7 Screen Free Weeks to Improved Memory & Changed Brain

When was the last time you went even an hour without checking your phone voluntarily?

You're forced to sit with yourself, and I think that's something that humans aren't forced to do anymore, and it's scary.

Research shows that the average person, they would tap, they would swipe, they would click their phones roughly 2,617 times a day. And for heavy users, that number could exceed 5,400 times daily.

My body had physical manifestations of anxiety those first few days without, without all this input. I mean, I was having night sweats, heart palpitations.

The average screen time now exceeds over 7 hours a day. Think about it, that's nearly half of our waking lives spent staring at our digital devices.

So I spent 7 and a half weeks, I lived with monks, like you said, Amish farmers, got my brain scanned before and after, did cognitive memory tests before and after, and dove fully into What is it like to be human without a screen in 2025?

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I'm your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Today's episode is something we rarely give our brain, which is like stillness. You know, when have we spent time to wonder, to think, to ponder, to just notice things? What if we turn down the volume of life long enough to actually hear ourselves think, you know, again, and maybe even hear something bigger than ourselves? According to a 2023 study, excessive screen time is linked to reduced cortical thickness. And what that means is, especially in children's brains, and this is the area that's responsible for critical thinking, for language, and Adults aren't immune either. Constant digital distraction can lead to mental fatigue, decreased memory recall, shrinking attention spans, skyrocketing anxiety. There was one MIT study that I was reading that even found that multitasking with your technology can lower your IQ by upwards of 10 points, which is the same hit as missing a full night's sleep. So today I'm very excited to have this conversation with someone who Let's say disconnected to reconnect. And so this will be a fun conversation. It's with Carlos Whitaker. He stepped away from screens for, get this, 7 full weeks living with monks and Amish farmers to recover something I think we're all at risk of losing, which is our humanity. And so let's explore what happens when you step out of the noise and into what it means to truly be more, more human again. And so welcome to the show, Carlos.

Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me, man. I'm so excited to be here.

I think that was the longest intro I've ever, I've ever shared. I tell people, you know, all the time that, you know, when you train your, your brain, that you could really transform your life. I was wondering, what was the impetus for all this? What was the moment that triggered your decision to do this self-experiment, you know, and, you know, was your mind asking for some sort of reset? Where were you?

You know, I, um, I think, Jim, that for me, I just got that notification one Sunday that many of us get. It, it kind of like attacks us on Sunday afternoons where it— our phone will tell us how many hours a day we have been spending on it. And one Sunday afternoon, I got it. It scrolled across my screen and it said, you have spent an average of 7 hours and 23 minutes a day on your screen. Well, immediately I thought to myself, well, you know what? I mean, listen, that's average. You just said it yourself. That's, that's like an average screen time for an American user. I, this is what I do full-time. It's my job. But Jim, then what I did was I just felt this unction in my gut to do the math. And that math is what led me to this crazy experiment. The math was, That's 49 hours a week. So 2 entire cycles of the sun, uh, around planet Earth that I am staring at this 7 inches of LCD. Then I kept doing the math. That is over 100 days a year.

Wow.

And then I kept doing the math one more time. I think you and I are probably similar ages. I'm 51 years old. And if I live to be 82 years old, I will spend over 12 years of my remaining life on my screen. And so it was shocking enough to where I said, you know what, let me look for some research. So I looked for the research, uh, and what, what I found was a lot of, uh, scientific research that told me that the phone was bad. Um, and I get it. I mean, I think we all get that, but I hadn't found anybody that had actually truly stepped away to see what life was like on the other side of the screen. Uh, and so I said, let's do it. I'm going to jump in, go in. So I spent 7 and a half weeks. I lived with monks, like you said, Amish farmers, got my brain scanned before and after, did cognitive memory tests before and after, and dove fully into what is it like to be human without a screen in 2025. And it was a fabulous, fabulous few months.

Why did you choose to live with monks and, and, and the Amish? You know, what was it about? their way of life that you felt could potentially help you to, you know, rewire your, your mind, your heart, your attention?

Yeah, I definitely believe that our souls and our psyches are kind of intertwined, whatever people believe about that. And so what I wanted to do was find kind of 2 subsets of people living in America that maybe don't struggle as much with screens. So I thought, oh, well, a monk, obviously monks Uh, probably don't struggle with screens and obviously the Amish don't. So that was kind of, uh, why I decided also, um, this specific order of monks spent about 23 hours a day of silence, give or take a little bit. And so I knew that that was going to be shocking to my system. Uh, and so, yeah, so for the first 14 days I spent 23 hours a day of silence. Imagine going from 7 hours a day on your phone Talking to my phone all the time out loud, making videos. It was horrible. It was, for the first 2 days, I will, I will not fluff it up. The first 2 days was horrible, but day 3 literally felt like an elephant stepped off my chest and it was the most freeing day for me. We can get into that a little bit, but monks and Amish, I will let everybody know, I'll break the facade. Monks have phones. Monks struggle with, with screen time as well. And the Amish screens and phones are starting to sneak into their subculture as well. And so So I think they were learning a little bit from me as well.

And when you mentioned the silence, I'm curious, this was kind of a question I was thinking about, but when you mentioned it, you know, why, why do you think people are intimidated or scared to be alone in silence? You know, there's that quote saying that all of, you know, humans' problems, paraphrasing, stems from our inability to sit alone just with our own thoughts. You know, why, why are we afraid to face silence? Why is it so intimidating?

I think it's intimidating because we have Um, at least the current culture, uh, and current society really around the world, not just in America. Um, solitude is actually almost extinct. Uh, if you think about it, humans were created, um, with the capacity for a lot of solitude in our lives. And up until really the car radio was put into a vehicle, if you were traveling from point A to point B, you were forced to sit in silence. You were forced to sit in solitude.

Mm-hmm.

And ever since that car radio got put in, we no longer have the ability to be silent. So, you know, a lot of people go to a red light. If even if it's 30 seconds at a red light, you look over at your phone and you pick it up to see if there's any notifications and you click on a couple of things. We can't even sit for 30 seconds anymore. And I think the reason why it's scary is because we just don't do it anymore. We just don't have access to it anymore. So what I was able to do was force myself Into this lifestyle for a few weeks of silence and solitude, and although it was scary because when you can't run away from your own thoughts, right? I didn't have TikTok to scroll. I didn't have Jim's podcast to listen to. You're forced to sit with yourself, and I think that's something that humans aren't forced to do anymore, and it's scary. And so I was forced to face some things in my own life that I was like, wow! I can't make my brain. leave it by watching cat videos on TikTok. I have to sit with it for a while. But I think in that sitting with it and in that silence and solitude, there was some major healing that began to happen in my life.

I want to go into that. I have a copy of your book Reconnected here. Highly recommend. If you're watching this on YouTube where we put the extended version, I'm showing the COVID Highly recommend it. This was such a— I did this in one sitting, this read, because it was such a powerful read. And when you're thinking about reconnection, I mean, so many people feel, they feel isolated despite being quote unquote more connected than ever. Right. And from your experience, because there's a science and art to success and fulfillment. Right. You know, what, what, what are the lost arts of being human that you discovered that, you know, maybe we could recover today?

Yes.

Daily practices that might help us reconnect with ourselves or, or something else.

I think when I got back and everyone asked me What was it like when you disconnected? I think initially I was going to call the book Disconnected, but then I quickly realized, well, wait a second. I kind of feel like, you know, if you're watching on the extended version on YouTube, you can see Jim has a shirt on with a brain and a plug. And I actually felt like I reconnected. I plugged back in to my humanity because when I disconnected, I quickly realized this wasn't an experiment about a phone. I think I thought I was going to write a book about why phones are bad. But instead, I ended up writing a book about why being human is so awesome. And here's some things I think, very practical things that your listeners, I think, could take away from the story from the book. I even have a documentary on it. Some of the lost arts of being human that I quickly realized I've forgotten and are almost extinct is the gift of wondering. Wondering, I believe, is a gift that we have begun to lose. And the reason why I say that we've lost it is because we don't wonder about things anymore. When I was with the monks and I didn't have my phone and I wondered something about, well, I wonder why they walk in 2 by 2 into the chapel and why they're, they have grand silence from 7 PM to, you know, I remember that first day reaching into my pocket to grab my phone to ask ChatGPT. And I didn't have the ability to, or I couldn't Google it. And guess what I had to do, Jim? I had to just, Wonder, and the more the more I wondered, the more I realized wow! Like actually, this wondering is leading to better questions, and those better questions are leading to some creativity and some things that I feel like has I've lost because I just have so much access to answers right away. So now I call Google the wonder killer, and I I tell my friends all the time if we're ever. like at a dinner party and someone says the words, and I want all your listeners to remember this. If you're in a group and someone says, I wonder, immediately you're going to see somebody reach into their phone to grab their pocket. And I want you to scream at them and go, stop. Don't look up the answer. We're just going to wonder. So wondering was, was something that I began to do. I think noticing, we've also lost the art of noticing because we're looking at our screens, looking down all the time. I had an experience because I didn't have my phone with me. I was walking through the monastery grounds, and I saw what looked like a cicada on the ground. And I went up to it and I realized it was a baby hummingbird. And for the next 3 days, Jim, this baby hummingbird that I rescued was like my Netflix. Every day I'd check on it. I'd feed it, you know, some, and I had this whole moment and then the mom came and rescued it and it flew away. I never would have had this moment had I been looking at my screen. So like noticing is a lost art as well. Uh, one more that I'd love to tell people about is even Um, you've got wondering, you've got noticing, but what if we actually began to, to, um, not check in the morning? The first hour of my day, this is what I do. That the first hour of my day, I don't check my phone. I don't— my phone is not charging in my bedroom anymore. I bought this, this really cool thing called an alarm clock. It's the craziest invention ever. All it does is wake me up. And then, and then when I wake up, I go and I have my coffee. Uh, and savoring is something that, that we've, we've almost lost as well. And so like, I savor my coffee. What does it mean to savor? Well, I'm not looking at a screen and multitasking while I'm drinking my coffee. Suddenly my coffee tastes so much better than it ever has before. And so, you know, throughout my book, I give a lot of handlebars, uh, I think to allow people to recover these lost arts of being human. I got about 17 of them in there that I think if you start reapplying back into your life, I really think you're going to start having breath again.

I think a lot of people are going to be inspired or even challenged, you know, after this conversation. You mentioned you had your brain scanned. I believe it's with our mutual friend, Dr. Amen. I also did it before and then I had treatment, you know, for my TBI and then after. And it was very telling. I was wondering, can you tell us how your brain looked before the experiment and maybe after? And did your Did you find your cognitive functioning like changed any?

Yeah, this was probably, uh, the most shocking part of it all for me. I, I, uh, to be fair, when I, um, went back to Dr. Amen after my 7 and a half weeks, right, um, I had this fear that my brain was going to be worse. Like, I, you know, you— I, I do this entire experiment, I'm like, what if I go in there and everything is worse? You know, maybe the phones are saving us. Uh, but that's actually obviously not what happened. I also had a big fear. My father, um, My father passed away from dementia, and I'm very big in trying to be as healthy as I can and ward that away. And so, you know, Dr. Amen, the second time I went in there, he very quickly was like, Carlos, I've seen dementia brain before, and your brain looks great, but let me tell you what improved. He said that my cerebellar had about 5 years of healing in those 7 weeks. He says he's seen a lot of TBIs. He's seen a lot of— and he's like, now, Obviously, this wasn't a scientific experiment. I was the only lab rat, right? There wasn't, you know, I was the only data point. This was just, um, Carlos living with monks and living with the Amish. So who knows if this was not looking at a screen? Who knows if this was praying with the monks every day, you know, 6 times a day? Who knows if it was, you know, working with my hands with the Amish and being as exhausted as I was on that farm every single day? Or what I like to believe is that it was all of it put together. But not only did my brain heal, but this was the kicker for me. I did about, and you probably did the same thing, about 45 minutes of cognitive testing before I had my brain scanned, uh, with Dr. Amen. And so, you know, they were flashing up images on the screen and I'd have to remember the images, uh, when they'd flash them back 5 minutes later, faces or numbers, orders. Before I did this experiment, I was in the 50th percentile. of memory for men in America. And after this 7.5 weeks of not looking at a screen, I ended up in the 99th percentile of memory for men in America. My jaw dropped. So literally not looking at a screen for 7.5 weeks, my memory went to almost the top. And so that— the proof is in the pudding right there. My screen time has been dramatically changed since I got that result.

I love it. It feels like, you know, just to be able to have almost this little sabbatical. If people, you mentioned my shirt is a brain with a little plug that's unplugged and it says, I miss my pre-internet brain. Let me know your size and your address. I'll definitely get down there. We'll send you one. Yeah, we donate all the proceeds to Alzheimer's research and memory of my grandmother. So I feel you. In the book, You mentioned that silence, stillness, in a way, became almost like your teachers. What did you discover? I'm curious because I've never done this, you know, as an experiment. I'm actually thinking like how I could do something like it. Yeah, sure. I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, I don't have 7 weeks to do this.

You don't have to. I did it for you.

That's perfect. Did you learn anything in the silence or the stillness, if it was your teacher, about your own I don't know, your own emotions, your own thoughts, your own fears, desires absent because you have this clarity because you don't have this like all this digital noise, every like, share, comment, cat video, you know, app notification update, you know, all this stuff that's going on.

I did. I, I think the very first thing I discovered, especially because my body, Jim, just so you know, I mean, I had physical manifestations of anxiety those first few days without without all this input. I mean, I was having night sweats, heart palpitations. I didn't even— I've never even felt a heart palpitation. And then next thing you know, like, my heart is skipping beats and I'm like, what's happening? Like, it— and I basically was having withdrawals. Um, this is what Dr. Amen told me. And so I started thinking in the silence, like, what, what is it that I like? Am I really addicted to my phone? Is this really what I'm addicted to? And oh my goodness, in the silence. I heard very clearly, Carlos, you're not this, you're not addicted to your phone. You're actually addicted to the control that your phone gives you. And, and if you go past, um, past the needle, right? The needle, the phone is just the needle. And in the silence, I realized the drug was control. Life 360. How fast are my teenagers driving? Notifications that, you know, am I going to miss the speaking opportunity because I didn't check my email fast enough? All of these things that are happening, notifications that we're getting. I spent 7 and a half weeks and never had a single buzz on my wrist or in my pocket to take me away from being truly present with the person that is right in front of me. And I lost all semblance of control in my life because truly, we're actually not in control. These, these, these phones give us this false sense that we are in control. But for me, the biggest realization was that the phone isn't the drug, the phone is the needle.

Hmm.

And so it's just a needle. So you can have good things that you inject into your body through a needle that can help heal you. You can have negative things that you inject into your body through a needle that can hurt you. The phone is the same way. The phone is neither evil nor good. It's just a needle. What am I putting through the needle in order to get better or get worse? And so I think one of the biggest realizations I realized in the silence was I'm not addicted to my phone. I'm addicted to the control it gives me. And it If the phone goes away, there'll be another needle that comes in. You know, you, you can go back. There was an article written in the New York Times in 1923, and the front page of it was that our youth— it was— I have to find the exact article. I'll send it to you. But it was basically the, uh, they were worried about kids walking around with kaleidoscopes, stepping into the street. They were like, the kaleidoscope is going to be the fall of mankind. You know, people are going to be injured because they're staring into their kaleidoscopes. They're addicted to the kaleidoscope because it's so beautiful. And I just think that the phone is the new kaleidoscope, and there'll be something else after that. So we just have to, uh, keep remembering that what is the thing behind the phone that we're so addicted to? It's not the phone itself. The phone's a needle, but what is the drug for you?

And yeah, I agree with you that technology is not good or bad, it's just how it's used. You know, technology is a tool for us to use, but if the technology is using us, then, then who become— then we become the the tool, right?

Absolutely.

I'm curious if we could go, uh, Carlos tactical. Now you're back in the modern world, you know, what's your relationship or how do you manage your, your phone, your notifications? What's your relationship with social media, with AI? Do you set boundaries that you live by? And obviously these are just what you're doing and maybe people listening, they don't have to follow exactly, just like they don't have to follow me.

Yeah.

What I do exactly in terms of my routine and the boundaries that I set. But, you know, what's your relationship with your phone, with social media, with AI? How do you maintain this post now that you're, you know, back in the modern world? In a world where everyone has access to the same information, the same tools, your mind is your only true competitive advantage. But here's the reality. Most of us, we learned what to think in school. You learned a lot of facts and formulas and procedures, but nobody taught us how to think. That's exactly what Kwik Thinking does. In our flagship program, in just 21 days, 3 weeks inside, you'll discover how to think clearly under pressure instead of freezing up, how to accelerate your learning speed so it becomes your real superpower so you can adapt faster than ever before, how to Absorb and retain more information with less mental energy and effort. If you're ready to unlock your limitless mind, click the link on the screen. Stop letting unclear thinking hold you back from the life that you're truly capable of creating.

I have just hung onto some of the beautiful things I was reminded that we don't do anymore. Uh, and so in my book Reconnected, I, I think What people will find is like, wow, like I do want to wonder more. So, so let me give you a couple of things that I do like. Uh, so one of the first things I did is I literally, if I ever say I wonder, and we've already talked about it, I sit and wonder for at least 30 minutes. I just let myself wonder because remember, wondering isn't saying I wonder. Wondering is what happens after you say I wonder. So just sit with it for 30 minutes. Don't find the answer out. You know, Claude and ChatGPT, they're waiting for you later. Uh, you can, you can use them. I use ChatGPT every single day. It helps me plan a lot of things. I'm not anti-AI. I'm just HI. Like, I'm the human intelligence guy. Let's, let's like lean into that. Also, my, my, it's so important that we do not have our phones in the bedroom. So for me, that's one of the first things I did when I got back is I made sure that my phone is never in the bedroom with me. So now when I, again, when I wake up, my alarm wakes me up. I don't like touch my alarm face and start rubbing it and it doesn't make me mad. It just wakes me up. And the first hour I'm awake, Uh, it is completely screen-free. I just drink my coffee. I did something else that I think was very helpful for me, and it could be for some of your listeners. I love the news. I love to, uh, stay up to date what's happening in the world. But I realized that most of my time on my phone was spent, um, on X or on these news apps that I was just consuming news nonstop. So I deleted those apps off my phone and I subscribed to this really crazy thing that they throw in my front yard every single morning wrapped in plastic called a And in the mornings, I read the newspaper just like my dad did back in the '80s. And when I'm done reading the newspaper, it takes me about 30 minutes. I know everything that's happening on planet Earth. If anything else happens that I need to know about, I'll find out tomorrow. So that's something else that I, that has really given me a lot of time back. Something else that I've done is, I think you had a guest on a few weeks ago, as far as from the point of when we're recording this, that was talking about intuition. Mm-hmm. And that's something that I really reconnected with. I've deleted Yelp off my phone. No, no longer is Bob from Toledo, Ohio, who gave 2 stars to a Thai restaurant, going to be the thing that keeps me from, and my intuition, from going to a restaurant that I want to go to. So I deleted Yelp off my phone. Also, this is something fun that I think some of your listeners should try. I no longer, in 2 years since this experiment, I have not used Google Maps or Apple Maps to navigate anywhere in my city. So there's data that shows that London cab drivers, their brains work at a way higher level than Uber drivers do because they have to memorize the city. They have to know where they're going. And so, you know, most of us will type in, you know, direct fastest directions to Chipotle. We know where Chipotle is. You don't need to put the directions in your phone. But what if we can save us a minute? Maybe that minute of solitude or that minute longer without maps telling you what to do is what you need. So I no longer use maps anymore. And then what I do want to give one more thing that the Amish really helped me with. We've talked about the monks, but one of the things I learned from the Amish is that they're not anti-technology. And this is something that I use every day. The, this kind of nugget from them, Willis, my farmer friend that I lived with. Um, as he was teaching me how to shear sheep every day, I asked him one day, I said, well, Willis, like, like you've got a flip phone. And I was like, you know, this doesn't make sense. Amish are using flip phones and you're riding e-bikes around like horse and buggies are starting to go away. And he goes, this is the question we ask ourselves whenever we introduce a new piece of technology into our lives. Carlos, the question we ask ourselves is, is this piece of technology going to bring us closer to our community or going to take us farther apart from our community?

Ooh.

When the e-bikes came along, because there's so many e-bikes in the Amish world now, we realized that a car will never be allowed in the Amish community. Why is that? Because if Miss Betty's barn burns down and I'm in Toledo, Ohio, 3 hours away in my car, I cannot get back to her to help her rebuild her barn. Therefore, we're going to make sure that we only invite technology in that is not going to take us farther away from our community. TVs will totally do that from us. So what I have done, Jim, is I've begun to ask myself, not only with technology, but with apps as well, is this piece of technology or is this app I'm going to install on my phone going to bring me closer to the community that I'm in or take me farther away? And that has become such a compass and navigation point for every new piece of technology or application that I install on my screens. Um, and I think that can really help your listeners as well.

I love, I love that reference point in terms of the evidence that's just bringing you closer together. So it's not just, you know, our neurological networks, we're talking about our social, the depth of our social networks. So when you're talking about community and like real human interactions, you know, what a concept. In addition to what you said, that first principle that you stated, how can someone listening today rebuild that sense of tribe Or, you know, connection without escaping to a monastery, right? Like, is there a practical step to help build deeper, more meaningful relationships? You know, like, we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen and high achievers who all come to me in private and say how lonely things are sometimes. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. There's actually a book called The Lonely Century that I recommend for a lot of people to listen to, talk about how we're the most connected we've ever been and the loneliness, loneliest we've ever been. Um, the one thing that I tell people when it comes to community and building community is that, like, I know that Instagram feels like if you're following somebody or Facebook, it feels like you're connected with these people. Let me just tell you, you're not. I mean, I mean, as much as even some people, that's the only way maybe they can connect because of life circumstances. I get it. I think it's a good first step, but the most valuable thing you can do is connect in a community. Where screens aren't the thing or the way that you stay connected. So what does that look like? What I've done is I've decided to come up with hobbies that I can do that do not allow me to hold a phone in my hand. 2 hobbies in particular, since I've come back from the monastery that have helped me establish a community outside of my screen.

Pickleball.

Pickleball is something that you can't play, uh, when you have a phone in your hand. Well, The pickleball community, at least in Nashville, is gigantic. I have made more friends the last year and a half. Just, I didn't know anybody that played pickleball. I walked to a pickleball court all alone. These are some of my closest friends now.

Why?

Because we're engaging in an activity that doesn't involve a screen. It's breath to breath. It's face to face. I think the second thing that I have done is I started to fly fish. Fly fishing is not something that allows me to do it with a screen. And I've made so many friends. That way as well. So you know, I think what I would just really recommend for your listeners is to think of something, especially the entrepreneurs, high capacity leaders, people that are going a thousand miles an hour. I say, "What can you do that can get you back to three miles an hour?" Three miles an hour is how fast a human being walks. And so what I have done is tried to get back to three miles an hour in many areas of my life. And what I realized, Jim. Is when I got back to 3 miles an hour, I suddenly was able to notice all of this community around me that I was flying by. And when I was flying by them going at 100 miles an hour, I didn't even know they were there. When I slowed down enough to get back to 3 miles an hour, not only are you going to find community, but you're going to realize that it was actually there waiting for you all along.

That's a mic drop. Carlos, do you recommend— because some people are thinking like, Because we have some very ambitious listeners and they'll want to go really extreme and try 7 weeks. But do you even recommend people do like just like a 1-day free screen day?

Yes.

And so if someone listening wants to reclaim the things, all the benefits that you mentioned, their attention, their memory, their humanity, you know, their spirit, what's the first screen-free day you'd recommend that they design? What does that look like? I mean, you don't have to break it down hour by hour, but if there's kind of a big blueprint for like a little one-day digital reset.

Absolutely. And I actually have exactly what you're asking. I have on my website, it's called Human School, and where I teach people how to get to one screen-free day a week. Literally, that is the total goal. If you can just reclaim one screen-free day a week back, you're literally going to gain months back of your life. But the thing that super ambitious people want to do is like, okay, Carlos, give me the name of the monastery. Tell me the Amish farmer. I'm on my way. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, listen. Just start. Because for some people, this is going to be tremendously difficult. I want you to take your screen and go put it in your car. Put it in the mailbox, drop it off at your neighbor's house for 2 hours one day this week. Not only put it like turn it off, but I want you to make sure it's at least 100 yards away from you. Physical proximity literally is the hardest thing for 2 hours one day this week. Then after a week, I want you to go to 4 hours. Then after that, I want you to go to 6 hours. And what you're going to get to hopefully Is one screen-free day a week. Now, again, there's always going to be caveats to this. I'm a nurse, or I've got to make sure. If you just get yourself to one screen-free day a week, and if you can't get rid of your phone completely, what I have done is I have placed my phone—it has been on permanent do not disturb for the last two years. So I get zero notifications on my phone. Now, that doesn't mean that when I pick my screen up that they're not waiting for me. They're still there. I still see the emails. I still see the messages. calls, but they will never take me out of my current reality and tell me that that's more important than where I'm actually at. So if you can't do the screen-free day yet, then put your phone on do not disturb for 2 hours, then do not disturb for 4 hours. And then that way you are in charge of your phone. Your phone is no longer in charge of you. And so those are 2 simple things that I think people can get to. But you're right, the goal is whatever day it's going to be, get to one screen-free day a week, and it's going to give you Months, if not years back of living.

Yeah. And in a way, on people's smart devices that make us not so smart all the time, you know, 2 of the most important functions could be do not disturb and like airplane mode. Absolutely. Carlos, before we wrap, I'd like to ask this question. Our podcast at its essence is about accelerated learning and our love of learning. Um, is there one thing that you are currently excited about, something that you're learning or maybe you're, you're, you're studying? That, that, that's lighting you up, that you're curious about, that you're wondering outside of what we talked about in this conversation? And is there anything on— yeah, that you're pondering or particularly focused on?

No, I actually am. I'm currently— I'm, I'm literally sitting in— so I'm 51 years old and I feel like I'm of a generation in Gen X that I'm not like my parents' generation. Like, YouTube's not scary for me. Digital devices isn't scary. Scary for me. And I have hit this phase where a lot of my friends around me are kind of like beginning to clock out and beginning to be like, well, you know, we're entering into the afternoon of life. And I just have really been leaning into kind of midlife these days. And I've been really leaning into the joys of what midlife is. And so I'm slowly but surely creating and learning what it means to be half built. And still with another half to build, and and and learning about that, learning about more people that are in their fifties that are doing incredible things, that are starting brand new things, that are doing brand new things. Because you know, I just released a documentary last year. That was the first time I've ever done anything like that. And now I'm like, sweet! What's the next one I'm gonna do? And so I I think I'm starting to try to break the myth and learning and helping other people break the myth that midlife means that we're on our way down, as opposed to midlife means that no, I still got half of. this thing to build and what does that look like? So lots of research about midlife, lots of research about aging and the beauty of aging, not anti-aging, uh, what it means for all of this white to start showing up on my chin and being excited about that. So there's a whole lot of learning that I'm doing about that, and that could possibly maybe be a genre of the next experiment that I lean into.

I can't wait to hear what that's about. Being in my 50s also, uh, I'm very excited about that. And really feel like we're still getting started. The life we live are the lessons we teach. And I love how you're experimenting with yourself. How can people find out more? I want to remind everybody to go to the show notes after this at jimkwik.com/notes. We'll put links to your amazing book, Reconnected, to your social media, to your documentary. Where can people find out more? Yeah, so I'm on Instagram, @jimkwik. People, I'm sure they want to get the book. Where else can they connect with you or go deeper with your work and research?

Absolutely. You know, obviously the book is everywhere. There is a documentary that goes alongside with the book. I did— I didn't take a screen with me, but I took a tiny little Sony camera with me on these 7 and a half weeks, and I set it up every night and cried and panicked in front of it. And so there's a— there's a good documentary. It's on my website, carloswhittaker.com. And then also one of the things I love, and I'd love to share with you know, friends of mine that I'm on their podcast is one of the ways I love to share is to show up live to people's events. I speak to a lot of corporate clients. I speak to a lot of events and nonprofits, just helping people rediscover the lost art of being human. And I think in this world of AI, and I think in this world of how quickly things are progressing, there's a beauty to, you know, who you are, whether you're a high-capacity leader, reconnecting with your humanity. And I love to come in and speak to organizations about that as well. So yeah, and then Instagram is kind of where I live and where I play every day and, you know, show pictures of my dogs and cats and chickens and ducks and stuff.

I love that. I would actually challenge everybody to take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this and tag Carlos, tag myself so we get to see it. I got multiple copies of your book, so I'll actually gift out a couple randomly. And but I would love to see people's posts to share one thing they either learned or one thing they're going to do moving forward to be able to maybe to benefit from everything they learned in this conversation. And so, Carlos, I want to thank you so much. I look forward to having you back on the show.

Amazing.

And, you know, wherever our paths happen to meet, I want to remind everyone listening that if this episode lit something inside of you, then take a moment offline, actually. I normally say do it online, but take a minute offline to reflect on what you just heard, you know, to lean into the wonder, intuition, the noticing. It's WIN. Wonder, intuition, noticing. I even do it unconscious, just to help people just kind of code it. But do that. Maybe even share it offline through connecting with someone face-to-face. Share what you just learned. And if you want to go deeper in this, make sure you join our YouTube channel where we put the extended version. If you're listening to this on audio, we cap it at 20 minutes. This conversation was longer than that. We put the extended version on YouTube. You could join 1.8 million subscribers there and see the whole conversation, which I know you're going to love. Make sure you subscribe. It's the biggest compliment. And put in the comments your, your ahas or your questions. I read every single one of them. And until next time, this is your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Until our next episode, everyone be, be limitless.