The story

Hey sleepyhead,

Happy Sunday. I'm grateful you're here, and I assume you're on your cell phone. Good, it'll hit better.

The alarm blares. My son groans from under his blanket, rolling away from the window to block out the morning light. Every day, the first challenge is just making it out of bed.

Getting out of bed is a challenge for my son. It's a challenge for me too.

We've both been diagnosed with ADHD. I was always told I was lazy; turns out it's a disability that causes ultra-low dopamine.

Imagine waking up and feeling like your body is filled with sand, every move sluggish. It's the mental equivalent of trying to run on an empty stomach—no fuel, just effort (so yeah, no motivation).

On one end of the spectrum, my wife and daughter roll out of bed, put on their clothes, brush their teeth, and head downstairs.

On my side, I can't leave my son until he's seated upright in bed with his feet on the floor. I bought myself a SAD lamp to blast daylight in my eyes for thirty minutes before getting out of bed.

These small tricks are learned behaviours or coping mechanisms.

My wife also resorts to mind games: pancakes or French toast for breakfast? Want to watch sports highlights? Right now, the Olympics give us all some respite.

It's those dopamine spikes that get him moving. To get downstairs, he needs to hit a baseline of dopamine first.

I've learned that patience and empathy must rule. Screaming at him doesn't work—it just crushes his self-esteem (remember, I was told I was lazy).

ADHD brains get yelled at, get corrected 20,000 times more than neurotypical brains.

What I've learned from managing my son's dopamine needs has made me realize something unsettling: we're all living like we have ADHD now.

Your phone has turned you into my son on a Sunday morning—unable to move, craving the next hit of dopamine just to function.

The average North American adult spends 6-7 hours on their phone every day. That adds up to 24 years of your life.

Your phone is a pocket-sized slot machine: unpredictable rewards keep you pulling the lever. Brain scans show that dopamine spikes not when you receive the reward, but when you anticipate it. That anticipation is what keeps you scrolling.

Scrolling hijacks your nervous system the same way ADHD hijacks mine. It dysregulates you. Every time I feel overwhelmed, I know exactly where to find relief: my phone. But it's not creating relief—it just makes me hungrier. The craving intensifies. Over time, scrolling drowns out everything else.

ADHD brains are prone to addiction for this exact reason. We're chasing dopamine because we don't produce enough naturally. And, thanks to this incessant phone usage, your brain is doing the same thing. You've trained it to expect rapid, dramatic dopamine hits without effort—and that's the definition of addiction.

Researchers call it "popcorn brain"—attention bouncing from thought to thought like kernels in a pot. It leads to less focus, more stress, higher anxiety, and fractured relationships.

After my son plays hockey, he's a chatterbox—engaged, present, alive (mildly annoying when I just want some peace). But when I try to pull him off screens? He yells at me.

Exercise produces the dopamine his brain needs.

Screens steal it, leaving him (and me) worse off.

We're no different. We've handed our nervous systems over to a billion-dollar design working exactly as intended. Your willpower was never going to win against that.

So what do I do? I set boundaries stronger than my willpower.

Saving Sundays’ own, Justin Da Rosa erased the social media apps on his phone. He put them all on his iPad, so social media scrolling becomes more intentional and easier to shut off.

Jon Vassallo puts his phone in grayscale most of the time. He charges his phone downstairs (he doesn’t bring it to bed) and makes sure it’s never on him when he’s around his kids.

The Pebble
This week, go analogue.

The challenge
Challenge the popcorn brain:

1. Use the apps. I downloaded an app called Screenzen. When I try to open Instagram, it asks: "Why am I checking?" It prompts me to think—do I actually need this? I've given myself 6 checks a day, each for 10 minutes. Every time my time runs out, I'm in a mindless scroll. I'm glad it kicked me out. Other apps like Opal or Time Tamer work the same way.

2. Put your phone in another room when you're working, sleeping, or with people. Make it harder to reach for.

3. Replace the scroll with something real. I floss my teeth when I'm sitting in the bathroom (weird, but it works). I've heard people keep a designated book they only read on transit. Take a journal with you everywhere.

4. Get your friends and family involved. If nobody else is doing it, it's hard to be the lone ranger. Try a week where everyone turns off mobile internet access. Text your circle and pick your digital detox week tonight—make it real together.

Here's the data that blew my mind: 91% of people who blocked internet access on their phones for just two weeks saw massive improvements in mood, focus, and life satisfaction—more than antidepressants. When you stop scrolling endlessly, you look up and start doing things that involve others or the world around you.

I know you hate hard things right now. Your brain is tired. You feel like my son on Sunday mornings—unable to get out of bed, waiting for something to pull you forward. But here's the truth I've learned raising him: the dopamine doesn't come before the effort. It comes from the effort.

When you're struggling, don't turn to your phone. Go for a walk. Do ten pushups. Call a friend. The resistance you feel is real, but it's also a lie your dysregulated nervous system is telling you.

My son needs structure, patience, and real sources of dopamine to function. Turns out, so do you. It's time to move beyond the phone, go analog, and do hard things for your brain's—and your—success.

Because a great, happy life comes from a wide variety of things that please you. Not one glowing rectangle that steals 24 years