Doctors warn: Checking your phone in the morning is the reason you may be stressed and exhausted all day!

Do you reach out to your phone the moment you wake up? Your soul literally needs a dose of digital strolling to get back to the senses and kickstart the day! Well, then your morning habit may be leading you towards stress, anxiety, digital overload and sabotaging your focus and triggering cortisol levels silently. Here’s what experts warn about this oh-so-common morning habit. Read on to know more…

What does the Doctor say about this habit?
While most people begin their day by checking their phones as they wake up, so much so that it has become an automatic reflex for their eyes and the mind! However, medical experts have raised urgent flags about how this impacts the mind, memory and overall health. In a recent Instagram video, Dr Kunal Sood, an Anesthesiologist and interventional pain medicine physician took to his social media to explain how the brain responds to this habit. He mentioned the neurological and psychological effects of reaching for the phone immediately after waking up: "Morning phone use exposes the brain to notifications, social comparison, information overload, and attention switching during the transition from sleep to wakefulness.” According to him, this can intensify the body’s natural stress response because “cortisol naturally rises after waking as part of the cortisol awakening response. Immediately adding emails, messages, news, or social comparison can increase sympathetic nervous system arousal and mental tension.”

Interrupting the brain's wake-up sequence
Expressing the consequences of this habit through this post, Dr. Sood further suggested that "notifications are designed to interrupt attention and signal that something needs a response." Research shows they can affect cognitive control and attention even without fully engaging with the phone.” He further described how repeatedly checking the phone can reinforce anxiety loops, particularly the fear of missing out on something important overnight. According to him, “Many people check their phones to reduce uncertainty about what happened overnight." That temporary relief can reinforce a cycle where anxiety leads to checking and checking briefly relieves anxiety.”


How this practice can increase stress levels
Another concern that Dr Sood expressed through his post is that "phones compress messages, reminders, social media, work obligations, and news into one stream of input. Excessive information can overwhelm the brain’s ability to prioritise and process effectively.” He added that starting the day by reacting to external demands rather than personal priorities can shape attention and focus patterns for the rest of the day.

How it can spike stress levels
As per Dr. Sood, doing this daily can rewire your body and naturally produce cortisol and trigger a sharp spike in stress hormones right after you wake up, a biological mechanism known as the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). Dr. Kunal Sood, an interventional pain medicine physician, explains that introducing work obligations, bad news, or social media comparison right during this natural hormone surge over-activates your sympathetic nervous system.

Feeding the social media-induced anxiety loop
A major reason we grab our devices is purely psychological: we want to eliminate the uncertainty of what happened while we were asleep. Dr. Sood shares that checking your notifications provides a brief hit of relief that temporarily eases the fear of missing out. However, this quick fix establishes a damaging behavioral loop where your morning anxiety drives you to check your phone, and that temporary relief trains your brain to repeat the exact same anxious habit the next day.