6 Steps to Detox from Your Phone & Reduce Your Anxiety Levels

How often do you check your phone daily? Do you feel anxious when you’re away from your phone? Today, Jay addresses the growing concern of excessive phone and internet usage, exploring its detrimental effects on mental and physical health. He begins by explaining how activities like swiping, liking, and commenting on social media provide our brains with dopamine hits, which can create a cycle of dependency and compulsive behavior. Despite the benefits of technology, such as increased connectivity and access to information, many people feel less connected and more distracted, anxious, and impatient. Jay elaborates on the neurological aspects of dopamine and its role in pleasure-seeking behaviors, emphasizing that problems arise when we expect constant rewards from our online activities. He draws parallels between the brain's response to food and its response to digital consumption, advocating for a balanced approach that avoids overindulgence in either. In this episode, you'll learn: How to become more conscious of your internet use How to have wifi-free meals How to replace morning phone use with healthier habits How to stay mindful when using technology How to engage in a cell phone detox The ultimate goal is to create a healthier, more intentional relationship with technology, leading to a more fulfilling and balanced life. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:46 On Your Phone All the Time? 05:32 Losing Control Over Phone Use 06:19 Six Steps to Phone Detox 07:01 Dopamine 11:23 People Aren’t As Happy As Before 13:39 How Often Do You Check Your Phone? 14:27 Cortisol 17:26 Step 1: Become More Conscious 19:19 Step 2: Wait an Hour Before Going Online 21:18 Step 3: The WiFi-Free Meal 23:45 Step 4: Watch What You Consume Online 24:54 Step 5: Limit Potions 25:48 Step 6: Intermittent Fasting See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells,

• 1:30Jay Shetty?

  Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Confidence isn't something Mazda finds, it's something they practice. That's the thinking behind every Mazda.

• 2:10Jay Shetty?

  Safety features designed to help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged with the road ahead. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Every time we go online and every time we swipe or like something or buy something or comment or handpick an emoji to send to a friend, our brains experience a little bump

• 2:53Jay Shetty?

  of dopamine. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. So long as we know what's happening.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 3:07Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one mental health podcast in the world. Being here is an investment in your mental health as we dive into incredible conversations and insights to help you become happier, healthier and more healed with the world's leading experts. Now, let's be honest for a second. How many of you feel like you've just been on your phone too much recently? Right? You've been sitting there and sometimes you're even doom scrolling and thinking, why am I here? What am I doing? Maybe you've even thrown your phone, feeling a sense of anger or disgust with how you've spent your time.

• 3:49Jay Shetty?

  And I think all of us can relate. There's been moments where I've thought afterwards to myself, I wish I was more present with my friends. I wish I was more present with my family. Why am I constantly needing to be distracted from my phone even when I don't need it? Right? Sometimes you're like, I know I don't need it. I know I don't get anything from it, but it still keeps pulling me back. It keeps pulling me in. It keeps sucking me in, even if I don't want to be there. And I think that's what we all experience is this almost hopeless, helpless relationship.

• 4:24Jay Shetty?

  And that's why today's episode is called the cellphone diet, or the cellphone detox. These are the devices through which most of us make our way online. Over the past few years, I'm guessing that we've read as many articles about the miracles of technology as we have about some of the issues it's brought up for us as humans. That despite this wonderful newfound global connectivity, we have never felt less connected to friends and loved ones. How despite having more knowledge at our disposal than in any time in history, we have never been worse informed. How at home and at work, we're losing the ability to focus or concentrate. That we've gotten more impatient and impulsive.

• 5:09Jay Shetty?

  The add-to-cart nature of the internet, where you want what you want, when you want, can sometimes even trickle over to our real lives. A friend once confessed to me that sometimes when he finds himself in a traffic jam, without even thinking about it, he'll reach for his phone, not to change the music, or refresh his GPS, or to start a new podcast, but to click himself out of the traffic jam. As if his phone somehow featured a magic button that with a single click could transport him home. One of the most interesting things about being alive in 2024 is that there are hundreds of millions of people in our midst, possibly your own parents, and certainly your grandparents,

• 5:52Jay Shetty?

  who remember a time before cellphones and Wi-Fi existed. They're dealing with two versions of reality, a then and now. And because we're always prone to see the past as better than it was, it goes without saying that the pre-internet era was better, filled with space and silence and stillness, and opportunities for contemplation. Before long, the global population will be made up of people who know only one technological reality: now. By now, we've also figured out various ways we can make our phones and the impulse to go online less attractive and alluring, less of a temptation. We can turn off our notifications.

• 6:35Jay Shetty?

  Instead of our phones ringing or chirping or making cricket noises, we can make them vibrate. With a little fiddling in our settings, we can even turn our screens grey, which gets rid of the visual triggers that make our phones look a lot like a big bag of colourful candy. Maybe you've tried one or more of these things, but you still feel your reliance on the internet is unhealthy and imbalanced. That even when you're not online, you're thinking about being online. That on those rare times your phone isn't within reach, you're thinking, "Where is it? Why do I feel so weirdly incomplete?" This episode came about because of the many messages I get from all of you

• 7:17Jay Shetty?

  who feel you've lost control over your phone use. Who don't trust yourself to monitor how much time you spend online. Who get anxious whenever you're separated from your phone or a wifi signal for more than a few minutes. Who are coping with feelings of helplessness and shame. This episode is for anyone who thinks I should really get my phone and wifi addiction under control one of these days. Except that day never seems to come. It's okay though, because you're not alone. Everyone around you, from your 13-year-old cousin to your 75-year-old aunt, all the way through to me, seems to be wrestling with this same issue. The six steps of the cellphone detox

• 8:02Jay Shetty?

  are loosely repurposed from the steps you might take if you embark on an actual diet involving food and drink. As with any new regimen we start, you want to banish any thoughts of overnight change or success. Stop trying to change in 24 hours. If you think you can build or break a habit in the next 24 hours, you're setting yourself up for failure. The goal, as with any new plan we try out, is to adapt one or more of these steps as time goes on in the hopes that before long, a new habit will be ingrained. I want to begin by acknowledging that our brains have a lot of heavyweight chemicals working on their behalf.

• 8:47Jay Shetty?

  There's GABA, glutamate, oxytocin, adrenaline, norepinephrine, the list goes on. But of all these chemicals and hormones, the brain favors four of them the most. In no order, there's serotonin, which helps balance out our moods. Endorphins, which are our body's natural painkillers, which our brains generate when we fall in love and that promotes trust and intimacy between partners and also among new parents and their infants. Of course, the best, most pleasure-promoting chemical of these four is dopamine, the brain's preeminent reward and pleasure zone. But dopamine isn't always well-understood.

• 9:28Jay Shetty?

  A lot of people are under the impression that dopamine provides pleasure, that it gives us a mental or physical high, that in that way, it's like a drink or a drug. The truth is, it doesn't. Instead of making us feel good, dopamine operates in our brain by motivating us to go out and seek pleasure, whether it's in the form of romance, or going out to dinner with a good friend, or having a few drinks, or going on a long bike ride in a beautiful landscape. There's nothing wrong with seeking pleasure. In fact, it's part of the wiring of our brains. Problems only arise when we go overboard in that pleasure-seeking behaviour

• 10:09Jay Shetty?

  and begin to expect rewards and another shot of dopamine every hour of the day. This is because of the very nature of dopamine. The more we seek out pleasure-seeking activities, falling in love, or anticipating sex or romance, or a yoga class, or a night out on the town, or even an upcoming vacation, our brains, whose job it is to maintain homeostasis, otherwise known as balance, compensate for this blizzard of dopamine by making us feel flatter and even a little bit depressed whenever we're not engaged in that thing. Think about it, it's mind-blowing. I don't know about you, but in my experience, no one likes feeling flat.

• 10:52Jay Shetty?

  It's almost as though without dopamine, our own screens turn grey. We don't feel like doing much, and the things we feel like doing don't seem exciting. In response, most of us decide consciously or unconsciously to re-engage with the same activity we now know brings us, if not pleasure, then the anticipation of pleasure.

• 11:15Jay Shetty?

  The thing about most pleasure-seeking activities is that they have a built-in time limit. We can only exercise for a certain amount of time before our bodies tell us we've had enough, and we need a cold glass of water and a shower. If we go out and drink more than we should, our bodies and brains generally respond by making our eyelids heavier until at least we fall asleep. But as everyone knows, the internet is a 24-hour bazaar, and our phones are always on. The web never goes dark, never closes down, and never takes a vacation. And don't misunderstand me, the internet can be a completely magical place. It's like a city where the possibilities for window shopping and people-watching are so varied and interesting

• 12:00Jay Shetty?

  that we could spend the rest of our lives there. But if we do, it can have consequences on both our mental and physical well-being. This leads me back to dopamine. Every time we go online, and every time we swipe, or like something, or buy something, or comment, or hand-pick an emoji to send to a friend, our brains experience a little bump of dopamine. This tells us our reward system has been stimulated. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. So long as we know what's happening, and so long as we keep our internet use intentional and conscious. But that's not always easy or possible. For many of us, our internet use is automatic and unconscious,

• 12:44Jay Shetty?

  putting us in a place where we need more and more dopamine just to feel normal, just to feel like ourselves. Is there a connection between our dependence on our phones and the internet and our declining levels of happiness? No one can say for sure, but the answer is probably a bittersweet yes. According to the World Happiness Report, humans just aren't as happy as they used to be, especially people who live in higher-income countries. This might have to do with that flattening effect I mentioned earlier, and how when we're not engaged online, we feel not exactly unhappy, but not entirely happy either. As though we're missing something, as though we're somehow sidelined, or not at the center of something we know exists.

• 13:28Jay Shetty?

  We just can't put our finger on what that thing is. The internet diet is an attempt to provide at least the beginning of a solution to this problem. Why do I refer to it as a diet? Because I'm reminded of something that a high school teacher friend told me recently. At the end of each semester, my friend gives midterm and final exams to his students. No cell phones are allowed in the classroom, of course, while the students take their tests. In fact, before the exam gets underway, the students all write down their initials on their phones and place them in a box next to the teacher's desk. When the exam ends, they line up to collect them. But the interesting part of this story is when my friend described the moment his students were reunited with their phones.

• 14:14Jay Shetty?

  They clutched them as if they were food and they hadn't had anything to eat or drink for days. They appeared ravenous, and the behaviors they then carried out, including checking their texts and their inboxes, going on to this and that website, made my friend think that for his students, their phones were a form of food or sustenance, a way to keep hunger at bay. When you think about it, there's a strong connection between food and the internet. Humans can't live without eating, and today, the 94% of all Americans with access to the internet will tell you that life without wifi would be unimaginable. Without GPS, how would we get from one location to another? Without social media and text messages?

• 14:58Jay Shetty?

  How would we keep up with friends and loved ones who live nearby and far away? Without the alarm clock on our phones, how would we manage to wake up in the morning? How would we make lunch or dinner reservations? Or split the bill after a night out? Or pay for groceries? Or take photos or videos? Or check out the weather conditions in Dubai, Dublin, or Miami? According to the results of one study I read, Americans check their cell phones approximately 144 times a day. Even if we don't open our phones, we make physical contact with our phones on an average of 2,600 times a day, just to make sure they're snug in our position.

• 15:38Jay Shetty?

  All in all, on average, this study says we spend nearly four and a half hours every day on our phones. But along with the reliable hits of dopamine that get released every time we punch in our code, or hear swoosh, or ding, we also get a bump of cortisol, the chemical that enters our bloodstream whenever we're about to go into high gear and take on a new day, or in this case, when we're about to come face to face with what being online means.

• 16:08Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 16:51Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 17:34Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated, calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favourite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache,

• 18:19Jay Shetty?

  Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 18:39Jay Shetty?

  As long-time listeners of this podcast know, cortisol is the steroid hormone produced by our two adrenal glands, which perch atop our kidneys. Cortisol is the hormone that gives rise to the fight-or-flight impulse. But since most of us aren't about to get into a wrestling match, what ends up happening is that the energy supplied by all that cortisol sticks around inside our bodies. It stresses our muscles, our digestion, our breathing, and can even negatively affect our immune systems. What can possibly relieve these high levels of cortisol? More dopamine. Because after all, when we feel stressed or dread going online for fear we might see a text or email we don't like,

• 19:23Jay Shetty?

  our brains might as well balance out that fear by seeing if they can anticipate a positive reward. Before we even know it, we've been online for an hour, two hours, or even longer. The internet, or rather the brain, has gotten the best of us. It's tough to resist it. We might as well throw in the towel, right? The good news is that the six steps of the internet diet are focused on gradually reducing the amount of time you spend online or gazing at your phone. Following these steps, or even half of them, and you'll likely find yourself with significantly reduced anxiety levels, along with an increase in clarity, a greater, truer sense of perspective about yourself and the world around you,

• 20:09Jay Shetty?

  a deeper connection and a deeper presence when you're alone or surrounded by friends and loved ones, as you're now genuinely listening to what they're saying instead of quietly fretting that you need to respond to your latest text or email. Lastly, it's safe to say that the six steps of the internet detox will increase your capacity for gratitude, for your own life, for our five senses, for what you do have instead of what you don't, which we all know the internet is well-known for eliciting. Before we begin, remember that as with any behavioral change, the most important thing is to start small. Take one step and see how you feel afterwards. All or nothing thinking doesn't work here,

• 20:52Jay Shetty?

  but all or nothing thinking never works. See if you can check off these steps, one after the next, and take your time as you do it too. I'm not proposing you can cancel your wifi or trade in your smartphone for a flip phone or a landline. What I am suggesting is that you begin to think about your phone and being online as the technological equivalence of the food you eat and the liquid you put inside your body. Most of us are careful about our nutrition and the ingredients in our foods. So all that I'm proposing is you give the same care, attention, and respect to how you feed your brain, which means not overwhelming it with the digital equivalent of ultra-processed ingredients, additives, trans fats, potato chips, salt, and sugar.

• 21:38Jay Shetty?

  Step one of the internet diet is simple: become more conscious. All I'm asking is that you become more aware of your internet use and that you do it without any judgment whatsoever. It's a fact that for many of us, our phones have become almost like physical extensions of ourselves, an extra hand or foot. One study I read reported that 89% of Americans reach for their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up. When you reach for your phone in the morning, what are you feeling? What are you looking for by wanting to reach for your phone? What are you trying to achieve? Does it make you anxious? And can we become more aware of that? What is the reason not just that you reach for your phone? But why are you doing it?

• 22:22Jay Shetty?

  What are you seeking in the morning? And how can we substitute it later on? Our phones are like mirrors. They reflect us back to ourselves. They have a lot of valuable information to tell us about who we are and what it is we want. You might tell yourself, of course, I reach for my phone every morning. Doesn't everyone? But that's different from taking a step back from the routine of it and asking why. For example, you might feel that while you're asleep, people are having fun without you. And you hate what it feels like to be excluded. You might begin the morning feeling bored or sad or understimulated. And consciously or unconsciously decide that the only way to solve that feeling is by going online.

• 23:03Jay Shetty?

  Or you might wake up feeling lonely or isolated and reach for your phone instead of getting in touch with a friend and making a plan to meet them later for coffee or a drink. You might worry that a crisis happened overnight, whether in your workplace or somewhere in the world. And you're the last person to know about it, which makes you worry your friends might not see you as hyper vigilant and responsible and in charge. Again, the most important part of step one is observing your behavior without judgment. That increased consciousness leads me to step two. Wait an hour before going online. But rather you sitting around wondering when the hour is up. Step two proposes that instead of going online, you replace that impulse with a better, healthier habit.

• 23:48Jay Shetty?

  You could take that time to meditate or make a list of the things in your life you're most grateful for. You could listen to beautiful music or read a few chapters of a book or do both at the same time. In my experience, from a reading perspective, being online is like taking a hundred quick showers a day. We're scanning headlines and perusing emails and texts, but are we really reading them? It's probably nearer the truth to say that the only thing we're doing is scanning pixelated words. This is why the early morning can be a fantastic time to delve deeply into a book. As opposed to a two-minute shower, reading a book is like sinking into a bathtub. It's a form of time travel as well as an exercise in empathy.

• 24:31Jay Shetty?

  In this way, you can give your brain the opportunity, not just to awaken naturally, but to deepen your understanding of the world around you. It doesn't need to be reading a whole chapter. You can read a quote, a paragraph of your favorite book, scripture. It could also be listening to something that motivates you, that inspires you. Now, what if you rely on your phone as an alarm clock? Well, first, recognize that our phones are intentionally engineered so that they're indispensable. Like big-box department stores, they offer us anything anyone could ever need. There are mailboxes, our phone centers, our bookshelves, our jukeboxes, our maps, our photo albums, and our memory keepers. There are sources of news and friendship.

• 25:15Jay Shetty?

  Add a tape measure and an alarm clock, and your phone truly becomes what it was designed to be, a one-stop shopping destination. But that doesn't mean you can't go someplace else. In this case, why not go and buy a real alarm clock? It's as simple as that. Step three of the internet diet or detox involves another deceptively simple change. I call it the Wi-Fi free meal, and it's exactly what it sounds like. A Wi-Fi free meal is one where you make a conscious decision to enjoy your breakfast, lunch, or dinner while keeping your cellphone in your pocket, or better yet, in another room entirely. This means that instead of using one hand to hold your fork or spoon and the other to scan for online information or browse social media,

• 26:00Jay Shetty?

  you're devoting 100% of your attention and energy to the food and drink in front of you. Ayurveda suggests that we chew morsels of food 16 to 32 times. I promise you, if you try this, you'll forget that you ever had a phone in your hand. It's a really hyper mindfulness practice. For many of us, this will feel strange at first, as we've gotten into the habit of always doing two things at the same time: shopping while gazing at our phones, for example, so we can see if another store offers a better price; taking a walk while listening to music; or driving a car while our GPS tells us which turn or road to take. In step three, I'm suggesting you do one thing at a time, monotasking, or solo tasking as it's called.

• 26:45Jay Shetty?

  And in this case, it involves eating and focusing on the textures and flavors of that food. And if you find yourself racing through the meal because your brain is busy anticipating the dopamine hit that's certain to arrive the moment you set down your fork and pick up your phone, then set limits on yourself. Tell yourself that during the next fifteen minutes that you set aside for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you will not engage with your phone and you will not go online, full stop. The effects of taking that time to eat a meal will surprise you. You'll find that you eat more slowly and conscientiously, that you chew more properly, that you digest better, that you appreciate your food more, and that you become more

• 27:27Jay Shetty?

  conscious of your body's hunger cues and the effects food has on your feelings. Step three of the internet diet has another strong thing to recommend. A study that was done in Brazil a few years ago concluded that using our phones while we eat increases our caloric intake by almost fifteen percent. This means that even though staring at our phone when we're dining out in a restaurant makes us look busy and occupied, it can have real-life ramifications on our health and wellbeing. In step four of the internet diet, we scale things up a little. This time, I want to make a close analogy to the food and drink we put in our bodies and the content we take in online, because to my mind, they're very closely related.

• 28:11Jay Shetty?

  By now, we all know some foods just aren't that good for us, whereas certain other foods promote good health, increase vitality, and longer-lasting energy. In the first group are things like sugar, salt, and trans fats. And in the second group, you'll always find fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, nuts, and legumes. Let me also add that while most of us are aware that potato chips and buttery popcorn aren't good for us, sometimes we just feel like having a snack. And there's no harm in that, so long as we don't do it every day for the rest of our lives. The same goes for the internet. A lot of websites and digital apps are the digital equivalent of a tray full of nachos or a chocolate milkshake, or you can fill in the blank and name your favorite guilty or not-so-gilty pleasure.

• 28:55Jay Shetty?

  Junk content is harder to digest, just like junk food. And the more junk content we expose ourselves to, the unhealthier our minds get. Step five of the internet diet is limit portions. I touched on this already in step two, which asked you to wait an hour after you awaken before you check your phone. And also in step three. Step five takes this idea even further. We all know what it means to limit our portions when we're preparing our or serving food. Studies have shown over time that our plates and cups and glasses have got larger and so too have our portion sizes. You could equate that to how the amount of data that our phones can process now increases all the time. The amount of memory and storage our phones have increases over time.

• 29:40Jay Shetty?

  Which means naturally, our portions and desire to consume content also increases equivalently. Remember when your data used to run out? Remember when there used to be a cap on the minutes you could speak to someone on your phone? That's all gone away now, and therefore, there is no portion control. If you've managed the first five steps of the internet detox, step six probably won't come as a shock. It's intermittent fasting. We're probably all familiar with that phrase as it relates to food and placing boundaries on when we eat. In step six, I propose you adopt this same idea to your own online behavior. For example, one of the best-known intermittent fasting plans around is what's known as the 5.2 plan. That's the one where you eat as you normally would for five days a week,

• 30:24Jay Shetty?

  but every Saturday and Sunday, reduce your food intake into a single 500 calorie meal. Try this same method with your own online use. Unless there's a pressing workplace emergency, where you have no choice but to remain reachable over the weekend, why not start by turning off your phone every Saturday and Sunday afternoon? Instead of spending your time off loosely tethered to technology, why not do something that has nothing to do with it? Go outside, go hiking, go kayaking, ride your bike, play two sets of tennis or pickleball or even three. The more time you spend without your phone and without access to a wifi signal, the more confident you will be that you can regain control of your time, energy, mental and physical health.

• 31:07Jay Shetty?

  Just as we learn to eat when we're hungry and quit eating when we're full, the internet diet also teaches us to take in information online when we want, and not just because it's there or because we have nothing better to do. By creating boundaries around your own online use, you'll start to experience a new feeling of control and authority across all aspects of your life. But remember, start small. Go step by step. Too much too soon and the brain's hypothalamus will act the same way it does when we don't have enough to eat. What we're really trying to do in any lifestyle change is create a new, balanced relationship between the time we spend online and the websites we ingest that are authentic, healthy and nutritious,

• 31:50Jay Shetty?

  which in turn will lead to a new relationship with ourselves, our friends and the world around us. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you pass this on, maybe even pair up with a friend to be accountable for the new cellphone detox. And remember, I'm always in your corner and I'm forever rooting for you. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months. And then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.