Your hand instinctively reaches for the phone even before you've completely woken up. Checking a notification leads to checking more messages, browsing social media, replying to emails, and even reading the news. It's only after fifteen minutes that you realize your day has started following someone else's schedule.
What makes such a habit so hard to break?
The first thing worth pointing out here is the fact that people are predisposed to uncertainty and novelty. Over the course of one night, a number of notifications accumulates, giving rise to a feeling that something is waiting to be checked. Anticipation triggers the activity of the brain's reward centers, making each action feel like a step towards finding something interesting, helpful, or rewarding. Since the content of notifications is unpredictable, there's motivation to keep checking.
Another factor behind the addiction to notifications lies in our desire to feel connected. A message from a friend, some work-related information, or just an interaction via social media satisfy this desire to feel accepted and validated. Although such things aren't negative per se, starting the day with getting input from the outside world makes us reactive rather than proactive.
There's also the matter of cognitive overload. Just moments after waking, one’s mind could already be bombarded by all sorts of headlines, unread emails, commercials, and opinions before we get to have the time to even process our thoughts. All these can result to stress, loss of concentration, and difficulty in prioritizing things that really matter for the whole day ahead.
One does not have to forego his mobile device just to break away from the habit. One can try delaying his notifications by 15 to 30 minutes before responding to them. Use this time period to stretch, to hydrate, to breathe deeply, to journal, and simply relax before the digital world calls your attention.
As how one starts his day will dictate how he would spend the rest of it, one must take the opportunity to break away from the habit. One doesn’t have to allow notifications to tell him where to direct his attention first in the morning. His inbox, messages, and social media accounts can wait a few minutes.