Rebalancing Your Life
TLDR: Putting off phone use for the first hour of the day will help your body reward you for doing the things you want it to do more regularly. This effect is amplified further by putting off phone use for four hours. Then, when you do the things you want to see yourself doing, your body will reward that behavior with more dopamine. Eventually, your body will seek out these behaviors on its own.
For many of us, it’s easy to feel off balance; wanting and longing for a healthier lifestyle. So often those I’ve had the privilege of working with were angry at themselves and were unable to keep up with what they felt they needed to do in order to feel fulfilled. A common thread for these clients had been describing feeling “stuck,” often in their beds far more than they’d like, and spending lots of time on their phones. This post is aimed towards those who struggle with such things. These individuals are often do great when they are on a good path but often end up losing their way for weeks or months at a time.
One of the major ways this pattern unfolds is through the draining of our dopamine. This neurotransmitter is involved in our memory, movement, mood as well as our attention, motivation, and reward. These last three are key for getting things on a sustainable path. Something to keep in mind with dopamine is that it is not a resource that is replenished throughout the day.
I’ve worked with lots of strong-willed individuals who have pushed themselves to eat well, exercise, and go to bed on time. Although these things were objectively healthy and often described as fulfilling, many described falling out of this routine after a few weeks. For most, their body’s reward system was drained. Why? Because they spent most of their dopamine scrolling through their phone and responding to some messages and work emails. To be clear, this is not their fault. Social media alone is over a 230-billion-dollar industry. They are designed to pull us in. Then we can factor in things like games, texting, pornography, and even our work. All of these put a massive strain on that system.
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Here’s a visual:
Let’s imagine that your brain is your manager. It’s allowed to pay you up to $50 for your work on any given day. If you clean your room, wash your clothes, workout, and pay a bill that has been sitting on the counter for weeks, you should be rewarded well. Your brain wants you to do all that stuff regularly, right. It also wants you to do things that will give you a good reward. So, there’s no way it wouldn’t compensate you enough to want to do it again soon. Well… it will pay you based on how much money it can. It’s often a good manager, but it’s known pay other people for bits of candy or to show them videos online. So, when it’s time to pay you, it really can’t offer much if it already gave $48 away for entertainment earlier in the day. Let's remember that your brain does care about you. When it gives you $2 for that hard work, it’s going to tell you that it probably wasn’t worth it. Sadly, you are likely to listen to your brain here. So, what we want to do is to make sure it has enough money to pay us for the things we want to see ourselves doing.
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In this system, we are going to be motivated to do the things we receive good rewards for. You are battling against trillions of dollars that are funneled into various entertainment industries to hijack as much of your attention and dopamine that they can. It’s an uphill battle for you and each of us. By understanding a basic view of how our bodies function and the impact some of this entertainment has on our ability to do the things we want or even need to do, it can help you structure your days in a way that make it easier to stay on track. Please be kind to yourself. Your body is designed to chase that dopamine. It’s going to be challenging to shift your schedule. It will also be rewarding. You got this.
Written by Dr. Luke Bieber on June 13, 2025