Bryan Johnson's Phone Settings and Habits for Better Sleep, Posture, Hearing, and Focus
Bryan Johnson
Bryan Johnson presents this video as a step-by-step guide to "retake control" of your phone. The argument is that phone use is one of the biggest levers for improving health, simply because of how much time it takes up. Johnson opens with the claim that the average person spends 4 hours and 37 minutes a day on their phone. That works out to 70 full days a year and, over a lifetime, more than 14 years. Short clips from other voices in the video add to the picture: one describes the phone as "digital fentanyl" because it is highly addictive, and another says the average teen receives more than 200 notifications in 24 hours. Johnson says every one of those moments chips away at sleep, health, and focus.
The guide begins with specific settings and physical habits. It then turns to what Johnson calls the real wound: how much time we spend on our phones and how compulsively we use them.
Protecting Sleep: Night Shift and Red Light Mode
Johnson compares the phone to the frog in slowly boiling water, quietly ruining your sleep. The explanation offered is that blue light from the screen suppresses melatonin, the sleep hormone, and spikes cortisol, the stress hormone. According to the video, this makes it harder to fall asleep, and even if you do fall asleep quickly, your sleep quality is worse.
The first fix is to turn on Night Shift on iPhone or Bedtime mode on Android. These shift blue-enriched light toward warmer tones, and Johnson says they push light below a 30 lux threshold, which preserves melatonin. Johnson notes that this does not remove blue light entirely. For that, the recommendation is a red light mode, mainly for times when you need to check your phone for something urgent at night.
The video walks through the iPhone setup:
- Go to Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters.
- Turn on Color Filters and choose Color Tint.
- Move the Intensity and Hue sliders all the way to the right to make the screen red.
- To toggle it with a triple-click of the side button, go to Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut and select Color Filters.
Posture: Neck Load From Looking Down
The next problem Johnson raises is how people hold their phones. If your neck is sore after using your phone, Johnson says, "that's your spine screaming for help." The video cites a 2014 paper finding that tilting the neck to 45° raises the load on the cervical discs from about 10 lb to about 49 lb of force. It also cites a 46% increase in reported pain when people did this routinely.
Johnson admits this is hard to fix because we are not used to holding our arms up. The advice is to raise the screen to eye level instead of looking down, and the same applies to laptops. Johnson then demonstrates holding the phone up at eye level, adding that it "doesn't draw any attention."
Keeping the Phone Out of the Front Pocket
Johnson warns men not to carry their phone in the front pocket. Johnson says the claim that this can lower testosterone and sperm count is true, and that many men don't realize it may affect fertility. The support offered is a meta-analysis of 18 studies, which Johnson says found that RF exposure from a nearby phone lowered sperm motility and viability. Johnson also says that even a little distance cuts exposure by orders of magnitude.
Capping Volume at 80 Decibels
Johnson acknowledges why people turn the volume up: it feels good, or they want to drown out street or crowd noise. Johnson warns that this moves you into the danger zone for hearing loss. The figures given are:
- 80 dB can be listened to safely for 40 hours a week.
- At 90 dB, the safe window shrinks to 4 hours.
- Earbuds at max volume can easily reach 100 dB, where 15 minutes of exposure can cause hearing damage.
Johnson describes the likely result as gradually worsening hearing until "one day you get a ringing in your ear that just won't go away." The suggested fixes are to set an 80 dB cap in the phone's settings and, when outside noise is above safe levels, to use AirPods or headphones with noise cancellation instead of turning the volume up.
Do Not Disturb While Driving
Johnson calls driving "probably the most dangerous thing all of us do on a daily basis," and says notifications make it riskier. The video's numbers:
- Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for as long as 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that is like driving the length of a football field blind.
- Even glancing at a notification raises crash risk 4 to 6 times.
- In 2022 alone, more than 3,500 deaths were linked to distraction-related events.
The recommendation is to turn on Do Not Disturb with CarPlay or Android Auto. The alternative is to put the phone somewhere you can't see it, such as the glove box or a bag.
Texting Technique and Screen Hygiene
Two shorter tips follow. First, Johnson says case reports suggest texting with one thumb may cause tendonitis. The options are to use both thumbs ("what evolution gave you"), use voice dictation, or not text at all.
Second, Johnson tells viewers to wipe their screens daily with a microfiber cloth and 70% alcohol. The video cites University of Arizona researchers who found that phones carry 10 times more bacteria than toilet seats.
The 20-20-20 Rule for Eye Strain
Johnson explains that staring at a nearby screen for hours dries and irritates the eyes and causes temporary nearsighted blur. The remedy is the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes of screen time, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
The Core Problem: Time and Compulsive Use
At this point Johnson says all the earlier fixes are "a band-aid on the wound," and the wound is how much time we spend on our phones every day. The rest of the video asks how to stop or reduce addictive, compulsive phone use.
Eliminating Notifications
Johnson's first answer is to turn off all notifications, because they constantly interrupt whatever we are doing. The video says it takes the average person 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption. Johnson names X, Instagram, WhatsApp, and TikTok as apps to silence, then jokes that viewers should still enable notifications for Johnson's YouTube channel. Messages should only come through from people who matter in an emergency. Johnson predicts that after just one week you will feel calmer and more at peace. On the idea of keeping a few "strategic" notifications, Johnson's answer is: "don't do that either."
App Blockers and Physical Friction
For people whose compulsive habits keep them from turning notifications off, Johnson points to apps that block other apps entirely, saying "I think we all need this." The reasoning is a study Johnson cites, in which compulsive checking predicted mood disorders such as depression much better than total minutes of use. In Johnson's words, the way you engage with the phone predicts your mood. Two apps are named for managing access to addictive apps: Opal and One Sec.
Johnson also describes a device from a company called Brick. The device sits somewhere in your home, and to open an app like Instagram you have to walk over and scan your phone on it. Johnson's view is that people are less likely to bother because they don't want to get up off the couch. Johnson grants that this may sound extreme, but argues that simple solutions rarely change behavior and that we sometimes need more extreme ones to keep ourselves in check.
Grayscale
Johnson says companies use color to create dopamine loops that drive addictive and compulsive behavior, and that switching the screen to monochrome is a way to fight back. According to Johnson, studies found grayscale cut usage by 11% within a week. On iPhone, it is in Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → Grayscale. The same accessibility shortcut lets you toggle it with a triple-click of the side button.
Phone-Free Places and Phubbing
Next is setting aside places without phones. Johnson introduces "phubbing," which means snubbing someone by looking at your phone instead of making eye contact. Johnson says it makes everyone around you more stressed and wears down relationships. The video cites a 2025 study finding that phubbing lowered relationship satisfaction by 9% and made conflict and jealousy much more likely. Johnson's advice is to "be a good human": keep eye contact and put the phone away when someone else is talking.
Johnson suggests phone-free zones at the dinner table, in the bedroom, and in the front seat of the car. One concrete step is to charge your phone outside the bedroom so you can't doomscroll all night and ruin your sleep.
Phone-Free Times
A clip in the video claims that the mere presence of a phone, whether on or off, can cause "brain drain." Johnson argues that everyone needs long stretches without access to their phone and suggests a small experiment: lock it in a drawer for 60 minutes and notice how you feel. After that, you can try half a day. As a sleep hygiene practice, Johnson recommends putting the phone away 60 minutes before bed.
The Screen Time Audit
The last technique is to check your screen time data. Johnson's reasoning is that simply seeing how much you use your phone, the "horrifying information," can reduce your use. The suggested method is to find the apps that take up the most time. If Instagram is your weakness, for example, start by cutting that time in half. Once you've done that and built some momentum, check in weekly to see whether you're on track or can cut further.
Johnson's Closing Reflection
Johnson ends with what they call "real talk": everyone, children and parents alike, is compulsively addicted to their phone. Johnson says it is very hard to stop because phones hold what we love and care about, including work, friends, family, and entertainment. That makes our relationship with the phone complicated, and stepping away brings a kind of anxiety where "you don't know what to do with yourself."
Johnson states plainly that, because of excessive use, phones are bad for us and do not make us better people. Johnson also criticizes the companies building apps, saying they design them to addict users and are asking people "to exchange our life for their profits," which Johnson calls "a nefarious situation." Johnson grants that phones have real benefits, such as communicating, sharing, and being part of a larger group, but calls them corrosive to health and wellness. The stated goal is to be aware of these dangers and take small steps. Johnson closes by saying that if people do, it will make each of us a better human and help build a better world.
Did you know the average person spends 4 hours and 37 minutes on their phone each day? That's 70 full days every year. Now, over a lifetime, that's over 14 years.
Well, it's digital fentanyl in the sense that it's highly addictive.
The average teen gets more than 200 notifications on their phone in 24 hours.
These days, screen time seems to be all the time, every one of those moments quietly chipping away at your sleep, your health, and your focus. In that context, it makes sense that changing how you use your phone is one of the biggest levers on improving your health. This is a step-by-step guide on how to protect yourself and retake control.
Your phone is like the frog in the pot of the slow boiling water, quietly ruining your sleep. Staring at the blue light from your phone suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin and it spikes the stress hormone cortisol. This makes it harder for you to fall asleep. Even if you do fall asleep quickly, the quality of your sleep will actually be worse.
Here is the first fix. Activate Night Shift or Android Bedtime mode. This shifts blue-enriched light to warmer tones, pushing light below the 30 lux thresholds, which preserves melatonin. But this doesn't eliminate blue light completely. To totally eliminate the blue light, you want to activate red light mode. Now, this is helpful if you need to check your phone for something urgent at night.
So, here's how you can set it up on the iPhone. Go to Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, Color Filters. Turn on Color Filters, then choose Color Tint. Set the intensity and hue sliders all the way to the right to make the screen red. You can also engage this again with a triple tap on the side button. Go back to Settings, Accessibility, Accessibility Shortcut. Select Color Filters as the shortcut. Red mode now activated.
The next problem is how most of us hold our phones.
And just the way you're holding the phone could be causing you some serious pain.
If your neck feels sore after holding your phone, that's your spine screaming for help. A 2014 paper showed that tilting your neck at 45° increases the load on your cervical discs from around 10 lb to around 49 lb of force. Doing this routinely caused a 46% increase in reported pain. Fixing this is kind of hard because we're not naturally acclimated to holding our arms up. Now, this also applies to laptops. You want to have your screen at eye level. You do not want to be looking down. Friends, this is what I do. It doesn't draw any attention.
Men, avoid stashing your phone next to your boys. You might have heard that carrying your phone in your pocket can reduce your testosterone levels and sperm count. And guess what? That is true. A lot of men carry their phone in their front pocket, not realizing that it may affect their fertility. A meta-analysis of 18 studies showed that proximate phone RF lowered sperm motility and viability. Just a little distance lowers your exposure by orders of magnitude.
Next, you want to cap your volume at 80 dB. I hear you. Sometimes you just want to crank it up cuz it feels so good. Or you're listening to music and you want to override the street noise or a crowd. But what you may not realize is you're entering the danger zone for hearing loss. Sound is measured in decibels, and for 40 hours a week you can safely listen up to 80 dB. Now push that up to 90 dB and the safety zone reduces to 4 hours. That's when you start risking hearing loss. Earbuds can easily hit 100 dB on max volume, meaning just 15 minutes of that exposure can cause hearing damage. If you're doing this, you'll notice your hearing getting worse and worse until one day you get a ringing in your ear that just won't go away.
Okay, so here's some solutions. In your phone settings, you can enforce an 80 decibel cap. Now, for external noise that's going to exceed those safe levels, some AirPods and headphones have noise cancellation.
Next, when you get in the car, switch on Do Not Disturb. Driving is probably the most dangerous thing all of us do on a daily basis. When your phone is notifying you as you drive, that makes things sketchy. Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for as much as 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that is the equivalent of driving the length of a football field blind. Even glancing at a notification increases your crash risk by 4 to 6x. In 2022 alone, over 3,500 deaths were related to these distraction-related events. So, the solution here is to turn on Do Not Disturb with CarPlay and Android Auto. Alternatively, you could put your phone in the glove box, in the bag, or somewhere where you can't see it.
Next, text with both thumbs or use voice dictation. Here's a quick one. Case reports suggest using one thumb may give you tendonitis. So, the options are use what evolution gave you, two thumbs, your voice, or don't text.
Next, you dirty animals, wipe your screens daily with microfiber and 70% alcohol. Phones are pretty disgusting. Researchers at the University of Arizona found that phones have 10 times more bacteria than toilet seats. Just like you've learned to wipe your ass, learn how to wipe your phone with microfiber and 70% alcohol.
Now, if you haven't heard of the 20-20-20 rule, you're really missing out.
An easy solution is to adopt the 20-20-20 eye care habit.
20-20-20 rule.
The 20-20-20 rule. 20-20-20 rule.
Now, if you're staring at your screens for hours, you're focused on a close-up object. It dries your eyes and leaves them irritated over time. This causes temporary nearsighted blur. Okay, so here's the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes you stare at a screen, for 20 seconds, stare at something 20 ft away.
All of these things, of course, are a band-aid on the wound, which is how much time you actually spend on your phone every day. So, how can each of us stop or lessen our addictive compulsive use of our phones?
Eliminate all notifications. They constantly interrupt everything we're doing. Did you know that it takes the average person 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption? Eliminate all notifications: X, IG, WhatsApp, TikTok. Although do enable Bryan Johnson notifications on YouTube. Only allow messages from those who are actually useful to you in case of an emergency. After one week alone, you will feel calmer and at greater peace. Okay. And now, if you absolutely need to enable certain strategic notifications, don't do that either.
Now, if you find that your compulsive addictive habits to the phone are stopping you from turning off notifications, there are actually apps that block entirely the apps. I think we all need this. There was a study that showed that addictive behaviors on checking it predicted mood disorders like depression much more than just raw minutes. So the way you engage with the phone actually is predictive of your mood. There are apps like Opal and one sec which help you manage your access of these apps that you find addictive and compulsively compelling.
Now there's also some other creative solutions like this company called Brick. You have this device that sits somewhere in your home. If you want to get access to a certain app like Instagram, you have to go to the device and scan it. Then it opens up the app. So, people are less likely to do that because you probably don't want to get up off the couch. Now, this may sound extreme, but honestly, we all know it's kind of true that simplistic solutions rarely actually change our behavior, and sometimes we need to resort to the more extreme versions to keep ourselves in check.
Next, grayscale and low saturation. Now, companies use colors to create dopamine loops that create more addictive and compulsive behavior. The way you can fight back at this is change the color to monochrome. In studies, it showed that it reduced usage by 11% within one week. To do this on the iPhone, go to Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, Color Filters, turn on Grayscale. You can also engage this again with a triple tap on the side button.
Next, have phone-free places.
So, put down that phone and listen up.
First question is, have you phubbed your friends? Phubbing is when you phone snub somebody and you look at your screen instead of making eye contact. This makes everybody around you more stressed and erodes your relationships. A 2025 study showed that phubbing reduces relationship satisfaction by 9%. And it made conflict and jealousy much more likely. Be a good human and maintain eye contact. Put your phone away when somebody else is talking. You can also establish phone-free zones at the dinner table, in the bedroom, in the front seat of the car. One solution is to keep your phone charger outside your bedroom, which prevents you from doom scrolling all night long, wrecking your sleep.
Put it down. It's not worth it.
Next, you can schedule phone-free times.
Say the mere presence of our phones can cause brain drain, whether they're on or even off.
We all need long stretches of time without access to our phones. Do a small experiment. Lock it in a drawer for 60 minutes and just see how you feel. With that small success, you can then try a half day. A good sleep hygiene practice is 60 minutes before bed, shut that down.
Next, let's do a screen time audit. Sometimes just seeing the horrifying information of how much you actually use your phone can actually lessen your usage. One way to approach this problem is to identify which apps you're spending the most time on. If Instagram is your weakness, try as the first step cutting that time in half. Once you've accomplished that and build this momentum, check in weekly to see if you're on point or if you can cut it further.
Friends, real talk now is the acknowledgement that we are all compulsively addicted to our phones. Children, parents, everybody. It is incredibly hard to not do this because on our phones are things that we love and care about: our work, our friends, our family, entertainment. This creates a very complicated relationship for us to not use our phones. And it creates a form of anxiety when you step away from the phone. You don't know what to do with yourself.
Honestly, we all know this. Our phones are really bad for us. They don't make us better people because of our excessive use. Also, the companies that build things on these phones, they build the things to addict you and me to their applications. They're asking us to exchange our life for their profits. It's really a nefarious situation. Now, of course, there are positive things. It's wonderful to communicate and to share and be part of a larger group of people. Also, they're corrosive and they ruin so many things about our health and wellness. So, the goal here is to be aware of these dangers. Take small steps to improve your life because if we do, it will make you and me a better human and we will build a better world.
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