The Silent Trade-Off: Screens vs. Healthy Development

0:00This program is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to treat diagnosed or cure any illness. Please speak with your doctor when starting a new health program. This is the Wellness Talk podcast and of course I am George Batista your host and your wellness advocate. I want to thank you for joining me this week and what we do here for those of you who are new. We help everyday people understand supplements, avoid common pitfalls and build healthier lives through practical evidence-based wellness education. So just trying to help people that's kind of what my motto is on this program. So we live in a digitally distracted world. Okay, that of course that's that goes without saying. Everybody's looking at screens and tablets and you know computer screens and things like

1:00that. But the question is how is that affecting not only this generation but future generations. We're going to attempt to answer some of that today and I know it's a very large question and it does a lot of complexity, complexities and nuances to those questions and those answers. So first we're going to address the infant part of this and we've got a brand new study out by the Lancet and this is infant screen exposure leads to slower decision making in childhood and anxiety in adolescence. So we're going to address that big topic obviously and but they're seeing a lot of different changes in kids now and obviously this is way different from folks like myself grew up without all this stuff back then. So how is that affecting the kids these days and then on top of that got another article from Tracy Beans and Michelle Edwards and this one is interesting. Let's not forget boredom is essential to childhood. Okay,

2:02I know I was bored a lot when I was a kid but what did that do for me? That offered me the creativity that I needed, right? It offered me to outlet to think and be creative. That's not happening today with today's kids, right? When I was a kid I was drawing and painting and you know just finding ways to keep myself busy. Well, kids don't have to do that because they're just on screens all day. So we're going to talk a little bit about that as well and then we've got two articles from wellness resources and then we're going to go into the more the physical signs of this specifically with eyesight. Okay, so how are our kids' eyesight being affected by what's going on here? So the first one from wellness resources childhood eyesight affects of pandemic and screen time. So this is going back a little bit in terms of what the pandemic did to our children and their eyesight but again, this is relevant to today and then the second one after that is we're going to talk about the

3:04top essential nutrients to protect your vision. Now this is going to apply to anyone not just kids but you know either way we want to try to protect our children's eyesight if at all possible, especially again affecting future generations, right? We don't want future generations, you know more and more people having to put glasses on and having eyesight problems because of what they're going through today. So we're going to go through those top nutrients and then we're going to go through the top formulas of course from wellness resources and I'll show you which ones you to look at in terms of for kids and for adults as well. I'm also going to play a clip from the news in terms of again what you know new studies and what they're finding you know what's going on with our kids eyesight and stuff like that. So a lot of information of course to talk about today in terms of eyesight and also the brain and how our kids are learning of course go to georgebatista.com that's the hub that's where you can watch the show that's where you can listen to

4:05the show that's where all the information is and literally that's where everything is so you can click literally on every you know button there and then it'll take you whether it's the social or whether it takes you to the show itself or to the articles or whatever but that's where you should be going because again that is the hub and of course if you like you know what we talk about here please like share and subscribe get this out you know to your friends and family if you want you can send them the link to georgebatista.com and this way they can view all the information there so but I want to thank you you know for those of you who support us on a regular basis it's much appreciated because you help us grow literally. All right so let's get started let's get right to and the first one is brand new information and this is out of the Lancet this is infant screen exposure leads to slower decision making and add on childhood and then at anxiety in adolescence so let's dive into this one so a new study published

5:06in the Lancet analyzed 168 children from Singapore over a decade and found that increased screen time as an infant this is zero to two by the way it's associated with slower decision making for children at age 8.5 and higher anxiety at the age of 13 researchers conducted brain scans at three time points and that was ages 4 5 6 and 7.5 and they they wanted to track how the brain networks developed specifically children who had higher screen time as infants had accelerated topological maturation of the visual and cognitive control networks leading to prolonged decision latency and increased adolescence anxiety okay so to move on here children took longer to deliberate or make decisions compared to their counterparts who had less screen time

6:07exposure as infants accelerated maturation happens when when certain brain networks develop too fast often in response to adversity or other stimuli so this is interesting so they're seeing an overdevelopment pretty quickly with children who are on these tablets and screens and things like that which actually affects them later on so they're literally making decisions slower because they're seeing an over maturation of this part of the brain that is interesting okay and that's something you wouldn't really think about okay and they're also saying here now Gen Z who was born between 1997 and 2012 approximately 30 percent of of adolescents will experience an anxiety disorder and that continues to increase the number of hospital visits for suicidal teenagers has doubled over the last decade okay also between 2016 and 2022 the number of

7:09prescriptions for individuals aged 12 to 25 increased by 66.3 percent now that is crazy so we're seeing a few things here first we're seeing obviously decision making is being affected that's the first thing second thing we're seeing is anxiety as teens why because now these children in these Gen Z children are now being born with phones and tablets in their hands right and this has never happened before didn't happen when I was growing up I didn't have to worry about this right because there wasn't there weren't any phones or tablets when I was growing up but when my daughter now my daughter was born in 2006 okay so you know there really wasn't much social media social media was just starting out at that time we didn't really have the phones at that time maybe there was some blackberry smart phones were just starting around that time we still had some flip

8:10phones happening at that time so it really wasn't a big deal with my daughter was born which is great and I was kind of lucky and it's really if you really think about it's a generational thing right when are these kids born so when she went through her first six seven eight years of childhood while I haven't really having to look at a screen much at all now after that there was tablets stuff like that so then she started getting into tablets a little bit but we we restricted that she didn't actually get a working cell phone till she was I want to say maybe 13 you know when she was leaving grammar school getting into high school because we knew at that point we eventually had to get her phone okay but she was already mature ready so her brain was I mean her brain wasn't fully mature but she was already in the stage where she was becoming a teenager and she was at that point where she could start to handle these things and of course we did that purposely because I didn't want her on these screens when she was you know six seven years old but that's not what's happening now

9:15what's happening and now three year olds are getting screens why because the parents are giving them these phones at three year olds to kind of quiet them down and then they're getting addicted to it all right we also what happened literally just a week ago with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook and YouTube what happened when they you know when they ended up on trial well they ended up on trial and what ends up happening well they now they have to pay millions millions of dollars right because it turns out social media is addictive we all know that okay but two things can be true at the same time yes social media is addictive but parents also have to be responsible for what they give their kids so again two things can be true social media can be addictive but parents also have to take personal responsibility and if they're not that is a problem and then the question is well what about peer pressure well you're the parent you've got a parent and that means that you have to deal with the kids peer pressure as well because it's for the good of the kid right you know now it's

10:21easy for me to say that because my daughter's now in college but again it's one of those things that we really have to clamp down on this now another thing they say here is the latest data shows that about 40% of all kids have their own tablet by the age of two two think about this two years old and they already have their own tablet their brains are not even not even developed yet and they already have a tab in all and all children of this age group average one hour and three minutes of daily screen time one hour and three minutes that is absolutely unbelievable another thing the journal of the American Medical Association study found that tablet use at age 3.5 was associated with increased anger expression at age 4.5 which also associated with increased screen use at age 5.5 so it becomes a vicious cycle so this is one of those things that we really have

11:23to be aware of you know I think parents and I feel bad for parents especially with kids being born these days because it's a tough fight for them because they have to not only deal with social media they have to deal with the distraction the digital distraction um they have to deal with these you know these kids and what they're seeing out they're now on social media and everything so I get it I get it it's a tough it's a tough road for parents you know for parents they have to really clamp down on this you know but again if you don't want your kids to not only have meant you know mental problems on slower decision making and anxiety as teenagers we've got to do something collectively when these kids are younger and this is why I am for I I do agree with having an age limit for social media and parents really have to get on this so the first thing to look at is obviously this is this is a problem for you know for kids decision making and or

12:26anxiety right we're gonna have a lot more anxious kids we're already seeing that prescriptions have gone up for anxiety and um it's a big problem so now let's uh from that let's let's go to the next one which is this is from Tracy Beans and Michelle Edwards this is let's not forget boredom is essential to childhood and this is a big one especially for me okay and why would I say that because again when I was a kid I was bored a lot I watched a lot of TV that I did but I was I was bored and one of the things that I did as a kid because I was bored as I got into drawing I got into art I used to actually sit there and you know I used to sit in the middle of the floor and I used to staple together these pages and I used to make comic books my own little comic books of different characters and things like that and I would do that for hours what was that

13:27doing that was uh that was you know was you know clamping on to the creative part of my brain to make me more creative and then when I got into my teenage years I got into music and music kind of was my distraction and I started playing the drums and I started getting playing guitar and getting into music right and that sucked up a lot of my creativity that's something we have lost because we have to remember that you know uh boredom actually creates the it creates the whole environment for creativity that's a huge thing and kids are missing out on that let's take a look at what they say here today's society has forgotten the children are born with imagination already in bloom if they are given room to tend to it so Rudolph Steiner who uh whose educational philosophy gave rise to Waldorf schools around the globe okay and Steiner's view authentic learning

14:30and inner development need rhythms of activity and restful emptiness in other words it requires periods when nothing is imposed allowing the child's soul to emerge from the interplay between inner life and the outer world why is this important because there is a zone between doing and thinking in which the human spirit can breathe make no mistake this point is the foundation of creativity in Steiner's own words it is only in higher states of older development that boredom becomes impossible before that it invites the imagination of a child to rise like wind in a hollow sail um that's absolutely 100% it's in those spaces between the thoughts where creativity rises think about this just think about the the most creative people that we've had who have revolutionized

15:31the world in the past 30 years okay who we looking at Bill Gates Elon Musk Jeff Bezos right um who else a Steve Jobs right just look at those four guys I think Elon Musk is part of the youngest guy right obviously Jeff Bezos I mean uh Steve Jobs no longer with us but let's just take a take a look at those guys those guys all grew up without digital distraction they grew up in an era where they had to think and be creative where do we think that Microsoft and Tesla and Apple and and Amazon all these things where was that all born out of it was born out of creativity they fulfilled a need creatively and this is where you get it right this is this is where you get these billion dollar companies today well what what would have happened if those those gentlemen that I just spoke about were born today and they were digitally distracted do you think they would have finished creative

16:35I would venture to say no but it was in the silence it was in their thinking it was in that creative process where they became very very creative and therefore they were their creative expression right that is really comes from another place it's a really a spiritual thing right it was allowed to manifest and therefore create these revolutionary companies that have done amazing things today right they've done incredible things whether you agree or disagree with their philosophies or that has nothing to do with it this is not a political discussion of whether you think they're right or wrong it's the point of what they've done for society what they've done right and the things they created you can argue all about their politics or you know whatever's right or wrong with the point is you can't argue their impact on the world and that came through creativity now I'm going to argue that today's kids are not going to be as creative we're losing

17:36creativity even in music in my domain which is music I'm going to argue that you're going to have less creative people moving forward in the future generations you're going to have less creative people in television and in film and in art because now we're all distracted we're not allowing that space between the thoughts um this is another thing they say here in this article so what exactly are children missing when they don't experience boredom when a child's time is filled with greens push notifications educational entertainment games with failsafe rewards and instant visual satisfaction the very impulse to create which is inherently there and drives during and thrives during boredom is short circuited a child's brain is deprived of the chance to inhabit that beautiful quiet gap between stimulus and response where imagination weaves threads into new patterns of thought narrative and plate another thing it says here boredom creates a kind of internal pressure

18:42with nothing coming in the mind is forced to produce something of its own so this is where I go back to the create the most creative people in the world again look at the creativity of the Beatles Jimmy Hendrix Led Zeppelin you know you can name all these you know Michael Jackson all these people who are the most creative people on the planet in the artistic world they had to sit there and write music Stephen King was known for being in his room for hours and hours and hours and hours on end and thinking and coming up with stories and creating and writing these things the greatest writers in the world who created all these sitcoms and movies and things like that what do you think that came from that came from boredom it came from thinking and this generation is not doing that today so you know it's something really to think about it's something that we all have to think about what's going to happen to our future generations are we going to miss

19:45creativity I mean we're already seeing it's already impacting the world and the pandemic also showed that too right because it put kids on screens it put people on zoom but I'm just fearing that especially now with AI and everything that's coming up right we're also now you're going to have not only screens but you're also going to have the impact of AI that's doing everything for everyone so now we even don't even have to think at all now AI is going to do all of thinking for us so now there's no creativity there's no thinking what's going to happen so this is something to think about I think it's a scary situation in my opinion we need to you know get these kids to start reading books again you know I think I think we should do everything we can to get kids to read books start their imagination get them drawing again get them playing outside right what did we do as kids we we create a tense I created a tent in my bed I put a little stick and I created I was I was in there with a flashlight with books and my my army guys and I was doing all these

20:47different things that was born out of creativity out of boredom boredom is a good thing and we're missing this so I mean I even do this on mine as an adult now in my 50s and I still do this I take the time to go out I put my phone away because I don't want that digital distraction and I go and I sit outside and you know and my backyard and I just think and I let the creativity hit me we need to do that these days so interesting stuff just things we have to think about you know and but it's it's affecting our children's mind especially it's affecting the adults mind now okay but you know our children still have a chance so let's see if we can help them out and really hone in on the parenting aspect of it and make them different make them creative I think that is the ultimate goal for parents these days we'll be right back we're going to talk about

21:52our eyesight and and distraction and digital distraction this is wellness talk if you're looking for an easy to use alternative to big tech services and their surveillance business models check out proton male most popular email providers scan the content of your emails and use your email address to create a detailed profile on you and profit from your data but not proton male proton male believes your data belongs to you proton males end to end encryption and zero access encryption ensure only you can see your emails not even proton can view the content of your emails and attachments proton male is protected by multiple layers of security and trusted by journalist security experts and millions of people around the world I use proton male to conduct all my business online check out proton male today at protonmail.georgebatista.com again that's protonmail.georgebatista.com

22:53if you value your privacy check out protonmail today all right guys so now we're going to get into eyesight so we're going to get some more physical stuff here the first part was about the brain boredom learning stuff like that so now we're going to get into children's eyesight and this is from wellness resources childhood eyesight affects of pandemic and screen time so again this is an older one but it this is you know we're still seeing the effects of what happened with the pandemic right and what it did to our kids not only to our kids brain and learning we're seeing you know all types of kids have learning problems now but all types of kids now are having eyesight problems as well because now they were forced to be on screens for seven you know for you know six seven hours a day and then you couple that with the fact that they're on phones and then they're on tablets and stuff like that so literally a kid from beginning to end is pretty much on a phone or a tablet or screen all day long so let's let's run into some of this information here it's an

24:00estimated 2.5 billion people now have near-sightedness reflecting an epidemic increase by 2050 an astonishing estimated 50% of the world's population will have near-sightedness 50% well that's not a coincidence is it it's because we're on screens this is where we live our life on screens look at what I'm doing right now on a screen right so let's move on what are the risk factors for developing near-sightedness or include near or close war a work with reading or screen time higher education levels lack of time spent outdoors one or both parents with near-sightedness and onset of near-sightedness in early childhood with significant progression during the first year in needing glasses let's look at dopamine and vision acuity so dopamine which is a neurotransmitter we all know that plays a vital role in vision and the health of the retina especially in childhood development

25:02okay it is involved with retina development visual signals with from the eyes to other parts of the brain and focus is also by the way important for cognitive function and learning and attention as well right a lot of people don't realize that dopamine is involved in that as well now studies show that outdoor activity directly impacts dopamine release and signaling in the eye when outdoor activity is limited dopamine activity in the retina and visual uh-uh ocular motor senses of your brain are also limited this is where we want to get kids outside especially the younger kids get them outside parents bring them outside because we're seeing it right here okay the visual acuity right so so now kids actually being outside getting little lights that they need that dopamine release and then of course if they're playing outside and all this and they're getting all that stimulation this is what they need and this is again this is what I did as a kid all I did was play

26:05ball I played baseball I played softball basketball football I played all these things this is all a big deal okay so we got to get kids outside to you know to to really get that stimulation get them off these screens you're also says here your eye muscles have multi-dimensional uh focus abilities if you're a child or you spend a substantial amount of time focused on screens and video games you are conditioning your eye muscles to stay focused on a short distance which they were not meant to be doing that for long periods of time this damages your ability to adapt to saying far in children this adversely uh adversely impacts coordination depth perception reading and other skills screen time must be limited and outdoor time is mandatory that's huge huge gotta get them outside right because then they can see far they can see their friend down the block they can see the trees then they can you know go and and their eyes are focusing in and out

27:08in and out in and out and that's really where it's supposed to be in and out focus that's what the eyes are supposed to be doing in a technical sense right so and again it helps the muscles of the eye as well so um so getting the kids outside very very important want to play a clip here it's going to show also the the effects of what's gone on with not only our digitally distracted world and kids but what's going on with their eyesight as well so uh this was I think this was a couple of years ago but again this is very relevant to what's going on today so check this out between watching television spending time on smartphones or using laptops for school kids are spending a lot of time on screens right and research shows they can actually cause issue for their eyes doctor say over the last 40 years the rate of near sightedness has doubled they also say kids who spent a lot of time on screens may also experience the digital eye strain which can cause headaches dry eye and blurry vision experts are recommending using the 2020-2020 rule every 20 minutes of screen time

28:15give your eyes a 22nd break and then try to look 20 feet away other things that you could do depending on how severe your symptoms are um are trying to remember to blink but it's actually kind of hard to remind yourself to blink um but even just resting your eyes by closing them for even a few seconds can help weird cuz um i'm blinking right now just because she mentioned it something you know normally do right well doctor say the good news is that as symptoms related to digital eye strain are all temporary it should not cause any long-term side effects interesting so there's a couple of things there to really um take a look at so the first one is a 2020-2020 rule which is something i use especially if i find myself on the screen for a long period of time so again it's 20 minutes if you're looking at a screen right so when you hit the 20 minute mark you get off that screen you look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds what does that do it lets your eyes readjust to the distance why because you've been looking at the same thing let's

29:20say the screen at the same you know the same distance and what does that do it weakens your eye muscles and weakens those part of the eyes that that let you focus her in further distance right so what you want to do is you want to yes you're focusing here 20 minutes you look away you look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds and let your eyes refocus and i would do that even more often okay now i would nest i maybe do even do it every 10 minutes you know especially kids with kids because they're trying to focus on their homework they're focusing on writing something or doing something online or focusing on a lesson and something like that you know and again you know the eyes for kids were not designed to do this for such a long period of time especially the younger kids adults kind of have gotten used to it but adults you know can can get off the screen and kind of have that awareness but kids may not be aware of doing that so this is where parents have to kind of educate the kids and show them okay you need to get off or maybe distract them

30:23you know maybe see how they're doing it distract them have them do something else or look at something else but again parents have to step in and do these things so that's the first and the 2020 method is great the second thing and this is again something that a lot of people don't realize is that when you are so focused on you know something let's say a screen whether it's a computer or a tablet or whatever it is you don't blink as much well blinking is one of the things you need to do either lubricate the eye it keeps the eye lubricated and this is why we have an epidemic of dry eye as well these days because people are not blinking as much because they're again looking at something and they're so focused on something for a long period of time blinking is another thing so I would suggest again when you look at something you blink as much as you can to keep that eye lubricated again you want to get those muscles strengthened and you want to get those eyes lubricated everything they can do right everything we can do

31:25to again get these kids to get their eyes set and and refocused on other things so those are you know great little tips there and then I'll bring us to our last article and this is from one of those resources so now we're going to look at some of the solutions that we can do so those are two solutions you can do just you know buy yourselves while you know simple solutions that you can do but now we're going to take a look at nutrients so what are some of the nutrients that we can use for for the kids these days and for people in general to help them with vision okay so this wellness resources top essential nutrients to protect your vision so the first one is stuff again needed for eye lubrication so we were just talking about blinking but now we're going to look at some of the nutrients that can help with that okay so eye lubrication is essential for health and to comfort your eyes dries commonly occur from eye strain and extended focus we we just talked about that tear production and eye lubrication requires several key nutrients so the most

32:30important one is omega-3 DHA and EPA vitamin A and hyaluronic acid now probably the biggest one is DHA and EPA because they go directly into the eye they also go to the brain they go to the fatty tissue the stuff like that so very very important but DHA and EPA are really really set very very good for your you know for your eye lubrication okay additional nutrients for eye lubrication include astazanthin glutamine vitamin C vitamin E vitamin D alpha-lapura acids selenium black current seed oil and omega-6 GLA these nutrients are essential to produce tears and protect tissues from oxidative stress so it's it's not just the fact that they're not blinking but remember you're developing oxidative stress also right in the entire body we have oxidative stress so these nutrients like vitamin C and the omega also help to protect against the oxidative stress as well so it's kind of a dual role there so omegas and the antioxidants very good

33:36for that okay but omega-3 again is probably the best for your eyes studies show that it takes about 6 to 12 weeks of EPA and DHA at 3.3 grams a day which most people are not taken in by the way most people are not taking three because remember that's 3000 milligrams right three three grams but it may take that much to resolve the oils for eye lubrication and resolve dryness so if you are dealing with dry eye omega-3s are one of the best things to support that just keep that in mind I know there's a lot of there's a lot of you know lubrications that you could use over the counter and stuff like that but if you want to look at it from the inside out in terms of supporting your eye health and in terms of supporting your eye lubrication you've got to take a look at DHA and EPA omega-3s very specifically DHA very very good for that and it's saying here 6 to 12 weeks at 3 grams a day all right so that's that's one number two we want to protect the lenses

34:44of the eye so obviously you've got UV radiation right you go about blue light again these things are admitting blue lights all day long and we're susceptible to that research finds that multiple vitamin and multiple mineral complex helps to support the lens of the eyes in the general population nutrients such as the again the omega-3s omega-6 vitamin C vitamin A torine corsets and vitamin K1 and K2 lutein and ziazanthin are critical critical for the protection of these lenses okay lutein and ziazanthin really are the building blocks of your especially the sharpness of how everything looks in that part of your eye okay so take a look at those and by the way at the end of this I'm going to go through the specific formulas that you can take a look at that contain all this okay so stay tuned for that number three retina and macula requirements okay so the retina and the macula are energy intensive okay mitochondrial rich tissues and they are at the back of the

35:48eyeball these delicate tissues require optimal intake of zinc torine vitamin A carotines right lutein like a pin ziazanthin astasanthin and again the omega-3s and other plant based antioxidants studies show that optimal intake of dietary antioxidants aid in protecting the retina and the macula from UV radiation and mitochondrial stress again the more antioxidants you have on board for the eye the better it is because your eyes getting all this stuff flooding it every single day from these screens so you want to balance it out with the omega-3s and the antioxidants number four neurodevelopment and childhoods now this is going to go back to what we were talking about initially in the first in the in the first articles okay high demand nutrients for ocular health include amino acids tyrosine phenylalanine and torine which are found in animal proteins in addition iron copper zinc B vitamins vitamin C D DHA lutein are also required for the

36:56neurodevelopment okay and eyesight as well as the child is is not you know developing not only for the eyes but for the brain as well remember DHA is great for the brain and development great resources for the kidney for the kids needs are DHA for the kids and we'll get into these formulas now so specific formulas you want to take a look at for the kids specifically wellness resources has the super mini multi okay that's a multivitamin for kids okay and then DHA kids the super mini multi is really small so if your kids you know they can swallow it pretty easy but if they can't swallow it you open it you put it in their apple sauce you put it in whatever their cereal whatever it is they can take it that way DHA again for kids very very small they can take that in as well you don't want to go with gummies gummies are an insult you have to remember that gummies and by the way wellness resources does not make gummies purposely because in order to make a gummy

37:58you got to put all kinds of additives you got to put preservatives in it you got to put coloring in it and all that stuff and I get it kids are more attracted to that type of stuff and they would rad they want that sugary taste and all that stuff but if you're going to put all that stuff and it's not really going to work properly it's not really going to do what you want it to do this is why gummies tend to be cheap so you really want them to have the you know the actual nutrients where it's not bogged down by additives and preservatives and stuff like that so again super mini multi DHA for kids you can also give them daily protector eye and immune and vitamin D as well okay daily protector by the way has all the antioxidants in it especially the lutein and the zazanthin for the eye so it's specific for the eye again this is great for adults as well if you need extra support from wellness resources you could look at astazanthin vitamin D strengthener plus and hyaluronic acid now if you want more intensive support beyond that you

39:03can look at our philipoic acid tumoric gold again these are from wellness resources corsetin repair plus brain protector grape seed extract glutathione ultra and green tea extract all these are great now obviously you don't have to take hold you know all these you can pick whichever one you want but again these all have the antioxidants that you can use for yourself and your children to help protect your eye and to help protect your brain so at the end of the day what are we saying here so my suggestion if you want to take any advice from me or any guidance from me and some say the advice you hear on this program is worth what you pay for it but you can be the judge of that again if you have kids my suggestion would be don't give them the screens or the tablets or the phones you know until they're way more mature I know you know it's very easy to distract them with it to give it to them to kind of keep them quiet but here's

40:07the thing if you don't give it to them in the first place and I'm talking about two or three year olds if you don't give it to them in the first place they're not going to be addicted to it yes they may see mom or dad with a phone but again you are the parent right so as you could say no I'm not going to give you that phone so you know because what ends up happening is once you give them the phone and they're used to being on that phone they used to being on the tablet what happens the addiction kicks in then when you take it away they have a tangent and that's it right you got them now addicted to that thing so my suggestion would be don't have them on there we didn't have my daughter on there at all up until her later years okay and then you know and what we did by the way we had my daughter had a phone when she was you know when we did give her her first phone maybe at you know 11 or 12 close you know 13 it was only a phone that could be on Wi-Fi so we didn't even have her I have it on a plan and then finally when she got into the older

41:09ages high school she actually got a phone with a plan on it so and my daughter you know yes my daughter's on her phone all the time talking to her friends and texting her friends constantly and all that type of stuff she's doing a normal stuff she's 19 years old now so of course there's nothing I can do about that at this point but you know what she can put her phone away and she can actually have a conversation with people she can actually be off her phone and I think part of that was because we made it a big thing also when we got to the table when it was dinner time or lunchtime or whatever it is with my daughter no phones allowed my phone is away from the table wife's phone is away from the table you know my daughter's phone away from the table when we're at a restaurant phones are away you know if somebody calls she tells them I'll text you back I'll call you back whatever it is phones are away that is the rule to this day by the way to this day when my daughter comes home from school she does her thing but when she's at the table with us and we're

42:10eating together phones are away that's just a part of it that's the rule and that's the rule we've had since day one okay and she's lived with it and she's okay she's doing pretty well she's gonna be graduating from college soon right and she's a pretty well rounded kid no major issues at all and knock wood right so that's another tip for you guys and then obviously try to you know another thing I would say is try to get them off these phones and tablets before they go to sleep you don't want the blue light hitting them right before they go to sleep because again that's gonna hamper them going to bed because it's gonna affect what melatonin production it's gonna you know it's gonna it might affect the anxiety as they go to sleep so I would take I would set a time where you turn off the Wi-Fi or you take the phone or tablet away from them when their kids at least an hour or so before they go to bed to let their body reset to let their eyes reset and to let their brain reset basically and let their body get ready for winding down and

43:17going to bed that's another tip okay that in combination with the 2020 rule that I talked about before with the blinking rule and then the top nutrients that I just went over to help with i health and everything we can do to you know so I think if you do this in combination everything that we've talked about on this program I think especially with the younger kids you know I think you're well on your way and again I know it's easier said and done because all their friends are doing it I get it I get it but there has to be some balance because we're really messing up our kids brains we're messing up their eyesight and we're messing up the creativity for future generations in my opinion so that's my two cents on the matter digital distraction by the way I'm doing that as well I'm getting off my phone a lot I'm not on social much anymore if you guys probably realize that and I'm doing more of my work and focusing more on my work instead of being digitally

44:21distracted it's a big thing and I think we should all you know look at doing that so I hope you guys get some good tips out of this and you know get some good education on this all right guys I want to thank you for joining me this week it's a pleasure to not bring you this information make sure you take care of yourselves make sure you take care of each other take care of your eyes and your brain as well and as always control your health