Protect Your Teen from the Spiritual and Physical Crisis of Smartphones and Social Media
with The Holistic Kids
Dr. Wendy Myers
Hi, I am Dr. Wendy Myers. Welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. On this show, we talk about everything related to heavy metal and chemical toxicity and more advanced topics than you’ll hear on other podcasts. We talk about bioenergetics, emotional trauma and all kinds of topics related to health. Today, we have a really interesting show. We’re gonna be talking about how screen time is affecting kids emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and tips that parents and teens can use to reduce their screen time. It’s really shocking some of the statistics and research that’s out there. This is a huge issue of our time.
Adults and teens are addicted to their phones. I definitely am guilty of this as well ’cause I’ve gotta use social media for work. This show has a lot of tips for people to reduce their screen time and why they wanna do that and replace that with more of a sense of purpose and goals. Our guest today was really interesting. I’d never had any teens on the show. Today we have Abdullah, Zain, Emaad and Qasim Ansari. They’re the hosts of the Holistic Kids Show Podcasts and it’s in the top two and a half percent of all podcasts in the world. It is super popular. They’re all also national speakers, co-authors of the traditionally published book, The Teen Health Revolution, which we will talk about that helps kids to eat a healthier diet and learn about exercise and learn about spirituality and so many other things related to their health, addressing the top 20 health concerns and things like that.
The book is The Teen Health Revolution: Lifestyle Secrets To Optimize Your Mind, Body, and Soul. They’re the co-authors of the bestselling Atoms Healing Adventures Children’s Health Book series and The Holistic Kids. They have lectured at the leading integrative and functional medicine conferences, including being the first youth speakers at the 2024 International Institute of Functional Medicine Forum and the Health Business Growth Collective Mindshare Summit in 2025. They’ve also spoken at the NS Festival, served as keynote speaker at the YMCA Interfaith Mayors Breakfast, and presented at major conferences reaching audiences of over 60,000.
The holistic kids have received the Up and Comer award from The Health Business Growth Collective in 2025. In May 2025, Abdullah was featured in the docuseries Young and Thriving, as a young voice for mental health, who is bringing a unique perspective of today’s youth into the conversation. Abdullah and Zain have also made appearances on an award-winning show, Dr. Nandi Show. I’ve been on that show too. Zain has also been selected for a TEDx talk in February 2026, which is very impressive. The holistic kids have also been featured on top podcasts and print and online media outlets like The Wellness Mama Podcast, The Rational Wellness Podcast, and The Holistic Primary Care Magazine podcast.
It is a really good show today. You can learn more about them at theteenhealthrevolution.com and theholistickidsshow.com. So guys, thanks so much for joining the show.
Abdullah
Thanks so much, it is our pleasure.
Zain
Yeah, it really is our pleasure.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write your book? You have a podcast, you’re going around speaking, you guys are really ambitious.
Zain
Well, thank you so much. We’re really honored to be here. But it really started slowly. We really went step by step. We didn’t just become. We just didn’t like to pop out and started doing this. We were slowly educated by our mom, who is also learning with us about these tips on how our body works, listening to our bodies, the toxic environment, and being aware of tech. During COVID, when everyone was like they didn’t know about their health too much, our mom was like, What about you guys? Use your knowledge. So we decide, you know what? We’re gonna start this podcast ’cause we’re stuck at home all day. Let’s talk to kids, let’s talk to adults.
It is for kids, that’s by kids, ’cause we’re just asking the questions that a lot of kids aren’t asking these experts. So slowly, we started interviewing all these experts. Now we’re over 200 podcasts in five years.
Dr. Wendy Myers
That’s amazing. I love it.
Zain
This is really important because then we used this to create a book, which I’m now a teen of, and we really wanted to get this out to the teen generation because after COVID, I noticed there were some issues with my friends. My best friend tried to kill me or threatened to kill me. So I realized this, and I realized, you know what, a lot of teens these days are stuck on social media. They’re stuck on their phones. They’re eating whatever they put in their mouth. We need to wake up. So that really motivated me to start this book, and really all of us to see what’s going on in school. And
Abdullah
Plus, as Zain said, whatever we can find, we’re just stuffing into our mouths. We’re not even thinking about what we’re actually eating. And that’s why right now, one in two kids actually have a chronic condition and mental health is on a rise. All of these mental health problems, chronic disease, all of the factors that teens are especially dealing with nowadays, that’s really destroying our future, a lot of it has to do with what we’re consuming visually as well as physically, what we’re eating, what we’re putting into our bodies.
The problem is most teens don’t realize what we’re doing to ourselves. No teen actually knows when they visually consume something for two hours, they scroll for two hours at night, teens don’t know what that does to your brain and body. And we’re told that, oh, it’s okay. That’s what everyone’s doing. In reality, we’re destroying our future. That’s why we need to revolutionize our teen health. We need to revolutionize the future now.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
Your book’s called The Teen Health Revolution. You talk all about diet and we’ll get into all that in a minute. I wanted to talk to you about screen time and what that’s doing to kids’ brains as you just mentioned that a second ago. So talk to us about how parents can get their teenagers off of screens.
Abdullah
Well, first of all, you’re right, teens are completely stuck. Three of four teens in adolescence are dealing with depression and anxiety. One in three girls have seriously thought of committing suicide, preteen girls. This is a problem. If we continue to act like, oh yeah, no, it won’t get worse then, and we ignore this problem, it’s never going to go away. Like you said, one of the problems, I know that sounds like, oh, how is this even connected? Is screen time. We’re not a hundred percent against, oh no more screen time. We should go live in the woods. We are trying to teach kids to monitor their screen time. We’re trying to teach parents that have a balance. Don’t I know right? Kids in your class are spending how much time on screens?
Emaad
They start competing about how much time they’re spending on their screen, which is just crazy.
Dr. Wendy Myers
You can monitor it on your phone and sometimes it’s just really shocking. You’re like, how did I spend 12 hours on my apps today? How is that even possible? You could be spending that time so much more productively, but for kids, it’s so easy to get sucked into the phone. The apps are designed to keep us addicted, keep us on our phones, looking at ads and even when you have awareness of doubt, it’s so difficult to get off of your phone. They’re so addictive.
Emaad
I think there’s a study that says that 96% of Gen Zs say that they can’t even go in the bathroom without their phones. This is crazy. Like just a couple of seconds.
Zain
It’s not even a study. I can see it at high school. Teens are addicted to their phones and they all know why. They’re just like, oh, well I’m bored, so my phone’s there. I can maybe play a game or scroll some reels. I have to remind them that this is not how things are supposed to be. We’re supposed to be out playing. We’re supposed to be out having fun away from the screen, limiting screen time because what this leads to is loneliness. We’re not being connected with our community anymore. We are not being mindful anymore, or we are losing gratitude by seeing all these negative consequences going around all around the world or on social media where we can find constant comparison, like comparisons with other people in our school or even world. As teens, we have the entire world at our fingertips. So teaching kids how to use this information is really important.
Dr. Wendy Myers
And it’s directly proportional. The more screen time you have, the more depressed you are, the more anxious, I mean there’s just a direct proportional correlation to that. Can you talk about that?
Abdullah
It’s really interesting, these studies that just came out. Social media has actually been linked to poor physical health, especially among students. It’s been linked to higher levels of CRP, which is a blood marker of inflammation that actually predicts chronic disease like heart disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even stroke. Social media is especially affecting our mental health, and I’ve seen this in my friends. I’ve seen this in my peers. I’ve seen this in my classmates. Nobody really feels good after scrolling for two hours. After two hours, your brain is just like a mess. You just feel off.
The problem is that teens are doing this every single day. Actually social media is a source of connection ’cause a lot of teens are like, oh, but I love connecting with my friends on Snapchat. I wanna do this. I like doing that. If I don’t have my phone, I’m just disconnected. I live under a rock. But actually, social media is also becoming a form of stress and as teenagers, we are never told how to manage that stress. That leads to more chronic disease and inflammation. I heard this quote that we are more connected than ever before, but yet so many people feel disconnected. And that’s because of these phones and especially social media.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Over the years I’ve spent more and more and more time on my phone, more and more isolated, because if you don’t have a phone, you’re forced to go out and socialize, which we naturally gravitate towards. I’ve had to check myself on social media use. I’ve also read studies that some teens are dealing with dementia, that they are even showing early signs of dementia from being on their phones. They can have vision issues with the retina starting to get burned out from looking at this blue light, which is really unhealthy for us in so many ways. There’s so many consequences that people don’t account for.
Abdullah
Plus, like you mentioned, I think the memory issues, blue light, EMFs and all that kinda stuff that is plaguing households and people are just thinking, oh, it’s fine. How can light from a screen do to me like, come on, we see the sunlight all the time. Isn’t that supposed to be helpful for us? But in reality, it’s actually destroying our sleep. Studies have come out and shown that actually those who go on the internet, they go on their phones, they go on social media right before bed, it actually decreases their quality of sleep. Meaning that they wake up and you might have gotten eight hours of sleep, but because you just were on the screenshot before you, it’s like you got one hour of actually deep, useful sleep. The problem is that we need sleep. And as teens, we’re already sleeping terribly.
On top of that, we’re adding these phones so that the little sleep that we do get is basically our body can’t do as much as it wants to use with it. And that’s why it’s affecting our mental health, like you said, our memory, our focus. I don’t know if you’ve, I know for us, especially maybe like parents that have noticed and we’ve definitely noticed like a lot of kids around us, they’re so hyperactive, they can’t focus, they can’t like to stay in one thing for too long. Our attention spans are absolutely destroyed. And it’s because at the end of the day, we’re just not watching ourselves and we’re just letting these things dictate what we do. At this point, they’re controlling us.
Dr. Wendy Myers
You mentioned sleep and when you’re a teen, you’re growing. You need to get that deep sleep and you get deep sleep in the beginning of the night. So if you are on the phone, you’re staying at maybe an hour or two later than you should, it’s very hard to get off of that phone. You’re compromising your deep sleep and even your height. People are probably getting shorter and having a lot of health issues and brain development issues at crucial points that you can’t get back once you pass these crucial points of various areas of your brain development. And it’s that the phones are causing so many issues in that regard, even with just sleep.
Abdullah
We think that it’d be so obvious. We’re not taught this in schools. You’d think that when it’s destroying our future, that at least schools would teach us what these phones are doing to us yet. We’re not seeing any of that. And that’s why we need, especially teens, adults, teachers, if you’re watching this, teach us. Because the problem is that it’s not that we want to destroy our sleep. It’s the fact that we just don’t know. And that’s where the main root problem is.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Talk about spiritual health. I think a lot of teens have a spiritual crisis. There’s, especially teen boys have a higher suicide rate than girls or boys in general. You mentioned, what was it? One in three girls had suicidal ideation. What are the phones doing to our spiritual health?
Zain
A lot of teens, they don’t have a purpose. They’re going on their phone just to waste time. We’re using this time as just something to get over with instead of actually doing something with their lives, connecting with a higher purpose because when you have a higher purpose, when you can look forward to something either in the afterlife or like for your life. When you are constantly being motivated to do something, you can use this time and you can use your body and your brain to focus on it instead of being lost and feeling that there’s no point in me that I have no purpose there. I mean nothing to this world.
Abdullah
Also, more parents don’t realize this is that these phones are basically using up our time, that time that we’d be using to think. I know that I heard this one professor, he said that being bored is one of the best things you could do for yourself because that’s when you get all of the thoughts that are gonna help you. That’s when all the most creative things happen, and that’s when you are able to actually change your life. The problem is, instead of trying to better ourselves and change our lives, we’re just saying, okay, let me just go on my phone instead of trying to go and learn how to become better, reach our true potential.
Actually, no, lemme just go waste my time watching TikTok or scroll for two, three hours and not get anything from it. And because of that, we’re not thinking about our future. On top of that though, that scrolling is destroying us. It’s making teens’ ability to manage your stress even worse. So now, once they get to the future, they become adults, they don’t know what to do with their time. They don’t know how to progress because all they’ve been doing, anytime they’ve especially felt anxious or depressed, is go to the phone. And so because of that, we’re not learning how, we’re not even advancing. We’re not trying to become or at least try to go and find our future and find our true potential because we’re just stuck on our phones.
Obviously phones are really useful. We can’t deny saying that everything now is on social media. But the problem is that we’re not even going on our phones for a purpose. That’s what my mom used to say to me all the time. She used to tell me, and this is my best advice I think I’ve ever gotten from my phone and one of the best advice that she’s ever given me is when I first got my phone, she told me, whenever you go on your phone, always remember to go for a purpose. And that helped me take control of what I’m visually consuming, being more mindful about what I’m doing, and actually being able to use the phone to progress in my life. That’s why teens need to be taught. But yet so many teens are missing that nowadays. And that’s what we’re trying to teach people.
Zain
Even the design of the phone we’re constantly being preoccupied with loneliness because of all these clicks, alerts, these likes that are constantly telling us, Gino, stay on the phone. Don’t go to your family to eat dinner with them. Don’t go to your friends and hang out with them. Don’t, just stay on your phone. This social media is adding to a growing spiritual crisis.
Emaad
Yeah, like I was talking about, they make sure that it is addicting by making the times on TikTok scroll. There’s the reason why it’s called scroll because there’s like seconds and hits when the dopamine effect, every time you scroll just makes you do it one more time. Like doom scrolling. You don’t even know when you’re doing it. You are like, oh, I’m just gonna go for like a little like five minutes. And you look at your phone and it’d be like six or seven hours. This is just crazy. Doom schooling is like crazy. People don’t really take this, how serious this should be.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I know nothing can compete with the dopamine that you get from scrolling and just constantly the new images or stimulating images and the light and the information. Then you’re laughing and then you’re entertained and you’re just constantly like a rat on the little reward bar, getting your dopamine hit and then all your dopamine is drained and that drains all of your motivation to do anything else. You’re exhausted and not motivated to do anything after a session on your phone.
Abdullah
I read this book called The Anxious Generation, and he mentioned how we’re staring all these all day at our phones is affecting our spiritual health. And actually most spiritual practices require you to get together as a whole, use that stillness, use that silence, focus on forgiveness, less on judgment and with the phones, they basically take us away from that. It’s destroying our sense of purpose. It’s destroying our spirituality. We’re spending less time in nature. Like teens at this point, I know our mom used to joke, like back then being in our room was like the worst thing that you could do to us. And now being outside is the worst thing you could do to us.
And that’s the problem is that we’ve kind of trained our brains to only stay on this device, not go into nature, not connect with other people. Nowadays, most teens are struggling to even look people in the eye when they have conversations.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I think that the saddest consequence of this is kids just not going outside and playing anymore. I remember when I was a kid, every day I couldn’t wait to get out the door and just go play with other kids. And that’s all I did my whole childhood, until video games came along and then I was stuck in the house playing video games. So I did have some consequences there. It’s just sad. My daughter doesn’t really ever want to go outside and play and that’s my entire childhood, every single day. It’s just a very stark contrast. I think kids get a lot of brain development that we know, they do get a lot of brain development just from playing, just from being creative, playing with Barbies, playing with trucks and all of that role playing and imagination and creation and that is just completely lost on this generation.
Abdullah
Especially because we think that, oh, you know, once they become adults, then they’ll fix themselves, then they’ll become better. When in reality, when they become adults, these habits are gonna continue to continue to affect them. What’s gonna happen to our future doctors, future engineers, future lawyers, future businessmen if we’re all stuck on our phones and we’re not getting outside, not connecting with other people. If we’re not, if we’re all sick and we’re all mentally ill, what’s gonna happen to that next generation? What’s gonna happen to our generation? That’s why we need to wake up. That’s why we also like to give out that there is still hope that just because you’ve started to do this, just because it’s happening now, just because you’re going through this doesn’t mean that this has to be your life. You can wake up and take back control of your life now.
Dr. Wendy Myers
My concern also is the phones are creating a world of addicts essentially when you’re getting that dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, and then regular life, day to day life just feels really dull and boring. And then as you get older, you’re gonna want to go to the next thing that gives you that dopamine, the next thing that gives you all that dopamine. That’s the nature of addiction. That’s the beginning of that addiction process where people want more and more and more dopamine.
Abdullah
Actually that’s what we’re seeing. I thought it was pretty interesting and it kind of makes sense for what’s happening on social media. It was first still coming out. Did you know that they actually went and consulted with the psychologists that work on making gambling and casinos addictive and making people wanna come back to gamble more and more and more. And that entire psychology, and they actually then implemented that and into social media, they used those same tricks and now they’re basically giving it to kids.
And now what, 2, 3, 4 year olds are stuck scrolling and scrolling. We’ve even seen in our family that one of our cousins, he started to only go on the screens and because of that, he’s nonverbal and he’s started to show signs of autism and it’s just horrible because it’s all so preventable.
Dr. Wendy Myers
It’s one of those things where for a lot of parents, the iPad is the electronic babysitter. It just makes it a lot easier for you as a parent when your kid’s not running around, sticking their fingers on electrical outlets and all the things that kids get into. You just stick ’em in front of the iPad and then you can just relax and do what you feel like doing. We’re all guilty of doing that, raising kids. Are there any tips that you can give parents to help their kids manage their social media?
Emaad
I think honestly just no social media between before like high school, because they’re a little bit too young for that maybe. If they have that they’re not gonna be able to use it wisely and manage cyber bullying and everything else. No social media before 16, and we need to start having phone free schools because it improves mental health and socialization skills.
Abdullah
Now studies have come out and even shown that kids are actually doing better because they’re not destroying their brains, just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and getting these dopamine rushes.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I was so happy in Texas this year, they have no phones in schools. I like the concept that they go to school to learn, not be on their phones. When my daughter was going to school in Mexico, she was going to Waldorf School and they were allowing phones at the school. I’m like, hello, this is supposed to be a Waldorf school. There’s not supposed to be any electronics or computers or anything. But at lunchtime, the kids are just on their phones, they’re not socializing. But here in Texas, and I think Florida too, they made a log of no phones in the schools. It’s such a huge difference.
Abdullah
We see that even out in our school. At lunchtime, even when we’re trying to talk to our friends, they’re just on their phones. They’re just on phone
Zain
They’re like Zain, you don’t have a phone. No, I don’t. I mean I like going to lunch and stuff. My friends are like we really stand out ’cause we’re like talking and everything while all the other tables are always like on their phone and stuff. So it’s just keeping that socialization as a part of your daily life, trying to avoid your phone, but also teaching your kids at a young age for parents. I know a lot of parents can’t do this, but new parents can start teaching their kids at a younger age, start teaching them that, you know what, yeah, we should really understand what this phone is doing to us, how we maybe feel about it, why we want our phone.
Help the kid understand what the phone’s really doing to their body because a lot of kids don’t know. So they’re just doing it ’cause everyone else is doing it. So yeah, being really mindful of the phone is really good.
Abdullah
Mindfulness of the phone, like social media also, we’ve gotten a lot of complaints when we tell parents, it’s like, oh, but when I tell this to my son or daughter, they’re like, we both, everybody we like why do we love our phones so much? Why do we have to get off of this? You’re being so cruel. You’re being oppressive. Why are you doing this to us? The problem is that we’re, especially adults and parents are not teaching kids why? They’re just saying, oh, you know, don’t go on the phone because I said so. And as teens we’re kind of, as soon as our parents say something, not to do something, we kind of wanna do the exact opposite.
Dr. Wendy Myers
That would not have worked on me. I have to have the why. Why exactly? That’s it. But I’ve seen parents, friends of mine that try to implement this, their kids get 30 minutes a day on the phone, whatever they want, the iPad, their phone or what, or video games they had to prioritize 30 minutes a day. And just the battle and the begging and kind of addictive behavior, begging and begging and begging and then they begged too much. They’d lose their privileges for the next day. But it was a constant battle and it just shows how addicted kids are to their phones.
Abdullah
Also, a big factor that we always need to mention is parents, you guys, as much as we hate to say it, are our role models. If you’re always on your phone, always, scrolling as well, and we see that, then we’re gonna do the exact same thing too. So please, please start educating yourself first. Please start implementing into your lives so that our lives in the future will be better as well.
Zain
Also you mentioned how it’s like this constant battle. Can we please have more screen time or whatever with this 30 minutes? I think what happens with this is like the jump between maybe what’s going on at school, what everyone else is saying, and what’s going on at home because 30 minutes, it could be really like, it might be really extreme for like a lot of teens. I know what we do is we do maximum two hours because then this gives us a time limit to, okay, we have this amount of time and we can then just do this and then focus the rest of our time instead of constantly begging. We can use this time as a resting time while the other time we can go work mode, play outside and everything like that.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Two hours sounds more reasonable to me and you can’t do anything in 30 minutes. It’s gone like that. You’re like, wait, I just got on there. So you think two hours is a good amount of time per day, especially on weekends?
Abdullah
I think weekdays maybe like 45 or an hour. So, yeah, on weekends we do two hours, but on the weekdays, we still have a lot of work to do. Yeah. So I mean, 45 an hour, a lot of work to do, but stuff depends
Zain
Well, yeah, like just during things like a little slower, don’t just jump straight into 30 minutes.
Emaad
Take it step by step. Maybe one day, take one hour, 58 minutes, an hour, 48 minutes, one hour, 38 minutes, one hour, 30 minutes. Just seeing that slowly progressive so they don’t feel like they’re just missing it all the time.
Zain
Even though, 30 minutes is really extreme. So, just try like maybe if dear child used to like eight hours of screen time, limit it to maximum four if it’s really that bad, you know?
Dr. Wendy Myers
Then it’s like a drug you have to titrate off it, like really slow, just little by little because that’s essentially what it is. You have lots of tips in your book, that teen health revolution for parents to help kids get off the screen. What are some other tips that you have?
Zain
So you mentioned that like more for parents, but we do a lot just like teen to teen. We do mention some things that could help parents, but we really like to keep things very teen to teen, but because health is very general, it’ll work for everyone. It’s just a lot more simple. We do a lot more tips that a lot of teens are gonna deal with because there’s not a lot of teen books out there that are like talking about health. So we really wanna bring this to the health world about teens because teens are the next generation and we really want teens to be more invested in their health too.
Abdullah
But we do have a lot of practical tips in there because like we say, it’s a simple health book that anybody can do to implement into their life that, if they wanna become better, they wanna improve their health even adults. These are practical tips, free, easy things anyone can really do like keeping your phone away or having a limit on yourself, even an adult can do. Anyone could do it, but we specifically wanna do it for teens, by teens. But at the end of the day, our mom taught us this, and she’s also implementing it for herself. So there’s a lot of things that adults can also benefit from as well.
Emaad
We also go over 20 chronic conditions that teens are going through to help them, like acne, how to get rid of acne, and the digestive issues. How do you get rid of that? How do you make it feel better?
Zain
Without like using just the straight prescription jug, how can we heal it very naturally, holistically, slowly give it to help your body and plus it’s all expert backed
Abdullah
After interviewing over 200 plus experts, New York Times bestsellers, Harvard professors, we had so many practical and beneficial life-changing tips that we wanted to put them into this book. So there’s what they say and we also have what we do. So what do the holistic kids do at the end of each chapter? You’ll even find that.
Dr. Wendy Myers
How long did it take you guys to write the book?
Zain
Two years
Dr. Wendy Myers
Two years? They took a lot of time, a lot of work. Mm-hmm.
Zain
They’re constantly editing and stuff like that. But really good tips are first of all, being mindful. Creating that routine without your phone is something that we really mention in our book. Like start slowly, maybe giving, like limiting your technology, creating more of a routine without your phone.
Emaad
Also mindfulness means being fully present in the world. Like when you’re mindful you can unlock your true potential. But nowadays, teens are just scrolling, eating, whatever, staying up late, sitting on the couch, playing video games for hours and hours and hours, not knowing how long they’re playing. It’s time for people to stop blindly following, putting toxins on our bodies and live with mindfulness. We need to be, we need to know what.
Dr. Wendy Myers
We need to do it, and the app that I need to get, it’s an app that basically locks your phone for a period of time. So even if you wanna get on your phone, you can’t. But it just seems like it’d be kind of torturous. That’s probably a good solution for some people
Zain
We talk about creating like that screen limit, like something that you can do like on specific apps. Something like the camera app is not gonna be as dopamine simulating as something as TikTok or Instagram.
Abdullah
That’s what we do for our baby. If he wants the phone, we like to turn it on airplane mode here, look at the camera pictures, look at the photo. Instead of giving him, ’cause we realize actually, ’cause we have a 3-year-old, so we’re experimenting a little bit. We recognize that, when we give him a phone and he starts scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, he actually then has more tantrums and he’s more irritable after. Because once you take away that phone, then he just comes crashing down. All that dopamine hits he just had, he just goes crazy.
Zain
And then you can create a routine with your child. If it’s a younger one who’s addicted to the phone, just create a routine with him. Like, you know what, we’re not gonna do this anymore. We’re going to look at photos that look like what we’re gonna see because when we constantly say, you know what? Okay, yeah, you can have this phone, then he’s gonna expect more of it later. They’re really young and they’re not gonna understand. So really just creating this routine is gonna help parents who have younger kids.
Abdullah
Some easy, simple tips is all anyone can do is first of all, like we said, limiting your phone, but also sometimes it’s going to be like a digital detox. I know our mom loves to do this all the time. Also just creating a phoneless routine. Why do you need to have your phone everywhere you go, especially in the house? I realized some people, they literally can’t leave their room without their phone.
Dr. Wendy Myers
They feel anxiety if they don’t have their phone
Abdullah
Leave it on the desk. Leave it somewhere and go without eating. Eat food without your phone. It sounds almost impossible to most people, but that’s how we have to retrain our brains to stop and get us off of this addiction.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
Bare minimum, get off the phone a couple hours before bed. You don’t wanna be looking in that blue light ’cause you’re making your brain think you’re staring at the sun. I’m staring at this O ring light right now. So it just releases cortisol. That’s the cue. Hey, let’s make cortisol that blue light. The sun releases blue light and then you suppress your melatonin and you don’t sleep. You’re gonna stay up and you’re like, oh, I’m so active in a week. I might also just get on my phone. And the cycle continues.
Abdullah
A good routine that we implement in our lives is especially gratitude, especially morning gratitude. So every single day that you wake up, say 10 things that you’re grateful for. If that’s too much, three things, if that’s too much, even one thing that you’re grateful for. Just doing things step by step, like putting that gratitude into your day. Studies have come out that gratitude shifts our subconscious from negative to positive. It actually helps dictate our thoughts or actions. If we can help change our subconscious to that positive, imagine how much more successful we’ll be. I’m pretty sure nobody’s successful just by being negative all the time.
Emaad
Our subconscious governs 90% of our thoughts and actions. Having a positive subconscious is gonna really put our thoughts into positive mode. Gratitude has the power to improve genetics, traumatic experiences and years of learned behaviors. A lot of people don’t know that gratitude is key because there’s so much negativity in the world. We spend hours on virtual reality that only highlights the good in people’s lives. On social media, you scroll and you see people what they have and what you don’t have. That makes you more negative. I don’t have that.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I used to torture myself that way with magazines when I was a teen, but I can’t imagine having just this constant stream of beautiful teenagers to compare myself to, or their bodies or their clothes or their makeup or their hair and the body dysmorphia that especially girls can fall prey to on social media. I can’t even imagine what that would be like versus my childhood just comparing myself to magazines. That in itself causes a lot of problems for many, for many girls.
Abdullah
And now a lot of people just see, oh, this person is on this vacation, this person has this, this person has that. And what they don’t realize is that that’s a highlight reel of somebody else’s life. That’s not how their life really is. Then they take that and they compare it to themselves, and then they put themselves down, and then they say, oh, I don’t have this. I’m really bad at this. I remember in class once the teacher gave everyone pieces of paper with a lot of different words on it. He told us to circle five words that we would be describing ourselves as. And after everyone scribbled down their answers and they circled their words, he asked the class, raise your hand if most of the words that you circled were negative. And sadly, 90% of that class raised their hand.
This is just the reality of what teens are going through, especially today. We need to start shifting all that subconscious, learning how to mindful, deep breathe, being mindful of what we’re doing. We need to wake ourselves up when we realize we’re being negative. We need to stop ourselves, shake us out of that mentality, especially if we’re scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. We need to stop and say, no, I can’t do this. I at least teach ourselves and teach our kids to manage their own time and especially be able to become better and reach their true potential so that they can be better adults in the future, especially when they grow older.
Dr. Wendy Myers
You mentioned having more of a sense of purpose. I think it’s so important to set goals, your daily goals or your yearly goals or five year goals or 10 year goals and how much time you’re gonna allocate each day to those goals. So you’re taking the phone away, but you’re replacing it with something that’s more constructive and self-esteem building and confidence building and being really mindful of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and you’re replacing this positive behavior and positive habits with a phone
Zain
I was gonna say teens hate boredom. They’re so uncomfortable with boredom. I realize that this is really interesting because boredom is where all the inventions happen. Boredom is where you can really express yourself when it comes to, and like to increase your mind. A lot of teens are really uncomfortable with this feeling of boredom. Like I mentioned before, our phone’s there. It’s like the boredom fixer. We don’t have to ever feel bored again because we have this, and now we are really suppressing our mind because we’re constantly being shown all these other ideas and we’re not really making our own ideas because boredom is really okay.
Boredom can help your mind. Boredom can help your ideas flow. It can help you understand who you are, help us help you be mindful of what you really are, what is around you and what you can really become.
Abdullah
I know I heard a lot of teens were afraid of being alone with our own thoughts. We need to start fixing this. We need to start taking control of our minds, control of our brains, and control of what we’re thinking as well. Because if we can’t even do that, then how are we gonna ever achieve anything in life? I know one thing our mom especially used to do, and that she still does now every single week: try to at least schedule maybe half, even half an hour of nature. Go on a hike, go outside schedule.
My mom used to tell us, Wednesday after school from 4 to 4:30 or four to five, we’re just gonna go outside into nature. No phones or nothing. We’re just gonna walk. We’re gonna either go to the playground or go next to the river, just hear the birds. Go out and into nature. She used to joke like hugging some trees.
Dr. Wendy Myers
You have to have an appointment scheduled to do that now.
Abdullah
Yes, especially for us, ’cause originally she started doing it, but she did. She just told us like, oh we’re going on nature. And even us, we were like, no, but we wanna do this, we wanna do that. Already helped was scheduling that. So teens, we can kind of put it into our schedule so we’re not stressed going out into nature.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Why don’t you just tell us about your book? Tell us about all the different things and the topics you go over in your book, The Teen Health Revolution.
Emaad
We have an acronym of the revolution, which is REV. Each of those letters stands for a type of health, like R
Speaker 4: Revolutionize the gut
Emmad
E
Zain
Row Food, the Vanquish Toxins.
Emaad
O
Zain
Stress Management.
Emaad
Optimize
Zain
Stress Management.
Emaad
L
Zain
Love Nature
Emaad
U
Zain
Unite with others.
Emaad
T
Zain
Tech Limits.
Emaad
I
Zain
Invest in Sleep
Abdullah
O Open to gratitude and purpose.
Emaad
N
Abdullah
Navigate your decisions with mindfulness. We use this simple acronym to help teens and adults and kids educate themselves and implement key principles into their lives to reach their true potential.
Emaad
If you really need help on your diet, you’re like, oh, how about eating real food. You like, oh, how am I? I just flip to the E section. Eat real, feel food, and that’d be really easy. It’s just a really easy way to find the sessions
Abdullah
Plus we eat real food, we have a lot of sciencey stuff because it’s food and so if you just wanna skip all that kind of stuff because even we get bored reading all that stuff, sometimes just skip to the back. But we have the practical aspect of what the holistic kids do. Mm-hmm. That’s like the practical, simple, easy, free things that anyone can do.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I’ve had to really go with my daughter all about diet and just tell her this is what’s in McDonald’s Chicken McNugget. It’s yoga mat foam and motor oil and all like 50 different ingredients that go into a chicken McNugget and how disgusting they are. When you learn all this stuff, you’re like, wow, I really don’t want to eat that. It’s really disgusting and really bad for your health. And not to mention the sanitation at some of the fast food places as well,
Abdullah
And especially because we like to call ultra fast foods. We don’t like to call them food. We like to call them like food-like substances,
Emaad
Junk food because it’s not really food.
Abdullah
At the end of the day, that’s what it really is. And that’s why we also always tell parents, teach your kids what’s inside their foods. Read ingredients. Teach your kids how to read ingredients. It’s right under the nutrition label. Tell them if you can’t pronounce it and it seems like it was made in a chemical lab, it’s probably not good for you.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Look it up and see what’s in that. What is that? Polyethylene glycol, and all the other weird things that are in the foods today and making an association between feeling really terrible after you eat fast food. For teens, it can just be like garbage disposals. Their bodies were so resilient, but you still have to feel really bad after eating Taco Bell and eating some of these other places, you feel terrible.
Zain
Education is so key because like I began with talking about our story. I mentioned how our mom was on our journey with us and how she was also learning and teaching us. And then we went and we spread this education to other kids. And then now we have a book and we’re spreading education, we’re spreading this, we’re helping teens learn about their body. So it’s all about really educating ourselves on this, because, like I say again, teens, we don’t really know. A lot of us don’t know what’s going on. We just think, yes, this is there. So, because it makes me feel like this, this is tasty. So I have it, this stops boredom, so I’ll have it. We don’t know why it’s happening. That’s why is so important to do the research yourself too ’cause it helps you realize also
Abdullah
A lot of reasons why parents don’t say the why is because most parents don’t know themselves. So please educate yourselves for our sake.
Dr. Wendy Myers
And it can be very tempting to just order fast food for your kids and you don’t feel like cooking. A lot of people don’t know how to cook or don’t have the time, or it’s overwhelming or they’re tired and it’s so easy to just order fast food, which is why a lot of kids end up eating that and then getting addicted to it and all the food chemicals and the artificial flavors. It’s just astounding how many adults only eat fast food. They just don’t want anything else because of the taste. Their taste buds have been hijacked. It’s shocking.
Abdullah
And that’s also an addiction. I know teens, adults, and kids are all addicted to this food. My favorite food ever was Fanta and Flaming Hot Cheetos. And step by step over like seven, eight years now, I realize that all that was was a bunch of chemicals in a bag and step by step eventually we stopped eating this, and then we stopped having McDonald’s. Then we stopped having things with tons of GMOs in them, and then we stopped this, and over seven years we were able to retrain our taste buds, and now they don’t even look delicious anymore. We recognize them as a poison.
Dr. Wendy Myers
And it’s gross. You can’t go back. Once you know what’s in all that stuff, you don’t even desire it. Maybe occasionally, but for the most part, I can’t even imagine eating it. When I was a teen, I ate a lot of fast food, but I can’t even imagine going back to that eating fast food or processed food and Pop-Tarts and cereal and all that, and every single meal. It’s just unfathomable.
Guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. That was great. I’ve never had teens on the podcast before. I really appreciate you guys coming on. You guys are veterans, you’ve got over 200 podcasts. What’s the name of your podcast, by the way?
Zain
The Holistic Kids Show.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay, fantastic. So parents listen, get your kids, your teens dialed in to their show to start. They wanna start learning more about health and feeling better mentally and physically and spiritually. You guys can go out and get your book, The Teen Health Revolution. You guys had a traditional publisher who published the book?
Abdullah
Yeah, I think it was Bloomsbury. So yeah, lots of thanks to them as well. And honestly, it’s been our pleasure. We can’t thank you enough. Thank you so much for inviting us today.
Dr. Wendy Myers
What is the name of your website?
Zain
Well, theholistickidsshow.com and theteenhealthrevolution.com.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay, fantastic. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. Everyone, I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Thanks for tuning into the Myers Detox Podcast where I just love bringing you guys information every week to help you upgrade your health so you can step into your life purpose and be the healthiest that you can be. Thanks for tuning in every week.
Disclaimer
The Myers Detox Podcast is created and hosted by Wendy Myers. This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Wendy Myers and the producers, disclaims responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. The opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.
