Field Notes

If you live with that constant background hum of anxiety, you’ll understand the feeling of trying everything — therapy, routines, productivity hacks — and still feeling slightly on edge.

So today we’re trying something different.

This is a Mother’s Day anxiety special, featuring:

• two anxiety techniques from my mother (Old Ma)
• two techniques from a Harvard-trained life coach
• and a conversation that includes orgasms, existential philosophy, and a surprisingly detailed death plan.

In other words: a fairly normal episode.

The Four Anxiety Techniques

In this episode we explore four very different ways of dealing with anxiety:

1️⃣ Old Ma’s technique #1: orgasm as emotional regulation
2️⃣ Old Ma’s technique #2: contemplating death (memento mori)
3️⃣ The “Sanity Quilt” method from Martha Beck
4️⃣ The Perfect Day exercise

Some of these are more sensible than others.

The Sanity Quilt

The Sanity Quilt idea comes from Martha Beck.

Imagine a patchwork blanket where each square is a small activity that reliably calms your nervous system.

Not big life changes.
Just tiny stabilisers you can rely on when things feel overwhelming.

Examples might include:

• a quick walk outside
• dancing to one song in the kitchen
• lighting a candle
• listening to music
• texting a friend
• reading a few pages of a book
• making a cup of tea
• eating a tiny cheeseboard (personal favourite)

The idea is to build a toolkit of small things that help you regulate before you spiral.

The Perfect Day Exercise

The Perfect Day exercise asks a different question:

Instead of chasing big life goals, what does a good ordinary Tuesday actually look like for you?

You imagine a realistic ideal day — from when you wake up to when you go to bed.

Not a fantasy billionaire life.

Just the kind of day your nervous system would actually enjoy living in.

Because life is basically thousands of Tuesdays in a row.

Also in this episode

• how worrying brains invent problems that never happen
• why modern life might be fuelling anxiety
• why remembering death can sometimes make life easier
• Old Ma’s surprisingly detailed end-of-life plan

Ask Guru & Granny

If you want Old Ma and I to attempt to solve your life problems, send us your dilemmas.

Relationship chaos, family drama, existential crises — we’ll take it all.

DM your questions to:

@rosehoneymorgan
@field.notes.pod

You can remain anonymous if you like.

If you enjoyed this episode

Please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with someone who:

• worries about things that never happen
• enjoys slightly unhinged mother–daughter conversations
• or might benefit from a sanity quilt and a small cheeseboard
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this week I began testing the Flow Neuroscience headset — a device that uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate areas of the brain linked to depression.

In simpler terms:

I’ve started plugging my forehead into a charger.

This Friday Field Report is the week one update.

I talk through:

• What the headset actually feels like to wear
• The slightly alarming wet electrode pads situation
• Whether the electrical stimulation hurts (spoiler: mildly… but in a “strong skincare” kind of way)
• The surprisingly good therapy app that comes with it
• Why the behavioural therapy modules are actually better than a lot of therapy I’ve paid for
• Whether the experiment is making me feel even slightly more motivated

So far the results are… inconclusive.

But I do feel a bit more like “come on then, let’s be having you.”

Which is something.

Inside the Flow app

One thing that genuinely impressed me was the built-in therapy courses.

The headset isn’t just about the electrical stimulation — the app includes:

• behavioural therapy modules
• mindfulness and meditation sessions
• sleep support
• habit-building exercises
• diet and lifestyle guidance

All delivered through a chat-style interactive course, which is surprisingly engaging when you’re struggling to focus.

It’s a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure therapy conversation.

Find of the Week

The therapy format inside the Flow app — genuinely useful behavioural therapy exercises delivered in a way that actually keeps you engaged.

If I find similar tools that don’t require a brain-electrocuting headset, I’ll link them here. Ok so there's one called Youper but it's not available in the UK annoyingly. Abby - your AI therapist looks good. Or Wysa the app looks good too. Haven't tried any of them though so... just going off the App Store sales pitch!

Fail of the Week

I currently have around 200 unanswered messages across email, WhatsApp and DMs.

The longer I leave them, the more awkward the replies become.

Classic.

The experiment continues

I’ll report back again once I’ve used the headset for the full three-week protocol to see whether it actually improves:

• mood
• motivation
• executive function
• anxiety

Or whether I’ve simply been mildly electrifying my forehead for no reason.

Join the conversation

If you’ve tried anything that actually helped your mental health, motivation or executive function — send it my way.

DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan
@field.notes.pod

Join the Book Club

We’re currently reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway inside the Actually Trying Book Club.

Join here:
https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s episode is about mental health, low mood, chronic anxiety, executive dysfunction, and a slightly alarming-looking headset that may or may not be about to change my life.

I’m trying the Flow Neuroscience headset — a non-invasive medical device that uses tDCS (transcranial Direct Current Stimulation) to stimulate the part of the brain linked to depression.

In simpler terms:
I am, apparently, going to start plugging my forehead into a charger.

And honestly? At this point I’m open to it.

In this episode I talk about:

My long history of low mood, dread, anxiety, and general internal gloom
Everything I’ve already tried:
CBT
EMDR
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
medication
exercise
water
sleep
trying really hard not to lose the plot
What the Flow headset actually is
How it’s meant to work
Why the NHS uses it
The statistics that made me willing to strap an electrical device to my head
Whether this is cutting-edge science or a sign that modern life has gone badly wrong
Why our ancestors may have had lives that were more naturally protective of mental health than ours are now

Also in this episode:

A new Ask Guru & Granny segment on beauty, Botox, fillers, lipstick, tailored clothing, and why my mother believes a teaspoon of botulism could kill the human race.

So, as usual, it’s a mixed bag.

What happens next?

I’m starting the headset experiment now.

On Friday I’ll report back on:

what it feels like
whether it hurts
what the app is like
and whether I feel even slightly less like I’m permanently treading emotional water

The bigger results, apparently, take a few weeks — so this is just the beginning

Send in your dilemmas for Ask Guru & Granny

If you want me and Old Ma to attempt to solve your problems, send them over.

DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan
@field.notes.pod

And if I ignored your last one by accident, just bump it and send it again.

Join the book club

We’ve just started Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway inside the Actually Trying book club.

https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

If you enjoyed this episode

Please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend who:

is hanging on by a thread
has tried everything
or would absolutely try electrically charging their forehead if it meant feeling a bit more perky

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

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

Links & Things Mentioned

Join the Actually Trying Book Club
👉 https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Lucy’s interiors Instagram
👉 https://www.instagram.com/lucycollierinteriors

Follow the Show

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

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

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