Screens Are Rewiring YOUR Kid's Brain... NOW WHAT?? - Dr. Barrett Deubert

But yet most kids today spend five to eight hours a day on a screen. The brain is constantly stimulated and the nervous system rarely gets a break. So are screens enhancing childhood, or replacing childhood? And we see it as being a replacement because kids are less active, spending less time outdoors, and have less social interaction than ever before. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

Today, we are talking all things children's brain and screen time. Is it that big of a deal? And if it is, what are the concerning effects? What's too much? How much is too much?

And should we completely eliminate? Right, it's summertime. So they are less involved in school, which is potentially creating a crisis of boredom leading to babysitter screens. Right? And we wanna just make sure you're equipped as a mom, as a dad, to navigate screen time in children.

And, hey, I'm gonna tell you this. Don't turn the podcast off if you don't have kids. This is just as important for adults, whether they're young or whether you're aging. This is all about the brain and how screens affect the nervous system. Before we dive into practical health knowledge for you today, if you are in Knoxville, June 15 at 6PM at our West office, make sure you get in here and attend our brain health workshop.

We're talking all things attention to Alzheimer's, neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. It's gonna be an epic course teaching you all about brain health from early years to older years. So make sure you find that sign up link in our Linktree on our Instagram page and attend. All right, let's get into it. Let's talk about what if there is one thing affecting attention, sleep, anxiety, mood, learning, brain development?

Most parents will want to know about it and today we're talking about it. It is screens. And no, today is not an anti technology episode. Right? I mean, you're listening to this episode on some device or you're watching it on YouTube.

And so it is not I am not within the space of no technology. Right? I mean, gosh, I grew up gaming. During the summer I was gaming hours a day and look at me now. So hey, there's hope for anyone with how much, gosh, how much I was on devices.

Gonna talk about the issues I think it actually caused in me and what I see today and what we can see in our kids. So we're gonna pull a couple podcast episodes together because we're gonna talk screens, brain, we're gonna talk dopamine, we're gonna talk about boredom. So it's gonna be very practical for you. And when we understand like the way kids' brains develop, you know, develop best through movements, outdoor play, through face to face interaction with other kids, socialization, creativity, being creative and problem solving, not building a Lego from an instruction set but building Legos based on creativity and thinking about hey, what should I build, and exploration. Kids' brains are also developed through boredom.

Boredom is an essential component to proper neurodevelopment. But yet most kids today spend five to eight hours a day on a screen. The brain is constantly stimulated and the nervous system rarely gets a break. So are screens enhancing childhood, or replacing childhood? And we see it as being a replacement because kids are less active, spending less time outdoors, and have less social interaction than ever before.

And so what does this all do, right? What does the constant stimulation do? Well, you've listened to previous podcasts, you'll know that it's affecting specifically a hormone in the brain called dopamine, and dopamine is your anticipation hormone. It is your motivation hormone. So when dopamine is increased, a motivating, anticipating hormone that we all need.

But every time you are on a screen and you're flipping, you're scrolling, you're on social media, you're on YouTube, you're gaming and you're succeeding and getting to another level you are releasing dopamine and the brain is adapting to now this higher level of stimulation and this higher level of dopamine. The issue really with screens, and we'll talk about it here in a second, is that you are training the brain to become now a new level or new threshold of stimulation required to stimulate the next amount of dopamine. You are in essence using screens to train the brain and resetting to the baseline threshold. Now normal like everyday activities, whether it's kicking a soccer ball, running outside, or walking the dog, or just sitting and reading and being bored, now are boring to the brain. Now you've reset the threshold.

You've reset the baseline. And these things that are natural, normal in kids aren't exciting anymore. Right? And if they're not exciting, the desire to go play sports, or go kick a ball, or go run around, or go to a friend's house, or whatever it is, or go ride the bike, the desire for those is reduced dramatically. And then you say, well, my kids just don't wanna go outside.

Well, it's because it's not stimulating to them. Their brain doesn't think that there's a reward by being outside. So of course it's gonna look for something sugar that that's gonna release dopamine or screens that are gonna release dopamine. And parents will often say, hey, my child can focus on a video game for three hours and lock in, yet they can't sit and do homework for fifteen minutes. Well, that is a issue of training the brain.

You have trained the child's brain to receive stimulation from other areas and their threshold is so high, their baseline is so high that they don't know how to self regulate. And so it's not, you know, the child sitting there for fifteen minutes and not able to do homework isn't laziness. And it's not even, like I would go as far as say is they're not even, you know, they're not a bad student, they're not a bad kid and they're not lazy. The problem is their brain has a new baseline to it. And we train that.

Our society's trained that. And so number three is that attention span is being trained as well. So if you look at the frame rates of movies today, I mean it's just, I remember watching The Lego Movie for the first time, I was like, I cannot believe how hyper stimulating The Lego Movie was. It was the frame rates which was causing changes, sounds events were always happening and explosions and it's just so stimulating. Like if you're not used to that, it almost makes you nauseous yet, gosh, kids loved it.

They absolutely fell in love with the movie because it just it met their need of of threshold. And so nowadays, if, we can fast forward through commercials, nowadays, we can flip to the next, reel, nowadays, we can fast forward on YouTube and get exactly what we want and it's rapid stimulation. Yet real life requires you to sit down, to read, to study, to practice, to train, to learn new skills and that doesn't come in a second. That comes in time. And so what are we doing?

Are we training focus or are we training distraction? And screens are absolutely right now training distraction. So the idea of attention deficit disorder occurring at such alarming rates, well, know, if we look at how kids are trained and how their brains are trained, not just with screens, screens and sugar, then absolutely we're going to have some attention issues. Number four, there's a sleep crisis. Kids are not getting enough deep, restful, restorative sleep.

And a lot of times, one of the issues is that they're getting blue light exposure before bed. So right before they go to sleep, they are looking at screens, and those screens are stimulating the awake cycle, not the sleep cycle. And through that, they're staying up later. They can't get into deep, restful sleep as soon as they should, and their circadian rhythms are getting jacked up. Summer can be an absolute tragedy to brains by staying up too late, seeing screens too late, sleeping in, and not being under a normal circadian rhythm clock.

My suggestion is adhere to bedtime at nine, wake up at six, 07:00, whatever the kid needs. Eliminate screens, and we'll talk about some strategies here at the end of the podcast and give you some practical solutions, but we need to look at why kids have less melatonin production, poor sleep quality, less deep sleep, less REM sleep. Screens can absolutely be a a component to that. And the more that starts sleep deficit starts to occur, the less growth they get, the more attention issues they get, the poorer their emotion regulation, and the list goes on. So what are some like I wanna give you some brain health tips for families.

Now we're gonna talk a lot about it at the workshop, but if we look at the dopamine issue, the attention issue that we're training, the sleep issue that we're developing, what are ways to create some boundary around screens and what would be my recommendation to you as a parent? And the first one's going to challenge you the most. It's kids model behavior. Kids model behavior of their parents. So they're modeling your behavior.

What are you how are you treating screens? Right? Are you are you grinding on the on the laptop at 09:00 at night, 10:00 at night and saying, hey, kids. Get off your devices. I'm guilty.

I'm guilty of this. So I'm preaching to the I'm I'm preaching to myself. Am I on my on my phone? And it doesn't matter. The it doesn't matter that if I'm checking an email.

Doesn't matter if I'm if I'm doing patient notes. That doesn't matter. The kid just sees me with the device and then me telling him, hey. Get off your your device. And I think one of the most important aspects of parenting is be the person that you want your kids to be.

You be that person. And so the first challenge would be model healthy screen habits. Set boundaries for yourself. Set limits to yourself. Whether that's eliminating, social media or putting time limits on certain apps.

That's very appropriate. If we're going do it to our kids, think we could we could absolutely do it for ourselves. So that'd be my first rule. Rule number one would be, model healthy screen habits. Number two, no phones at meals.

No devices at meals. I think this is a major, major issue and it can be so it could be such a, profound change for a lot of families, but my suggestion would be no phones or tablets or devices at mealtime. Number two, or sorry. Number three, no screens an hour before bed. No screens an hour before bed.

Let that body naturally get into a restful state, shut off the blue light and start to shift that nervous system into a prep phase for sleep. Number four, at least sixty minutes of active play daily. Rule number four, sixty minutes of active play daily. Number five, allow boredom. I love when my kids say, I'm bored.

Hey dad, I'm bored. I'm like, yes, the brain needs that. And then I say, well, hey, you can go pick up dog poop in the backyard. And then they say, well, I'm gonna go upstairs and play. And then they find creative play and they don't pick up dog poop.

And so, hey, but that boredom is a fantastic reduction of stimulation to the brain. And then number six, screen limits. Listen, I think it's just very practical. I think you should do an hour a day. That's what we do for our kids.

You have an hour a day kids. You can use it however you want but you have one hour. All apps shut off in one hour. And so if you're looking at the rules, number one, model healthy screens. Number two, no phones at meals.

Number three, no screens an hour before bed. Number four, at least sixty minutes of active play day. Number five, allow boredom. And number six, put a limit to one hour per day. And if we do that, I really think we can help shift their nervous system into a healthy state and we can see the changes that we're hoping to in a lot of our kids in raising non addictive dopamine driven kids that then will look for other ways to create stimulation that those devices created for them.

As I said at the beginning of the podcast and towards the middle, June 15, all about brain health here at the West office at Real Health Co. Make sure you sign up. It's a free workshop that we do. In an hour we're going train you all about the brain from neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. Can't wait to see you there.

And thanks again for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.