Disconnect from Time Wasters

Our time is precious because we can never get it back. Our most valuable currency is time itself. We are often not mindful of how we are spending our time. For example, we spend 10 hours and 39 minutes each day in front of screens on average. Thats a lot of screen time.

We all get to choose where our energy goes. Are you choosing to spend your energy on your digital devices or on important relationships and in person connections?

When you get an email, text or DM, you don’t have to respond to everyone right away and some not ever. You get to choose what you will pay attention to. We have to contemplate how our devices are controlling us, and part of this is making our digital device responses work for us and not us for them.

Every now and then we all need a digital detox. To clear the brain fog brought on by too much device usage. Our brains are not prepared or meant for constant screen time and endless notifications. This sends us into a state of high alert and charges our limbic and nervous system with overload. Give your mind a break and hit delete on too much device usage.

Many of us are not getting enough sleep. 49% of device users have sleep disorders. At night when we are sleeping is when our brains heal from the anxiety of the day. If we look at our phones an hour before bedtime, it stimulates our brains and causes interrupted REM sleep. Then we are anxious the following day. No phones in bed. Over 70% of us look at our screens within 5 minutes of going to sleep. Bad habit. It costs you precious sleep. One of the healthiest things you can do is put your phone in another room at night when you are sleeping. Put your phone to sleep when you sleep.

Waking in the night and checking social media also causes sleep issues. We all do it when we can’t sleep, and the next day we surely pay for it when we have brain fog and anxiety from lack of sleep. When we reach for our phone in the night, it tells our brain it is time to get up. Checking social media during the night can cause our anxiety to rise quickly and this keeps us from going back into a peaceful sleep state. We don’t want to connect with our workday stress and anxiety by checking emails during the night when we can’t sleep . This is a sure way of not going back to sleep.

When we are exposed to our digital devices too often we feel sluggish the following day. Too much screen time negatively effects our health. Find the right tech/life balance for you. Start your new healthier tech habits with a 30 day digital detox. Then add back only the digital devices you really need in your life. Let the rest go and enjoy the benefits of peaceful sleep and a calm brain. No liking or swiping , just living your best life.