Did you know that stepping away from your smartphone can help you lead a less anxious, more peaceful and fulfilling life?

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Digital Overconsumption, Anxiety & UnHappiness with Jennie Ketcham-Crooks

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

life, anxious, anxiety, feel, drinking, phone, day, thought, totally, starts, smartphone, bored, idea, good, live, digital, people, work, book, alcohol, nervous system, mental health, women, tolerating, not drinking, stop drinking, psychological flexibility, experiential acceptance, values, diffusion, selfless context, early sobriety, fear, consequence, boundary, boundaries, Look Up, harm reduction model, habit, Habit Reversal Training, overconsumption, anxiety, unhappy, unhappiness

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Jennie Ketcham-Crooks

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there.

Hi there. Today we are talking about

digital overconsumption and how that contributes to anxiety and unhappiness.

My guest today is Jennie Ketcham-Crooks. She’s the founder of the West Coast Anxiety Clinic. She’s a clinically licensed Social Worker and an Anxiety and OCD specialist. She’s been involved in research at the University of Washington, a guest lecturer at Harvard University, and has appeared on a bunch of popular TV shows, from headline news to the view to Oprah.

She is also 12 years sober. And she lives in Seattle, although on the other side of Seattle from where I live and is the mom to two little girls.

So welcome, Jennie. I’m so excited to have you here.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  02:14

Oh Casey, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Casey McGuire Davidson  02:19

Yeah. To start out, tell me about

digital overuse, and why it impacts our mental health and our relationships.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  02:28

Totally so.

So, the way I’m sort of conceptualizing digital overuse and the way that I think the mental health field is really starting to see this behavior is a little bit like a slot machine, right? Like, you sit down with your smartphone or your tablet, and you try and do something very specific. Right? But then, we sort of get hooked and drawn in to something else that is not the thing. Like, that was not me going in to check for one single email. Now, I’m in a completely different place.

My Pottery Barn Kids cart is full. And I am like, how did I get on Pottery Barn Kids? Again, Jennie, you put your phone down, right? And so, it’s, it’s a little bit of that. It’s not necessarily that you are like, wrapped into it all the time, in as much as it is. I’m finding that I’m using this thing in a way that isn’t really adding value to my life and is more on autopilot use them and intentional use.

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:29

Yeah, I see that for myself all the time. I go on, because I’ve got an online membership group and community for quitting drinking. And then, it is so easy for everything else to pop up in your feed on your screen, you get all the notifications. And suddenly, it’s an hour later, and you’ve gone down this rabbit hole that you didn’t even want to go down. 100%!

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  03:56

100% Right. And so, the impact of that both on our mental health and so, I sort of think of it like, 2 ways.

So, like, we have this flexible attention, right, which is so functional, that’s so helpful for us to be able to turn our attention from one thing to another, right? But if we’re constantly doing this, like this there, then then then that right like, this pinball machine of attention, that’s not a helpful way to attend. And that’s what happens in our smartphone. When we are in that place. It’s like okay, go here, then I go here, then I go here, then I go here, and then it just keeps feeding it to you. So, it has this impact on your ability to attend. That is really not good for your mental health.

The other place where I think it becomes really, really problematic is in our ability to connect with people.

So, there was a study done in 2019 that found that smartphones and social media might actually be diminishing the emotional benefit of face to face connect.

We’re seeing this through 2 different things, right?

One is that we’re not actually giving our full attention to the people that we’re with. Because that little things just in our pocket, that shiny little rectangle, right, so you have it on the phone, even if you like, put it screen down on the table. Right? Like, come on, like, we all know that you get a glance that I do all the time, if it is on the table, my attention is going to be pulled into that no matter what, because what if somebody has sent me something? Right? Like, what if? What if Brian and that’s that slot machine thing that I was talking about.

The other place where it is becoming problematic is that we start to rely on it, instead of face to face, like synchronous communication. And so, I also don’t want to cut off the idea that like, you shouldn’t be going and connecting in like this, like digital world, right? If there is like synchronous connection, and you’re getting your support, like, like what we’re doing this is really meaningful. This is face to face connection, right? Like this. It just happens that we’re even though it’s online, even though it’s online.

Exactly. Right.

So, it’s still this really meaningful way of us connecting, right. But there’s something and I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe you have this experience. But how many active conversations do you have going right now in your text threads?

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:16

I mean, they’re all just sort of ongoing, every once No, right? I have a text with with my sober besties. And a couple people in Seattle, and then one with my family. So yeah, they’re all ongoing, right? You never turn off those texts discussion.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  06:31

You never turn them off, you never really wrap it up.

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:36

I’m, well, I have a million text string going because I do private coaching. And I encourage the women I coach to text me every day, twice a day, and I respond really quickly. But sometimes,

I text someone and then I go jump on a podcast for an hour and a half. And I don’t reply. And so, I think also having that blank space where someone is replying and suddenly they don’t makes you very nervous.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  07:00

So nervous, tolerating that uncertainty is a really intense skill to try and build. I do that with a lot of my anxiety clients, right, like in OCD clients, actually. And perhaps you’ll find this interesting, I have heard of relapsing on alcohol, the primary reason that we relapse and go back is because we are unwilling to tolerate the uncertainty of when we will drink next. Hmm, that’s really interesting. Only time you know, when you drink is when you’re drinking, you know?

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:32

Yeah. Well, I think that anxiety also can be a big trigger to drink, because I don’t know about you. But when I was drinking, my nervous system was just fried. And one of the reasons I stopped drinking at the end was because I was really worried about my mental health.

But part of that I think, is women drink because they are so anxious, and they’re not used to tolerating that they don’t have other coping mechanisms. I had to learn as I was moving through sobriety to be like, Okay, how does it feel to feel incredibly anxious and not knock myself unconscious with a bottle of wine?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  08:12

Totally right. So, when I think it is so brilliant that your body let you know that you were doing something that was not helping it right. And maybe that’s all the anxiety was, was this internal flag system that went off was like, Oh, you’re going to fuck yourself? Like you were like fucking yourself up or like actively fucking yourself up, right? And so, like, Thank God for anxiety in that way, because it’s like, okay, we don’t know where this is going to go. But chances are, if we keep drinking Pinot Grigio, it’s not going to work out. Good, right. So, when I love that your body flagged that for you, right? And then this other thing that you touched on, which I think is also so brilliant, is this, like, this idea of alcohol as a coping mechanism? Right? Like, it’s so helpful until it’s not, right. And we do the same thing with our phone. Right? Like, how often are you in an elevator? And you’re like, Well, I have nine floors? What, like, what am I supposed to do? Just stand here and look at people and have the awkward smile.

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:19

I went back to boarding school, I went to boarding school, and all the kids there, I went to my 33 unit, and God helped me and some of the kids were like giving us a tour. And they were literally floored that we didn’t use to have cell phones. They were like, how did you connect? And I was like, we had low whiteboards on our doors, and we would write like I came by, or we would be like meet at the football field at 3pm. And if someone didn’t show up, you just sat there and waited for them. And the peace we must have felt in our minds. Just having to have this white space without, I mean, sometimes it was really nerve racking, right, like driving and getting lost. But other times you’re just like, I guess I’ll just breathe and stare at the trees get out of, Yuck, you know?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  10:16

Yeah, totally.

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:21

I guess I can just sit here and do nothing.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  10:23

Yeah, totally. Well, I think yeah, so it teaches that distress tolerance, right? Like I can delay. I can sit, I can be here.

Yeah, but this this, like overuse of our phone the like constant going into it. It trains us to believe that we need to be entertained constantly. Right. But what we actually need is sort of like chilled out. We need to not have content just jammed down our throats and our eyeballs and into our brains at all times.

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:57

You open mean, hit to write Yeah, get that immediate thing. You know what I talked to women about once they stopped drinking. There’s this period of time where you feel bored, or you feel blocked, or the days feel really, really long. And sometimes they’re like, I’m just so bored. I don’t know what to do with it. And I have to ask them, Is it boredom? Or is it the absence of chaos? You’re so used to? Thinking this ticker tape about drinking or not drinking? Or should you stop? Or should you not or passing out or feeling ill? And can you reframe the idea of boredom as just peace? And you’re just not used to it?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  11:42

Totally well, and also, can you just be bored? Yeah, can like can you be bored? Like, what’s it like to be bored? We were hanging out in the backyard the other day and my six year old. So, she’s, she’s recently gotten into the word board, which is, it was pretty funny, because there’s a little bit of an on ramp for understanding what it actually means. Right? And she still, she was using it sort of interchangeably with frustrated. You’re making me so bored. Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s not the tone that goes with boredom. Right? And then she’d be like, don’t you know, ship poor thing? Like to be a therapist? Daughter, like, for? Oh, yeah. Oh, so but she was in the backyard. And she just had that like, Oh, yeah. Had the like, show like, oh, I guess so bored. And both my partner and I were like, great. And then, we turned around and walked away, because maybe it’s okay to be bored in the same way that maybe it’s okay to be anxious and feel anxious. Yeah. Maybe everything that’s going on inside of you is totally okay.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:55

Yeah. When we talk with my daughter about that same thing, right? They’re addicted to their tablets. And I took it away and was like, no more for today. And she was just like, I’m so bored. She was like, this is boring. There’s nothing to do. And I was like, Oh my God, there is a trampoline outside. You have a Barbie house. There is a tree house next door like freaking figure it out. Yeah. And then like 20 minutes later, she was totally immersed in drawing. This is when she’s younger, but you need that boredom time to discover other things in your right when you are immersed in Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, your emails, the news, you never get that ever. And you don’t have to do the work to get it either. Right? Like, she had to be bored for a little bit in order to be like, okay, like what am to like, lift herself up and go find something to do that was like actively engaging for her and held her interest. It takes effort to be a human, right? We want higher levels for the entry point of things, right? Like, you want to have to work for the activities. That’s the thing.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  13:42

Totally, there’s convenience. And then there is convenience, right. And as a parent who is working full time, like I’m running a business, I’m working full time. I’m about to plug publish this book, and also still trying to be a good wife and a parent who was like present and like what are we eating for dinner?

Like, if I have to decide what we eat for dinner one more time I my least favorite thing in my oh my god, but I have started purchasing like precut fruit and vegetables because I’m just yeah, like, I’ll buy I’ll buy that kind of convenience but in terms of the things that are meaningful to me, right I’m going to have to work a little bit because I also want to see the fruit of that park. You know, like my I have a garden in the backyard that I love gardening.

Oh, I love. I love it. I love it so much. And I love the digging part every year I turn the soil and then I love going out and finding the plants and like designing where they go.

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:17

And I love having my girls involved. I love so much of the process. I’ve heard

gardening is so good for your mental health too, as you get older, because you see things grow it like some meaning to the days and the seasons and the weather. You see time passing not just Monday through Friday, you know, totally, totally.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  15:33

And I, I really appreciate the lifecycle of it. Right, this reminder that this is all coming to an end, you know, like, my zucchini season will be over, and these giant zucchinis will stop blooming at some point, you have to appreciate it and right now it’s P NAC, then it’s my favorite flower and you’re like, this goes away in approximately three weeks, they hold your money to enjoy the moment.

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:53

Totally.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  16:04

And if you have a two year old, it goes away much faster because she loves picking flowers.

Casey McGuire Davidson  16:09

So, you talk about psychological flexibility. You tell me about that.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  16:17

So, psychological flexibility refers to these six different processes of behavior that become rigid when we have mental health disorders.

Okay.

So, for example, I had mentioned earlier this, like the ability to attend flexibly, like where are you paying attention? Are you paying attention only to the future? Because if you are, you’re probably feeling pretty anxious? Are you paying attention only to the past? Because if you are, you’re probably feeling pretty depressed. Right?

So, it’s a process where we want to be flexible, and where we attend.

Another flexibility process is in like experiential acceptance.

Can I allow the feelings that are showing up inside of me to be here? Without fighting against them? Can I be bored? And just see what that feels?

Like? Can I experience a craving to drink? And be curious about it? Right and not necessarily be held into it? I don’t have to do what the feeling says to do. We’ve all been pissed. We haven’t all murdered people. Right? But can I feel pissed? And just be curious like that. Like, what an interesting experience to have inside of my body. Right? There’s flexibility there.

Values. Do you know what your values are? Or the kind of unclear, right, what is the North store that you’re walking toward in this life? And what are the committed steps that you’re taking? Or are you stuck, right that like committed action versus just inaction being stuck? Right?

And then, and then there’s also this idea of like, it’s called diffusion, and then selfless context. So, diffusion is when you’re thinking and your thoughts are so big, that you just can’t see anything other than that. Right? Or when the feeling is so big? And I’m sure early on in sobriety, like one of the thoughts that I was fused to, was like, I can’t do it.

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:23

Oh yeah. Like the fear of failure, because you’ve arrived before. So why even bother going through this distress? Physical, mental, emotional, because I’m going to fail anyway. I mean, that’s so common.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  18:35

So common, right? And so like, even that bit of content, right, this, like, I have fear of failure, and it means I will fail. Like, if I feel afraid of failure, I means I’m going to fail, and I can’t do it. So why try that thought becomes so big, and so dominating in our heads, that we end up following it as a rule, right? Our behavior Narrows and we do the thing that thought says, not because we had no other choice, but just because that thought took up so much space. So, we want to have the ability to see that we’re thinking, right, that thinking is this ongoing process. It’s just another leaf that’s coming down the street. Oh, that. That is just the old fear of failure, thought and you can watch it come and watch it go.

I call my mind, Brenda, she wants me to remember things that are not really relevant right now. And she is definitely afraid of me fucking up being imperfect, being a bad mom and making mistakes. So, she is willing to do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen. Right. But Brenna’s Brenda can be a bit much sometimes. So, I just sort of like Thank you, Brenda. Thank you so much. I appreciate your input, and we got it from here, sister. And then there’s this other piece where like, this idea of self as context, right, what is it to be an embodied person, right? How did we get in the His body? Sometimes, do you feel like your sense of self is even bigger than your body? Or does your whole identity sort of whittled down to one very small piece of content? Right? Because I want if it’s just this one, say, for example, like, and I don’t really use the term alcoholic, I think it’s, it can be really off putting, but think about that in a way, like somebody’s like, I’m an alcoholic, and then all of their life starts to center around the idea of being alcoholic. Right. So it’s like, I mean, I think you’re probably a little bit more than that. Right? And I don’t know that’s even a thing. Right? I think it’s sort of like an easy shortcut to describe a series of behaviors that you’re doing. But that’s not who you are.

Yeah, right. Like, you are this rich, complex ecosystem of life and vibrancy and, and mistakes, and championships and winds and neutral board days in the backyard, where mom is in the garden, and you are just looking at the clouds, right? Like you are all of that. And so, psychological flexibility really refers to your ability to move through all of these different ways of being in a way that’s flexible, instead of a way that’s really rigid.

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:19

I was laughing when you were thinking about the term alcoholic, I really don’t like it either. And I had one of my clients very early come to me. And she, she said to me, I am a chronically relapsing alcoholic. And when we were talking, I was like, Can you put that identity away?

Yeah, can you just say, I’m not going to drink anymore? Because I feel better without it, and just start building up those days without that identity that is just fueled in failure. And now she is four and a half years alcohol free. So, you specialize in OCD and anxiety? What do when clients come to you? What, what do you help them with? First? If they’re struggling with, let’s take anxiety first? Because I assume it’s more common?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  22:21

Meaning, like, with the flexibility and process you may present with anxiety?

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:26

What’s the first thing you work with them on to try to move through that?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  22:35

So, I really try to focus on like, where are they the most inflexible? Right? Have those six different processes?

Yeah, where are they? the most rigid, right? And then, we sort of start to tinker around there. I find early on in therapy, it’s usually experiential acceptance.

So, people come to me and they’re like, I don’t want to feel anxious. And I’m like, word Sr. Like, we’re going to teach you how to feel anxious. And we’re going to do all the things that make you feel anxious, and they’re like, that’s not what I want. And I’m like, Well, I’m not your clinician, then. But the idea being that it’s not necessarily the fact that you feel anxious, that is the problem. It’s the fact that you’re struggling against it.

The idea is that you are a fully functioning human being. And as a fully functioning human being. You feel anxious, you’re actually designed to feel that way. Right? Like you have been selected for that. If we think about anxiety as this identification of some uncertainty, that’s to come, right, because that’s all anxiety is it’s like, Ooh, there’s something bad out there and it’s coming our way. can think about it a little bit like like a Blackberry, Bush and a bear. Right? If our father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father is out in the field. And yours is out there and mine is out there. And they’re looking out in the distance and is his blackberry bush or set a bear the one that felt anxious. That was like, Oh, I don’t know what that is, and I’m not going to test it. I’m going back to the HUD. He’s the one that survives 10 out of 10 times going back to the HUD you live, right, the one who was like, I’m good, let’s go see if it’s a blackberry bush or a bear. He is dead, right? Like he was not selected for. Right. So, the idea is that there’s actually nothing wrong with you at all. You are meant to feel anxious. It’s that you believe you shouldn’t feel anxious. And you fight against it. You listen to that belief. And then you fight against it. You spend so much time fighting against it actually makes it worse because now the threat is you but if this is how you are meant to work if this is a fee Sure, have you not a bug? There’s actually nothing to fix. Right.

And so, a lot of my early work with clients, helps them to open up to what it means to feel anxious. For example, we do something called interoceptive exposure, where I teach you different sensations, like how to have different sensations that mimic anxiety, so you can have the experience of having anxiety we bring it on. And it’s the same thing in treating OCD, we do the things that make you feel anxious, and then you don’t do your compulsions, because those are the things that you think are keeping you safe. From this anxiety feeling. Right? And we see can you tolerate the feeling of anxiety? Can you live a big meaningful life and feel anxious? And the resounding answer is yes. Right. Like, we so often sell ourselves short. So, what you feel anxious, that’s not a fight, you have to fight. You’ve tried.

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:05

It’s interesting to be so I struggle with anxiety I always have. And some of the things that that I do make me anxious, I’m thinking about back when I was working, but also sort of manage my anxiety at some point. So, I felt like I constantly needed to check my work email, like I’d be somehow fired, or my boss would be upset, or I’d miss something if I wasn’t constantly doing it. And it was making me very unhappy.

Yes, yeah. So, I had to set down this like, internal boundary, that I was going to not check it on evenings and weekends. But to manage that anxiety. I told my boss, I was going to do it and said, If anything urgent comes up, will you text me? Because I’m not going to be checking my email. And if I had done it without telling her, I think I would have just not been able to relax. I’m just curious on your thoughts on that. Maybe?

27:09

You know what I mean? Like, maybe? Or maybe you’re just selling yourself short? What if you weren’t actually that on call? Right? I actually have a little.

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:21

No, I don’t think I was totally right. Like, totally was not holy.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  27:25

But there was this big thought, like, oh, shit, if I don’t respond immediately, then like, what’s the fear consequence of not responding immediately? You know what I mean? Like, what is? What is your brand? Tell you?

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:38

Oh, I’m going to get fired?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  27:40

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:42

So, it’s like, therefore I won’t be able to pay my mortgage or less, you know, finding another job, that’s going to be even worse.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  27:49

But I think the thing is, there’s an amount of professionalism in that, right, where you’re, you’re like, you know, I, I check my emails pretty consistently throughout the weekend, if there’s an emergency then text me. What did your boss say to that? Okay. And then that was it.

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:07

Yeah. That was it.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  28:08

Did that surprise you?

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:10

A little bit. Uh, you know, of course, with my anxious mind, I still thought she was unhappy about it. But she said, Okay. And I did not get fired. So, lo and behold, good to know. Right?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  28:22

So that that’s a good first step, right? Like, that’s a good test. Like, I’m an assertive boundary here. And I’m going to see if I can tolerate the like, not knowing if there’s something going on. If there’s a fire, not knowing if she’s actually going to text me. Right. I’m going to see if I can tolerate that.

And then the other thing is, Am I someone who deserves to have boundaries? Right, I question totally. Is, is having a boundary, that thing that’s going to prove that I’m not good enough or is not having boundaries? Is this the like, Brenda has always come into my mind? She is similarly like, if you don’t answer emails, within, you know, a very quick amount of time, like 12 hours, that’s her like magic number, then you’re a bad therapist, that’s, you know, it’s like, oh, is okay, Brenda? Well, what, what if we push it to like 13 hours? You know, but if we push it to 14 hours, is that the thing that’s going to make me a bad therapist, is that the thing that makes you a bad employee is having that boundary, right? Like, and there’s a certain amount of communicating that boundary to the professionals in your life, right.

Casey McGuire Davidson  29:40

So, talk to me about digital overuse. How do you recommend managing that because I think all of us are way more attached to our phones and the internet and everything related to that, then we need to be?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  29:58

Well, so first recommendation is to go through my 30 day plan, right? It’s a, it’s called, Look Up, that’s my book. And it’s 30 days of evidence based interventions to help you get off of autopilot if you’re stuck in your phone. It is a great, easy, low bar, but like, requires you to actually do it kind of book. This book offers 30 days of practices for you to experiment with. Right, and you just get really curious and see what it’s like to have these experiences. It’s not 30 days without a phone. It’s not getting rid of things. It’s being really, really curious about what this little shiny, beautiful rectangle means to you, and, and what your mind and what your body say, when you start to change your relationship with it. Right. And so, I don’t think you need to get rid of your smartphone, I don’t think that’s really realistic. It’s not, I’m not ditching my smartphone anyway. It is not realistic in my life. And so, I don’t anticipate it will be in other people’s lives as well. But what you can do is get off of autopilot. And there’s a there’s a way to do that. I’ll help you know what.

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:14

Can you give me some examples of practices in your 30 day, you know, practice or book of short steps?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  31:22

Totally. So, the everyday is structured the same, right? Where there’s morning and evening reflections. And there are phone zone times and then there are no phone zone times.

So, at the beginning of each day, it offers you a recommendation for the amount of screen time you’re going to give yourself. Like, how many hours in the day, am I going to look at my phone, right? It doesn’t start with like zero, right? Like, eventually it gets to like, we’re going to do just, you know, one or two days without any sort of phone interaction and see what that’s like. But that’s not where it starts. So, it starts with this intentional choosing of when I’m going to use my phone and you look at your day. And you decide. Okay, these are the times that are no phones on times, right?

It’s kind of a harm reduction model. Right. So, it starts with some really specific guidelines around when to use your phone, and when you’re not going to use your phone at all of what you decide. And then each day has a different evidence based intervention.

So, for example, one of the first days is called data scientist. And you literally track every single interaction with your phone, and you gather some of the content. I do this with all of my clients who are trying to change some sort of habit, right? Because it’s based in this Habit Reversal Training, is that evidence based practice, right? And so, we need to gather the data in order to know what it is that we’re changing, right? We want to be able to anticipate, what are some of the feelings that might come up? Where are the contexts? Where is it going to happen? Another intervention that I use, it’s called Point and call. So it’s this it’s a Japanese, like an OSHA safety procedure where you verbalize everything that you’re doing, as you’re doing it. It’s actually mindfulness based practice. And it is designed to cut down on errors, right. And for a lot of us when we get into our phone, and you get into check your email, but pretty soon you’re on Instagram, that’s just an error, like your brain has just slid into a different place. And it’s made an error, right? So, wait and call helps you stay out of that.

And so, you spend the day narrating your phone use, right? There’s another day where you build out this like catastrophic scenario where your phone has died, all technology has died, there is no way to communicate like you were talking about at your reunion where they were like, Yeah, how did you live without phones? Right? So, you imagine that time, and then you pick, like, you talk through what it would be like to be there? Like, how would we communicate? Oh, I would write on the door and this and that. I would just if they didn’t show up, I would just sit there for 30 minutes and see what happens right? And so, there’s a day where you’re actually doing your life like that, right? And so, it’s a really fun and engaging and curious practice.

And by the end of it, my guess and also data I gathered from a pilot study. It shows that you will be more connected to your life to the people in your life and to the things that mean the most to you.

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:42

So, the goal is to when you use your phone to be more directed and less mindless in terms of the way an hour slips away.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  34:55

It is to be more intentional in how you’re using it and it’s to be more aware of how you’re using it and to be more active in how you use it, right? If you were using your phone to reach out to your sober coach, do that, and then put it, put it down and walk away. Right? Go do something else that connects you to your sobriety or to your community or to your health, put it down when it’s time to put it down. And don’t pick it up a moment before this, like active intentional use moment starts, right?

Yeah. I think of it a little bit like, like the relationship we have with food, right? Like some of us can just sort of snack. mindlessly. Right?

And for some of like, who have kids, I don’t know, like, I have a lot of fucking snacks in our house. Like we have snacks, right? Like she loves Costco, we got a snacks, we get snacks, we have lots of snacks, we eat lots of fruit snacks, Jennie, you don’t need any more fruit snacks. Right? And so like, if I am not mindful of how I’m eating, I do run the risk of eating only.

Yeah, Zoe’s cookies and cream, popsicles, hot tamales and fruit snacks all day that is not, that is not aligned with my health that’s not aligned with how I want to be consuming food. It doesn’t make my body feel great. But in the moment, it’s easy. It tastes good. And I like it. And so, it’s just to change the way that you’re experiencing it by choosing how you experience it.

Casey McGuire Davidson  36:35

And so, was there something in your own personal journey that made you feel like you wanted to address the digital overconsumption piece of it boiling?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  36:45

So, so my daughter Elsie, was I’m going to say about 1111 months old. It was Super Bowl Sunday, about five years ago. And we have friends over. And so, the TV’s going, LCS sort of shuffling along the coffee table doing that. Like, I can’t walk yet, but I’m, you know, I’m going to give it a go.

And I get it in my head that I need to know what Snooki from Jersey Shore is doing as one does, right?

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:23

You’re like, at this moment, I just really need to know.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  37:28

I just really need to know what Snooki is doing. Right? And I need to know what Ron is doing. And if he’s going to jail or not, right, I need to know. And so, I start down the deep dive. And I’ll say takes her first steps. And I’m looking up Jersey Shore drama. And I looked up and everybody in the room saw it. Right? It was this, like this beautiful moment that I just missed.

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:57

And you were there. You were physically present, but you weren’t paying attention, or you were paying attention to your phone.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  38:05

Totally, but not even in an intentional values kind of way, right? Like, I think if I had been if I had been watching the Super Bowl, feeling super triggered about my sobriety, and everybody there was drinking, and I didn’t have any place to connect. And I was like, I’m just on the edge. And I went to my phone and connected with somebody who could support me in that moment. That feels very different.

Yes. Right. And then I look up and it’s like, oh, okay, yeah, no, there’s still drinking. I’m still here. I missed this moment. And also like, I’m going to choose to be here with my daughter who is like learning how to walk and play and like, it’s a different sort of thing. Right? Well, I’m looking up Jersey fucking shore drama, right? Like, I don’t I never have met Snooki. I’m sure. She’s a lovely person. I think so many of them are getting sober now. Right? Like situation is sober. If we love it. I don’t want to miss my life. Looking at drama on that.

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:04

Yeah, I totally get that. So, after that, was that when you first were like, Okay, I need to put down some internal boundaries around that. Or how did you get started before you did all the research and the studies and everything else?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  39:20

Yeah, so I, I had a little come to Jesus meeting with my brain with Brenda. And, and we were like, well, maybe there’s something out there that can help us. Like maybe there are some mindfulness based program. Maybe there is some book maybe there’s something right and there’s some stuff out there. There’s like digital detoxes and there’s it. It is not structured in a way that took me Miss like 30 Day approach, right. I know early on in my soul. So early on in my sobriety.

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:04

I participated in some anonymous programs and the 30, 60, 90 days. See how it goes, there was something really helpful in that sort of structure not being overwhelming not being for the rest of your life, just getting curious about how it felt.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  40:10

That’s right, just getting curious, right? And there would there just wasn’t anything out there that did that. And I thought, well, maybe I’ll see if I can make something just sort of loose, that you’ll be able to see if I can make something. And my first thought was to make, like a mindfulness based tech reduction group that I could lead. And so I had started to set that up through my former practice, I never actually ran the group because as I started to put together the curriculum for the group, I realized that it’s actually a much better like individual experience. And it could be a really, really lovely workbook. So that’s what gave birth to it. And then I decided, well, before I release it into the world, I would love for some people to do it. And for me to be able to see.

Does it actually do the thing that I think it’s going to do? So, I ran a pilot study on it, and it ended up doing even more than I thought it was going to do, which was really, really cool. And then, I put it to bed for a couple years had another baby.

And then just this year, I found myself, just stuck in my phone again. Like, it’s happening again. I have a very intense personality. I love high intensity things, right? I am a sensation seeker through and through. So, whether it’s alcohol or my peloton, or painting the house or gardening, it is in summer gardening, and I have this really intense love affair where my husband’s like you have to come inside. And I’m like, there are more weeds. And he’s in now. So, if there’s more to do, I will do it right.

So, I had a baby, and then got hooked again. And then came back to it and made a few.

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:58

Do you think it was having young kids that made you want to check out? Because there is this monotony of motherhood where you are tethered to just caretaking for someone else that sometimes I think that’s why drinking can wrap up when you have little kids because it’s something you can do that you can multitask with.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  42:21

So, I see about 24 clients a week. And then I also run a group practice and handle some of the admin, do some pickup, do some drop off, try and take care of my health make dinner, I think I pile so much shit into my day. It’s amazing shit, I love my life. I love everything that I have going on in it. And there’s a level of intensity that sometimes I just want the kill switch.

Like, I was a blackout drinker. It’s like, Oh, I know, I know what the kill switch is on my brain. It has a lot of tequila. And my one of my sober kill switches is a phone. And that’s it right? And so, I try not to overthink it. It is it is sort of me being intolerant of all of these things that I have baked into my life. And maybe the practice is to bake like less things into my life, rather than to find a kill switch so I can get a few moments of peace. I think that that is the solution, right to figure out what it is you’re trying to escape or what you don’t have to think about when you dive into your phone or when you pick up your glass of wine and then solve for that. Totally, totally, you’re doing it for a reason. It’s just the wrong solution. Hauled away.

Yeah, doing less is usually the better solution for me then adding one more thing that just sucks hours away day as yours away from my life.

Casey McGuire Davidson  43:56

Yeah, I find I feel really peaceful when I read books, but I have to read paper books. So, I did this last night because if I’m reading on my phone or my iPad, I get so distracted by checking other things. Whereas if I have a paper book, it just feels very peaceful and immersive. And you’re only concentrating on that.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  44:21

Yes, yes. I love that. I love that and I love you putting together though. If I’m doing this thing that I love doing on my phone and I’m not really attentive. I get sucked in like there are so many different on ramps for me to get on the like the freeway of like mindless phone use. Yes. Right. And like all it takes is one moment of inattentiveness and then three hours have gone, and I am not a minute further in my book, right? Yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  44:52

Can you share some of the success stories you’ve seen from people who’ve changed their relationship with their device? He says,

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  45:00

Yeah, absolutely, I see it both in clinical practice and in some of the people who participated in my pilot study. So, the majority of the people who participated in my pilot study reported using their phones significantly less. So, most of them came in and were using, like their, their screen time report was that they were using x eight hours a day, right? Somewhere on the lower end, like, two hours, two and a half hours, but most were pretty, pretty high up there.

So, what I saw was that the, as their screen time went down, the amount of like values oriented, real life activities that they had in they’re going on, went up, like your daughter as an example, right? Like, you take away the pad, B board. And then next thing, you know, 20 minutes later, she is engaged in drawing, right.

And so, I saw that just all the way across the pilot study, in terms of my so I probably have better data on my clients who we have them do smartphone diets, I see it a lot with women that I treat, who have body dysmorphia, or who have like relationship anxiety or relationship OCD, where we get rid of the threads and then newsfeeds. And that sort of like constant curated high intensity, like focus on physical form, that just gets shoved down your throat, that none of us can live up to it regularly is the case though, as women who are part of this culture who struggle with body focused issues, oral concern that our partners might be interested in somebody else, or find somebody else more beautiful, which is also that body focus, tissues thing, right? Once we stop exposing ourselves to so much of this macro level narrative about what we should be, then we can start re identifying who we are, and the things that are important to us. And that make us lovely, beautiful, wonderful creatures just as we are. And it happens with so many different client, even with my clients who are experiencing really intense depression, they’ll get on and they’ll read about the state of the world or like political anxiety, the constant news cycle, and the bubbling up of all of these events and these urgent things. I regularly see people’s PHQ nine, which is the patient health questionnaire and measures depressive symptoms, that starts to change, the last news media and zoom, that totally resonates with me both of those because it was part of something I had to change.

Casey McGuire Davidson  47:37

When I was quitting drinking, I used to watch political news in the morning. God helped me in that 24/7. All they’re trying to do is to make you angry and upset and depressed. That’s how they hook you. So, I stopped doing that completely and started listening to music in the morning, I took off all of the breaking news alerts on my phone, I don’t need to know, the moment something happens. And I actually don’t watch cable news or local news at all. I just read my news from a newspaper. But it’s not that I’m not informed. It’s that I’m not panicked about things. And then the other thing I noticed with my daughter, she’s 10. They’re so into skincare and all this kind of stuff. And I was like even through high school, I almost even some of college, I really didn’t wear makeup. That much. I didn’t even know how because we went out the door and came back at night and we didn’t look in the mirror. The whole time you went to classes you played sports you ate in the dining hall, but unless you were going to the bathroom, you were not aware of how you looked. Yeah, totally, totally. Anything else you want to leave listeners with in terms of digital overconsumption anxiety and happiness? What’s the takeaway? That if someone’s listening to this and like, yeah, I philosophically get it, but I’m not sure.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  49:18

Okay, so I love that idea of like, yeah, I philosophically get it, but I’m not sure see if your mind also does if you’re not driving right now, I want you to experiment with this, right? So just close your eyes for a second and see if your mind also says, Yeah, I know. Ready? Okay.

So, I’ll read some statements and all you have to do is just notice what your mind does with this right? Your smartphone use is messing up your sleep. If you have kids, they think you use your phone too much. If you have a partner, your partner thinks you use your phone too much. If you have parents, no matter their age. They think you use your phone too much. Turning on limits on your Phone, it’s not enough. You don’t care about that. Deleting the app, it’s not going to do it. Getting rid of your smartphone is not realistic, and you aren’t going to do it. Your life can be about way more than your phone. What did your mind do with all of that as I propose those things? What did you notice?

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:19

Well, the first four things I was like, yep, yep, yep. Yep. You know, and, obviously, I was like, yeah, there’s no question. When you said your partner thinks he like you look at your phone too much. I thought immediately. It’s like, what about him? But yeah, I at the end, it’s like your life. It’s about so much more than your phone. I was like, yes.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  50:41

Yes, it’s yeah, totally. Right. And like, our minds are so quick to know. We know. We know this shit is not good for us. We know that staring at the little rectangle isn’t giving us the life we want. Right? And we also aren’t quite sure how else to get it. Yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:02

Yeah, so this can help you? Absolutely. All right. I love that. And I love ending with that exercise and those questions. So how can people find you follow you get your book, all that good stuff?

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  51:15

Yes, love it. So, you can buy the book. It’s called Look Up. It’s a 30 day path to digital minimalism and real life maximalism and it’s available on Amazon as of July 2. And you can also, if you are wanting to do therapy, if you’re anxious if you have OCD. If you have alcohol use disorder or are struggling with alcohol and some other sort of like complex mental health thing that requires more than this amazing coach who is right here before us. Feel free to give me a shout.

I run the West Coast Anxiety Clinic. You can reach me at westcoastanxiety.com. Just send an email to [email protected]. And we’ll plug in and get you the help that you need.

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:05

That’s  awesome. Well, thank you so much, and best of luck with the book.

JENNIE KETCHAM-CROOKS  52:09

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Hello Someday podcast.

If you’re interested in learning more about me, the work I do, and access free resources and guides to help you build a life you love without alcohol. Please visit hellosomedaycoaching.com. And I would be so grateful if you would take a few minutes to rate and review this podcast so that more women can find it. And join the conversation about drinking less and living more.