Last week I tested the internet’s favourite anti-doomscrolling trick:

turning your phone to gray scale (black and white).

The theory is simple: remove the bright colours that hijack your brain’s dopamine system and suddenly your phone becomes far less addictive.

Did it cut my screen time in half?

Well… not exactly.

But it did reveal some interesting things about how our brains react to colour, stimulation, and the endless scroll.

In this week’s Field Report we discuss:

• Whether gray scale actually reduced my screen time
• Why social media becomes weirdly less appealing in black and white
• How the experiment accidentally pushed me into a ChatGPT rabbit hole
• Why real life suddenly looked much more colourful and vivid
• A brief “Have We Lost the Plot?” anthropology segment on humans and colour stimulation
• The unexpected downside: trying to play phone games in grayscale

Plus:

Find of the Week

Appreciating colour again (and the joy of bold interiors)

Fail of the Week

Spending another two hours helping June solve a murder in June’s Journey

Join the Actually Trying Book Club

👉 https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Lucy’s interiors Instagram

👉 https://www.instagram.com/lucycollierinteriors

Follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s experiment.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who is also trying (and occasionally failing) to reduce their screen time.

Next week’s topic may or may not make brands even more nervous about working with me… but at this point the damage is probably already done.

See you then.

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If your screen time is creeping up…

If your phone feels impossible to put down…

If the real world is starting to look a bit dull by comparison…

This week I’m testing a free, surprisingly simple method that claims to reduce doomscrolling fast.

No apps.

No discipline hacks.

No expensive “digital detox” retreats.

Just one setting change.

In this episode we discuss:

• How color and contrast hijack your dopamine system
• Why overstimulation can make the real world feel flat
• The “gray scale” method and how to set it up
• And why I realised I needed to fix this — urgently

I’m committing to a full week of gray scale to see if it genuinely reduces screen time.

If you try it too, let me know what happens.

The Instructions

To enable grayscale on an iPhone, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters, then toggle "Color Filters" on and select "Grayscale"

To turn on grayscale on Android, go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > Bedtime mode and enable "Grayscale"

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

I’ll report back with the results.

⭐ If this episode helps:

Follow the show, leave a review, or send it to the friend who says “I don’t go on my phone that much” but somehow knows every trend

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📚 Book Club Free Trial : https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Next month’s book: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Link in show notes.

Join us so I can reject brands with confidence.

ANYWAY

I’m back from the front lines.

Four whole days.

Zero processed food.

Planned, chopped, cooked, washed up.

Repeated.

Never again.

In this episode we discuss:

• The emotional toll of planning three meals a day like a Victorian housewife
• Whether chopping board dinners are secretly genius
• Why cheeseboard dinner is an elite parenting hack
• The M&S “non-UPF” range (sausages, buns, ketchup — full review)
• Migraines, morale, and missing Biscoff
• Being dropped by my first big brand deal and spiralling publicly
• Whether I should sell my soul for a podcast editor
• And if early death from crisps is simply a trade-off I’m willing to make

The experiment verdict?

Did I feel superhuman?

No.

Did I feel morally superior?

Briefly.

Did I miss ready meals with my entire being?

Yes.

Cheeseboard dinner.

Elevated picky bits.

Zero guilt.

Highly recommend.

Everything else.

If you’ve cracked the code on eating well without turning it into a full-time job, tell me.

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode:

Follow the show.

Leave a review.

Send it to a friend but pre warn them about which episodes are shite.

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Last week I tried going ultra-processed-food-free.

I lasted one day.

Then I got violently ill.

Was it the chicken?

Was it soft play?

Was it karma for mocking chopping-board influencers?

Unclear.

This week is Take 2.

Because the real question isn’t “Is processed food bad?”

It’s:

How on earth are we supposed to avoid it if we can’t cook and don’t have a private chef?

• My catastrophic attempt at roasting a chicken
• Why I owe chopping-board people an apology
• Cottage cheese and berries (I’m still not convinced)
• The alarming bacteria situation on cutting boards
• The new M&S “UPF-free” range
• Why modern health advice quietly assumes unlimited time
• Whether there’s a realistic middle ground between crisps and grinding your own flour

I’m trialling:

• The single-ingredient chopping board approach
• The M&S UPF-free range
• And whatever I can manage without poisoning myself again

I’ll report back properly in Friday’s Field Report.

If you have:

• Healthy ready meal recommendations
• Low-effort meal hacks
• Or thoughts on whether I’ve lost the plot

Tell me.

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

I read them. I respond. I occasionally take your advice.

Private chef reel link : https://www.instagram.com/reel/CteX-QfMvkD/?igsh=cjR4bzNlOHM2eGU3

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode:

Follow the show, leave a review, or send it to a friend who owns a chopping board but still eats waffles daily.

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This week’s update is… brief.

After confidently declaring I would attempt a week of ultra-processed-food-free living, I made it:

👉 One day.

And now I am recording this hunched over a sick bowl in what can only be described as the pink fluffy gown of shame.

Is it norovirus?

Is it food poisoning?

Is it my body rebelling against actual vegetables?

We do not yet know.

What we do know:

• Cooking is dangerous

• My stomach muscles are shot

• The commitment to this podcast remains intact

Full debrief on Monday — assuming I survive.

—

📚 Join “Actually Trying” for the proper breakdowns (when I’m upright again): https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

📲 Follow along for live chaos:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

Like. Subscribe. Send electrolytes.

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This week on Field Notes, we enter the land of: Ultra-Processed Food.

According to certain very serious doctors on the internet, UPFs are now:

Cool.

Not dramatic at all.

So naturally, I’ve decided to test whether cutting them out for a week will:

• Improve my migraines
• Reduce my exhaustion
• Fix my yo-yo weight history
• Or simply make me feral and resentful

Because unfortunately… most of the things listed as “ultra-processed” are the things I actually eat.

• What actually counts as Ultra-Processed Food (and how inconsistent the definitions are)
• The claim that UPFs are worse than tobacco
• The inflammation / microbiome argument
• The counter-argument from registered dietitians
• Whether the research is observational or causal
• Food anxiety vs legitimate health concern
• My chaotic personal diet
• Growing up on enforced raw spinach
• Cheese-based GCSE breakdowns
• Yo-yo weight cycles and hyper-palatable food
• Ozempic changing the household food dynamic
• Whether non-UPF eating is realistic with children
• Why I eat like a 19-year-old boy with a student loan
• And whether “whole foods” are actually practical in real life

My current diet includes:

• Fistfuls of turkey
• Salt & vinegar crisps
• Tuna pasta
• Mushroom coffee
• Minimal fruit
• Suspiciously little fibre

Meanwhile the internet is telling me my gut lining is dissolving and my liver is weeping.

So this week I attempt to go:

👉 UPF-Free (or as close as I can manage)

And we’ll see whether:

• My energy changes
• My migraines shift
• My mood improves
• Or whether I simply miss crisps

• Are we pathologising modern food?
• Is this another wellness panic?
• Or is the hyper-palatable environment genuinely wrecking us?
• Can a busy parent realistically cook everything from scratch?
• And why does cutting processed food feel so emotionally loaded?

This week’s dilemma:

“I’ve narrowed it down to three husband contenders. How do I choose?”

Featuring:

• The Strong Stomach Theory™
• The Chap Olympiad
• Escape room testing
• Vomit resilience
• And a brief detour into secret families

You’re welcome.

If you’d like to improve your life without becoming insufferable:

Join the book club / self-improvement group chat over on Substack.

This month:

👉 Atomic Habits by James Clear

You’ll get:

• Weekly practical breakdowns
• Private podcast episodes
• Cheat sheets
• Knowledge topics
• And a place to collectively sort ourselves out

Join here:

https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/subscribe

Or sign up free for the weekly notes.

Follow on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

Share this episode with someone who:

• Owns at least three types of oat milk
• Is suspicious of emulsifiers
• Or eats crisps in the car and calls it “lunch”

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This week’s Field Report is the follow-up on vagus nerve regulation, still-face parenting, and trying to soothe our fried nervous systems.

I tested the homework:

Ice water dunk.

Breath work.

Humming (unfortunately, in public).

• Vagus nerve stimulation device - https://shorturl.at/Q0YQQ
• Breath work app - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/breathwrk-breathing-exercises/id1481804500
• Gospel Sunday Service Choir track - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qre8LJVd3o (wait for SIA to come out and sing with them, it gets me every time. Also look up 'sunday service choir' on youtube or spotify and enjoy the full album. I love 'rain' and 'father stretch' the most.

📚 Join “Actually Trying”

Private podcast episodes, book breakdowns, and practical self-improvement without becoming unbearable.

https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/subscribe

Follow on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

New episodes every Monday (deep dive) and Friday (Field Report).

• Full head ice dunk attempts (and whether they calm you down or just make you feel mildly feral)
• Why breath work felt surprisingly effective
• The school gate humming incident
• The still-face experiment and why scrolling in front of your kids hits differently
• Why regulation starts in the body, not the brain
• Whether overthinking (and over-ChatGPT-ing) makes stress worse
• The new vagus nerve stimulation device you can clip to your ear
• The gospel choir soundtrack that fuelled my public “moment”
• Why humans used to regulate naturally (and now need calendar reminders to breathe)

Public humming.

Misread eye contact.

A minor wellbeing check from one of the two hot dads.

We move.

Regulation is physical.

You cannot reason your way out of stress when your heart is racing.

Long exhales > spiralling thoughts.

Unclench your jaw > rewrite your narrative.

Body first. Brain second.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vagus Nerve Tips, Stress & Still Face Parenting

This week I force you to join in with whatever the mad reels tell us to do - so concentrate.

My algorithm is obsessed with vagus nerve regulation: calm your nervous system, soothe your vagal tone, stop being on edge, stop snapping, stop doom-scrolling and just… relax.

So naturally, I decided to look into it.

In this episode I unpack why modern life feels so dysregulating, why scrolling feels calming but actually isn’t, and whether humming, cold water, jaw unclenching and breathing like an ancient human might help — or whether we’ve officially lost the plot.

You may need to unclench your teeth while listening.

• Why “just calm down” doesn’t work

• The Still Face experiment — and why blank-facing kids backfires

• What the vagus nerve actually does (without wellness nonsense)

• Why your body has to feel safe before your brain can think

• The most common vagus nerve tips from Instagram

• Which ones felt useful, which felt weird, and which I’ll actually keep

Including:

• Humming & singing

• Breathing out longer than in

• Jaw and tongue relaxation

• Cold water on the face

• Slow movement instead of checking out

No ice baths. No candles. No pretending we live in a monastery.

Probably not.

Humans have always regulated themselves through:

• movement

• rhythm

• cold exposure

• shared calm

We just used to do it naturally — now we have to remember.

I’ll report back on whether any of this helped in real life, or whether it joined the long list of things that sounded promising and didn’t survive a weekday.

If you want help actually applying this stuff (without becoming insufferable):

👉 https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/subscribe

This month’s book:

Atomic Habits – James Clear

You’ll get:

• Weekly breakdowns you can actually use

• Private podcast episodes

• Cheat sheets & summaries

• Anti-brain-rot knowledge topics

You can also join free for the notes via email.

Follow along on Instagram:

• @rosehoneymorgan

• @field.notes.pod

And come back Friday for the field report.

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