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Hey, welcome to owning at real time. In this audio guide,

I'm going to talk you through the feeling of anxiety you experience when you spend too long

on your smartphone and social media in particular. There are a lot of contributing factors to this, but to start, I want you to know that although it might not be spoken about very much, it is absolutely normal to feel this way.

Take a deep breath and let go of any judgment you're holding towards yourself for the fact that you feel anxious right now.

Being critical of yourself

in this moment will only compound the anxiety. Tell yourself it's okay, that you are okay,

and let's unpack what's happening here together. You might be thinking, why is scrolling

social media when I'm sitting here on my couch, making me feel

physically on edge? Feeling how you feel makes more sense than you might be aware of. You have to

always remember the fact that a threat does not have to be right in front of us to cause a reaction

in our mind and bodies. It also doesn't have to be real. Our brains react to threats

the same way, regardless of whether a threat is real or perceived. Now you might also be thinking,

but what threat could there be on my social media? There are a few ways in which I experience

threat on social media and on my phone. The most obvious is scrolling through the news.

More often than not, the news is negative.

It doesn't matter if we are safe in our homes.

If we are constantly reading about terrible things happening around the world,

we are priming our brain to be on high alert and enter a state of hypervigilance. The more primitive part of your brain that's concerned with your survival

doesn't care that this is something you're seeing through a screen

or something that's happening on the other side of the world.

There's also the element of common humanity. When we see bad things happening to other people,

...