How Tech Is Keeping Us Tired And Anxious (And What To Do About It)

Insomnia, Restlessness, and Anxiety in the Digital Age

It’s late at night, and you’ve got to get up early tomorrow. You know you should get some sleep, but as soon as your head hits the pillow – something feels off.

You pull out your phone and open up your favorite social media app. Before you know it, an hour has gone by, and you’re no more tired than when you started. You may even feel drained – but you still can’t fall asleep.

For some reason, you keep doing it.

What’s going on? Prescription of sleeping aids is on the rise – but is that really the solution?

What the Neuroscience Says

Let’s discuss two major areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system:

The prefrontal cortex is part of what makes us unique as human beings. This area governs critical thinking, planning, creativity, language, as well as many other ‘complex’ functions. Engaging this area of the brain can help us fall asleep (Does anyone still count sheep?).

The limbic system is a neural circuitry that is responsible for basic survival. Some of the responsibilities of the limbic system include motivation, memory, and emotional regulation. Emotions such as anxiety and fear arise from here as well. Engaging this area of the brain triggers a threat response – interfering with sleep.

When one of these areas is active – it inhibits the function of the other. After all, critical thinking doesn’t serve you any purpose if there is a tiger coming at you. There’s only one priority – run.

The problem is, in modern day, our stressors aren’t usually tigers. It’s probably work, that relationship that isn’t going well, or that thing you keep putting off (taxes, anyone?). This now poses a unique problem. The solution often isn’t as simple as ‘run’ – and may involve some complex set of processes that the brain may feel more inclined to avoid.

Brain Scans

fMRI studies have shown that technology use actually reduces blood flow to the limbic system of the brain.

When we are able to externalize our attention onto something that is systematically designed to capture it, we are effectively reducing the power supply to our emotional circuitry.

We’ve got handheld emotional suppressors – in our pockets!

The more chronic, undefined, and complex (like taxes, or break-ups) our stressors become, the less our brains know how to directly deal with them. Therefore, avoidance becomes much more of an attractive way of dealing with discomfort, especially if technology is being designed to do just that.

Billions of dollars are being spent on AI, algorithms, and other forms of technological innovation to capture the biggest commodity in modern day – your attention. The more active your limbic system, the more susceptible you are to it.

How do I break free?

The brain naturally processes emotions during periods of ‘idle’ time – time when the mind is not focused externally. If you don’t have any of these moments throughout the day, it will start happening as soon as you hit the pillow in the evening – severely interfering with sleep.

Up until about 30-50+ years ago, we had a substantial amount of ‘idle’ time throughout the day. This problem is new to humanity, and it is advancing at an alarming rate. Boredom actually does serve a useful purpose – but we’ve learned to fear it.

Take note of your own day. How often are you left to your own thoughts? Here are some common ways we externalize during parts of our day when we otherwise could have idle time:

• Pulling out your phone in gaps of activity, or in social situations
• Listening to podcasts or music on our commute
• Playing video games/phone games
• Binging youtube, tv, or other streaming services
• Needing to fall asleep to a substantial amount of white noise or television

If you notice that a majority of your day is filled with externalizing your attention, you are likely suppressing emotions that are keeping you awake at night – and increasing your baseline anxiety over time. Unfortunately, unprocessed emotions don’t just go away – they build up in the background until we address them directly.

Keep in mind – in moderation, these aren’t necessarily an issue. They can simply be ways to pass the time, or simply exist as various forms of entertainment. The issue arises when you notice a significant difficulty sitting with your idle mind. Is your entire day filled with externalizing your attention?

Challenge Yourself:

Try to work for 10-30 minutes a day where you focus on nothing else. This could involve going on a walk, meditating in the morning, journaling your thoughts, or even just laying down for a brief period during the day. All of these strategies will allow for idle time and for some degree of healthy emotional processing to take place.

This may be hard at first! Priorities in your life that have been cast aside may start to surface, or emotions that have been too much to deal with may flood your awareness. Your job is to experience them without pushing them away. It may be helpful to talk to a close friend or loved one about what you experience during this time. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

This experience may be overwhelming, especially if the emotions are tied to difficult or painful experiences. If that’s the case, a therapist can help teach you how to process the emotions in a productive way.

Making a habit of this won’t just improve your sleep – it will decrease your anxiety throughout the course of the day as well. If you find yourself ruminating during the day or when you’re trying to sleep, your mind and body are trying to surface and process difficult emotions. Suppressing them can work for a while – but it’s also a fast track to burnout, chronic anxiety, and fatigue.

Take some time to yourself – and go do something boring today!