Phone addiction & Nervous System Health
By Rachel Tice, LMT, 200RYT, Curandera
Meet Jane, she is a 38 year old, single parent who works as a receptionist at a local spa. It’s Friday night, she just picked up her child from childcare and is driving home. Her phone starts buzzing with notifications from social media and friends trying to catch up for the week. Jane puts on her favorite tunes and texts back to her friends. She blew through a stop sign. Other cars in the area slam on their breaks and horns, but Jane doesn’t notice. Jane continues on her drive unbothered, unscathed and unknowing. She finally arrives at home, as the sun is going down for the night. She turns on her child’s TV and sits at the kitchen table replying to her social media notification. As she has come to completion of her notifications, she starts to scroll and notices her favorite content creator has posted a new reel. She continues to scroll, getting lost in her phone.
Hours have passed and her child comes running into the room, they are hungry. Jane looks up at the kitchen clock and notices it’s 9 pm at night and becomes frantic; her neck and shoulder are tense. She’s realizing she has been scrolling in her phone for 3 hours and hasn’t made dinner nor tended to her home of all the chores she wanted to accomplish before bed for the evening. After she has made dinner and gotten her child to the table to eat, she settles back into her chair, starting to scroll again while eating. After her child and her have completed dinner, and has cleaned up the dinner mess, she puts her child to bed and makes her way to her room for bed as well. She lays in bed scrolling, liking posts, pictures, and videos for hours. The hours pass on and she starts to become tired. As she begins the process of setting her alarm for the next day, she realizes another 4 hours gas passed, it’s 2 am, she sets her alarm for 6 am and struggles finding sleep.
The following morning, Jane wakes up exhausted, her hands and neck hurt from being on her phone for an extended time the day before. She starts to feel anxious and reaches for her phone to check social media. A knock at her door startles her; it’s the Saturday sitter. Jane glances down at the time on her phone and rushes out the door to work. Jane stops by her local gas station grabbing her favorite energy drink and gets back on the road, but not before checking her phone. Her eyes are burning, feeling sore and dry from extended screen time and lack of sleep. She finally arrives at work for her shift; she checks her social media before heading into the office for the day.
Like Jane, this is the reality of many Americans today. Statistically, 60% of American’s agree they are addicted to their phone. Some studies show that phone users check their phones between 47-96 times daily every 10-12 minutes! Many are spending over 4 hours daily on screens—scrolling social media, watching videos, or engaging in digital content. This isn’t just a habit anymore. It’s a pattern that is actively shaping how we think, feel, and function. It affects sleep quality, mental health, focus and productivity, physical health (eye strain, neck pain, headaches), and emotional regulation. In fact, around 69% of people reported on phone-related health issues, including eye strain, disrupted sleep, and chronic tension in the body.
From a neurological perspective, this pattern is driven by dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with reward and motivation or our feel good chemical. Every notification, like, message, or new piece of content triggers a small release of dopamine—the same reward of chemicals involved in gambling and other addictive behaviors. Your brain begins to associate your phone with reward. So you check it again. And again. And again. Over time, this creates a dopamine loop: anticipation (waiting for a notification), reward (checking it), reinforcement (repeat behavior). This loop makes it harder to: focus deeply, sit in stillness, complete tasks, regulate emotions without stimulation
According to the American Psychiatric Association research, technology addiction can take many forms: social media addiction, online gaming or gambling addiction, online shopping or auction addiction, and problematic pornography use. While they may look different on the surface, they all share one thing in common: compulsive engagement despite negative consequences. Phone addiction doesn’t just take your time. It pulls you out of your body. It disconnects you from your breath, your awareness, your relationships, and your present moment. It keeps your nervous system in a constant low-level state of stimulation, making it harder to truly rest, reset, and feel grounded. Over time, this can show up as anxiety, irritability, mental fog, chronic tension, and emotional exhaustion.
Take a moment and think about how often you reach for your phone. Have you been experiencing some of these symptoms that don’t add to any other health issues you have been experiencing recently? What can you do to improve your relationship with your phone? We don’t want to make the goal to eliminate the phone as it is an important technology, but to change our relationship with it. Some tips to start small:
Notice how often you reach for your phone without thinking
Create intentional “no phone” windows (even 10–15 minutes), set a timer to help with this
Avoid screens at least 30–60 minutes before bed, making it our goal to make it 60-90 minutes eventually
Paying attention to how your body feels after long periods of scrolling
Replacing one scrolling session with a grounding practice (breath, stretching, stillness)
A study from April 2022, in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education found several ways to combat phone addiction. The top findings include:
Changing your phone settings to greyscale, this strips away the neuron stimulating colors from the phone making you less likely to put the phone down sooner
Turning off social media notifications
Putting social media apps off your hoe screen, like in a folder or in a second screen making it more difficult to access
Putting your phone away from your bed at night but somewhere that will be more inconvenient for you to access it but still be able to hear it is you are using it as an alarm
Within holistic wellness, we understand that the body requires periods of stillness and regulation to function optimally. Your attention is one of your most valuable resources. Where you place it shapes your experience, your nervous system, and your life. When you begin to step out of the constant stimulation and back into your body, something shifts, you feel more present. More clear. More regulated. And more connected—to yourself and the world around you. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, scattered, or constantly “on,” this may be your sign to pause. Not to disconnect from the world—but to reconnect with yourself.
If you have been feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, or constantly “on,” consider this an invitation to pause. Not to disconnect from the world, but to reconnect with yourself. At Sacred Transcendence, we offer practices such as massage therapy, yoga, hypnotherapy and somatic-based work designed to support nervous system regulation, addiction and help you return to a more balanced, grounded state.
