A morning routine and ritual are mainstays in the self-help and entrepreneur space.

Proponents rave about how successful people always have a morning routine to “win the day” or to get them centered. Make your bed. Coffee. Journal. Express gratitude. Exercise. Read. Meditate.

I get it. Focus is a scarce resource these days. If you’re trying to advance towards your goals, you need to avoid brain fog, being unfocused, and being unmotivated like the plague.

I still have a daily morning routine. I’ve pared it down by quite a bit and I’ll admit, it helps me gain momentum at the beginning of the day. I still drink coffee, meditate, and write in a journal.

But there’s something I do that helps me stay more focused than any amount of meditation or journaling can.

The daily silent retreat/media blackout

I spend the first half of my morning in electronic silence. This means I don’t listen to music, podcasts, watch YouTube videos, etc until 10am.

No social media. No emails. Yet.

This isn’t a literal silent retreat. I still talk to my fiancé but I don’t let in the noise of technology and the internet into my day.

I’ve noticed that if I start succumbing to screens and other electronics in the morning, I’ve already lost the day. I used to lay in bed in the morning aimlessly scrolling through social media and suggested articles on Chrome. I would immediately put on a podcast or instrumental beats as a part of my daily routine. It made me feel productive but my focus suffered. My brain constantly craved noise and stimulation.

Silence from technology had become a foreign occurrence.

Then something happened a few months back when I was driving to one of my patients early in the morning. I deliberately muted my stereo while I drove and I began to notice that I was noticing.

I noticed the sun coming over the rolling hills I’d driven past so many times before. I noticed every turn I was making. In the past, I would often arrive at my destination, my mind on autopilot, with only a faint recollection of the drive. I was focused and present with my patients. I came up with thorough solutions.

Over the next few days of doing a daily silent retreat until 10am, the fog had slowly lifted and thinking became easier. Most of all, I felt focused, mindful, and happy. I wasn’t happy for any particular reason. I just was.

These days, my mind will revolt if I start scrolling or listening to things too early. I feel uneasy if I put on a show to stream. Something feels wrong if I even think about playing video games. The silent retreat has become a part of my daily living.

I’ve become happy with staying focused on the present.

Fight back

No one’s focused anymore.

This isn’t your fault. Social media and entertainment companies are experts at hijacking and keeping your attention. Scrolling is a trap to which everyone will succumb.

I don’t know when it became the norm to have something constantly playing in the background. We need to be doing something with our hands, watching something, or listening to something all day, everyday. I can’t even turn off the entertainment system and stereo in my car anymore. There’s an option to mute it, but no option to just shut it off. It’s as if the car companies know that we need to be consuming content all of the time.

It’s become a strange world.

The younger generations fall into a panic if they can’t find their phone. AirPods live in people’s ears from the moment they wake up. They don’t realize that the constant stimulation is driving their anxiety so they seek more stimulation to silence their unease. Content and stimulation has become mistaken for a survival resource, and so they keep craving for more.

It’s a vicious cycle and all their brain wants is some silence.

Staying in silence forces your brain to adapt. Your dopamine levels finally get back to a normal place. Your mind will stop demanding that you constantly seek out your screens and entertainment.

The fog will lift and the world will come into focus, but only if you fight back.

Everybody lacks focus these days. No one can get anything done. Goals are abandoned in favor of materialistic pursuits and cheap thrills in the form of scrolling to another TikTok or Instagram Reel.

Silence will throw people into a panic.

Electronic detox, dopamine reboots

The idea of screen detoxes or dopamine reboots isn’t a new one. However, they are often positioned as something to do once and only revisit when you are overwhelmed and have a panic attack. That isn’t a sustainable lifestyle.

We must be constantly vigilant about the things that are trying to take our attention away from the things we are passionate about. No one is passionate about scrolling TikTok or Instagram, yet many do it like their life depends on it.

Maybe the brain thinks that life depends on it…

A simple understanding that dopamine isn’t simply a pleasure chemical but instead the molecule of motivation will point us in the right direction. Our dopamine system evolved to motivate us towards survival and reproduction. In our overly stimulated and abundant world, our electronics have become mistaken for survival needs that our brain constantly seeks.

When we take these devices away, our brains will adapt and heal themselves.

Now I understand that scientifically, “dopamine detoxes” are controversial at best. Dopamine is good and we don’t want to “detox” from it. Moreover, many scientists argue that dopamine reboots are pseudoscience. I would have to respectfully disagree. It is simply that there have not been enough studies to definitively say if they are or not effective. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Again, a simple understanding behind the physiology of dopamine can allow us to make an intuitive leap about the damage that constant overstimulation can have on people’s mental health.

The daily silent retreat has been key to ensuring that my devices don’t hijack my limited mental resources so I can put forth more energy to being creative, productive, and present. Control over our dopamine must be a rule to life and not a one-time effort.

An approach to focus

Don’t become a slave to your electronics. At the very least, have a few rules for the weekdays.

• The silent retreat until 10am.
• No video games during the week.
• Shut off Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services by 8pm.
• Limit your social media screen time to < 30 minutes (you can set this up in your phone settings).
• Put your phone down when you get home.

Remember that your focus and attention are precious resources and tech companies are all competing to steal those resources away from things that give your life value.

Take back your focus and return to the things you’re passionate about. I guarantee that scrolling isn’t one of them.