95: How to Build a Happier Brain by Mastering Your Use of Technology with Ellen Petry Leanse

Ever feel like your brain is rotting away as you spend too much time on your smartphone? Worried your kids will have no social skills because their main form of socializing is texting and group chats? You're not alone! Listen as Ellen Petry Leanse describes how to “hack back” to stop the constant distraction and start to build a happier brain through connection in nature, looking in another human being's eyes, and strengthening the longer-lasting, blissful serotonin cycle in the brain (which we experience as a result of connection and intrinsic satisfaction) as opposed to the quick-fix dopamine response (“video game” brain).

What You'll Learn in this Episode:

• Why it's critical that we “hack back” against designers who are creating online interactions in a way that cause addiction and distraction.
• How to teach our teens and kids to put the smartphone down and connect with other humans and nature.
• Why we should never start our day with technology
• And much more.

Ellen's Take: What does it mean to be a Vibrant Happy Woman?

“Purpose + Practice + People
Purpose means being grounded and doing something I believe in.
Practice: challenging myself to live with my values a little bit more day by day; trusting myself more than I trust the messages around me and coming and asking myself the hard questions and what I want and why I’m here.
People: we’re connected to others in ways we do and in ways that we still don’t understand.”

A Challenge from Ellen:

“Ask yourself when you pick up your phone, ‘Is this really serving ME right now?'”

Links From This Episode:

• www.ellenleanse.com
• The Happiness Hack: How to Take Charge of Your Brain and Program More Happiness into Your Life
• Follow Jen Riday on Instagram
• Jen on Facebook
• “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
  “Sapiens“
• Vibrant Happy 5 (get five self-love tips every week!)

…and never miss an episode again by signing up for the Vibrant Happy 5 (includes free guided meditation from Jen), which is a weekly digest of quick n' easy bullet points listing everything Jen created the previous week (including Vibrant Happy Women episodes and Happy Bits), plus other self-love-related goodies you'd enjoy. Make your inbox more positive and inspiring by signing up here.

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