Be particularly attentive to what that means to our society as well as we
become more focused on that screen and that glow than the life that what's
passing us by. -And this is significant in terms of the impact on other people
too. How many times are you driving and you look around and you see someone
looking down at their mobile device. While they're driving!
-Yeah. And that's very scary. And despite all of all the ads and all the media
that we see, bombarded by us the road signs that say, you know, "No texting and
driving." It still happens. And it's going to get more difficult and challenging as
these things get a little bit more savvy and technology advances. So, we got to be
careful. So, let's get practical for a moment. What do we do when we find out
that there's problem going on? And let's talk personally because I think we could
do a whole other video about how parents can help their kids. -Absolutely. -Let's
focus in on what do I do if I find that I'm addicted? -Personal accountability is
going to be a huge part of this. Take a look at your screen. See how much data
you're using. See how much involvement you're in with it. Identify that factor
first. Second of all, start changing the behavior. Meaning, start putting it to in
another room even when you go to bed. Maybe kind of wait a little bit longer
each day before you grab it to check those emails, turn on the airplane mode
to give you some peace and some quiet. Knowing that it's still there but then
having a little bit of a respite from the daily grind of the text messages and
the emails. Small changes in behavior will have great significant consequences
at the end in positive ways. If you start changing just ever so slightly, we near
the dinner table, make it a no-phone table. You know, when
you're in the car, now put it in the in the glove compartment. Put it
in the middle console. You know, do things small that will have bigger and better
methods of change in the long run. You don't have to do it all at once, I
wouldn't recommend you know throwing it in the backseat right away. But put it
somewhere just out of reach so that when you get to your destination and there's
a text message or a phone call, you can receive it. Very small changes. -Let me
just dab a little psychological piece to this Blu. Because when you do this, you
will feel some things. And this is true, right? For addiction, typically whatever
we're addicted to, whether it's a substance or a device causes us to put a
little buffer between ourselves and whatever we're going to feel if that's not
there. -Absolutely. -I hadn't experienced with this recently when I was out of
town and I had rented a car to go to a location that I needed to to be for an
appointment. My battery died on my iPhone. Okay? That's my GPS system, that's how I
find my way around. -Yeah. -It died. It's gone. -Out. -I can't call anybody for help.
I can't look for instruction. I can't ask Siri to help me out. I'm unplugged.
-It's out. -...at the moment. And I had an initial feeling of panic. -Yeah. -Let
yourself feel that. Because next, what happens is what am I going to do? Well,
that's a pretty good question. And guess what? We were getting around for a long
time without cell phones. So, I allowed myself to feel that. And I I experienced
an interesting shift. And this is what I think you're going to experience if
you'll allow yourself to do it. You'll have the panic, go ahead and feel it.
You'll have the question: What am I going to do? And then if you're open to it, your
mind will start giving you some really good answers. And I felt differently
because I suddenly saw that I was in an adventure. -Yeah. -I got to figure out
without technology how to get where I needed to go. -You used your inner Google. -And I
found out I'm still a human being that has the ability to think and make
decisions and figure things out. That's pretty good news. -And you made it back.
-And here I am. -Here you are. -So, detach yourself from
it enough that you can feel that and then go through the process of actually
feeling what you're going to feel. You're a human being, you've got resources. And
this phone, this device gets to be a tool for you. And and you get to use it
instead of being a slave to it. -Absolutely. -We all have things that get
in our way. And these addictions certainly can. You can connect to Blu at
liveonpurpose.coach where he is featured along with our other Live On
Purpose certified coaches. You're not alone in this. There's a lot of good help
available including what we're doing here on the channel. So, we'll look
forward to seeing you tomorrow.