This morning, like any other morning, I woke up to the sounds of my kids getting off the bed, jumping on my stomach, on my face, and the oldest one looking for ice cream in the fridge, waiting for my husband to take the initiative of handling the kids while I stayed in bed a bit longer… but no.

Of course, the nagging, slow-dragging words poured out of my mouth with such disdain and exhaustion in my tone: “Can you please take the kids downstairs?” He is also tired from working three jobs — a 9-5 and two side businesses that we have (we roast coffee, if you want to check it out). We are both tired.

I debate whether to bring on my library of snarky comments or simply let it go. He gets up from the bed with a long face (I am starting to believe that he does this to make me feel bad and force me to also get up), but I am too tired to even truly notice or fall prey to such manipulative acts. Again, I am tired, and I can’t read the room as well as I normally could. Heck, yesterday, I spent 20 minutes looking for a phone that was in my hand the entire time.

I usually — yes, you guessed it — dumbscroll in bed, on the toilet, at my desk, in the car, outside, inside… before bedtime, and after I get up in the morning. It’s an addiction that I am fully aware of and working on. This morning, after my husband finally took the kids downstairs, I stayed in bed dumbscrolling when, out of the blue, I saw a video of a beautiful soul finding her “BaiHui.” My immediate thought was, “This is another piece of information that I will send to my ‘to retrieve later’ folder in my brain, never to be seen again.” But I thought I would try it. Try I did. Nothing. I did not feel a thing. But the exercise of placing the palm of my hand between my eyebrows and following my middle fingertip to the last area of my head that it touched reset me. I decided to try it in my office — maybe in my office, I would feel something. I got up… lazily, and sat on the floor of my office.

I sat down, closed my eyes to turn off the external noise, and there it was. I felt my fingertip at the top of my head and pressed on it. Though it is not a huge revelation, not a big move that pauses time or anything anyone would recognize — it is there — faint. I decided then to do other similar exercises with my hand around my head and face. It reminded me how little I love my head. And with the usual resting bitch face I have, all my muscles work overtime to keep up with my stress and my constant annoyance at awfully unexpected loud noises.

The lady that taught me this exercise this morning while dumbscrolling recommended doing it right before bed, after getting up, and any time you need to find your focus. Yes, I recalled all of this from the 2 minutes I spent watching the video. I did not have to Google it. I am afraid that dumbscrolling takes up too much mental space, and as a result, people become more easily distracted and need to constantly dumbscroll to continue getting hits of dopamine.