Set your phone to alarm-only mode after 9pm

After 9pm, your phone should be capable of receiving calls only — everything else silenced.

Why it works

Late-evening notifications are a form of variable-ratio intermittent reinforcement: occasionally rewarding enough to keep the checking habit alive at night. Alarm-only mode removes the reward schedule and tells the nervous system there is nothing to check — producing a gradual extinction of the late-night checking compulsion over one to two weeks.

How to do it

1. Enable Focus or Do Not Disturb with exceptions only for calls from starred contacts.
2. Set this to activate automatically at 9pm daily — manual activation fails because of the urge-to-check problem it is trying to solve.
3. Do not check whether you received any messages until morning.
4. Inform close contacts about your policy so genuine emergencies can reach you.

Evidence

Variable-ratio reinforcement schedules maintain compulsive behavior; removing the schedule reliably produces extinction. Scheduled Do Not Disturb modes have been shown in observational studies to reduce late-night phone use and improve sleep outcomes. (mechanistic)

Extinction of phone-checking habits takes 1-3 weeks and may involve a brief extinction burst (increased urge before it fades); this is normal and not a reason to abandon the practice.

Common mistake

Enabling Do Not Disturb but making exceptions for too many apps, so the mode becomes indistinguishable from normal mode.