#AFINEBALANCETIPS: HOW TO STOP YOUR PHONE TAKING OVER YOUR LIFE
#AFINEBALANCETIPS are thoughtfully shared by the brilliant Jax Turner - Yoga teacher, personal trainer, part time writer and all round wonderful woman. You can find her here.
Somehow we made it through the 4.5 week month of January, which let’s face it felt like an eternity. It would’ve felt even longer if you got paid before Christmas and proceeded to be skint AF for the rest of the month, so I guess the question here isn’t who can relate it’s who can’t relate? And if you can’t relate then I implore you to share your January survival guide tips with me in preparation for next year.
Poor January doesn’t really stand a chance, always getting a bad rep, let alone this year being accompanied by news of the awful outbreak of the Coronavirus, the ongoing tragedy of the bushfires in Australia, the plane crash in Iran, the Kobe Bryant helicopter accident and the mixed reviews about Brexit on the 31st that’s caused wars at the family dinner table. Just to name a few…
The month also takes on a multitude of names and personas which you’ve probably heard at least one person talking about - Blue Monday, Veganuary and Dry Jan.
Fear not my friends because for every cloud there’s a silver lining and Jan just happens to be the month of my birthday! Can I get a whoop?! Luckily, it’s towards the end of the month so everyone’s been paid, the trends have reached their pinnacle and the majority are ready to start ‘Pay Passing’ their cards in exchange for dinner and alcohol once more.
So take a moment here to appreciate yourself for making it through this month and if self-appreciation is difficult for you, a simple ‘I did it’ will suffice.
A topic I’ve been wanting to write about for some time has been our relationships with our phones and what this means for our mental and physical health.
Hands up if you’ve ever shot a judgemental glare at people on the train during the morning commute, with their head down looking at their phones lost in the deep dark realms of Netflix and the little voice in your head scolds ‘wow isn’t this generation awful’.
What about when you’re walking in the street and the person opposite is getting dangerously close but they’re not looking up from their phone and there’s going to be a collision. We need to take matters into our own hands and side step out of the way, but just at the point of jumping, they look up from their phone. Sigh. We’re safe until the next street.
Now repeat after me, pot - kettle - black!
If the above incident doesn’t describe you at all then I applaud you and we need more people like you in the world! For most of us it seems that we find ourselves doing the very thing that makes our blood boil.
If you’ve started to experience addictive behaviours to your phone then you’re not alone, and the more people I talk to, the more I realise this is becoming alarmingly common for quite a few people. I wanted to get a legitimate smartphone addiction statistic to add here but sadly I couldn’t be sure which ones were accurate or from a trusted source. So, please forgive my lack of percentages, but I think we can all agree percentage or not, that this is a real epidemic.
Have you experienced the feeling of being sucked into the overwhelming Vortex of Instagram? Have you ‘woken up’ 45 minutes later to realise it’s now dark outside and your tea’s gone cold?
For me, I can only compare this feeling to what I’d imagine it must’ve been like for Harry Potter and Sirius Black when they were getting eaten alive by Dementors in The Prisoner of Azkaban. The feeling that all life is being sucked out of you while you’re left weak and tired with a dreadful feeling that you’ll never be happy again.
Slightly dramatic you say? Yes I’ll probably agree with you, but can you see where I’m coming from here?
The issue isn’t the phone itself, it’s the relationship with the phone that can be either a positive or negative one. Our smartphones are now another entity in our lives whether we like it or not, so we need to learn how to harness a healthy relationship with them. (By the way this could be relevant to other tech items too but for the sake of this post I’m just focusing on smartphones).
Here’s a definition of the word ‘Relationship’.
> The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.
— DEFINITION BY LEXICO POWERED BY OXFORD
With this quote in mind think about the relationships we have with our mum, dad, cousin, co-worker, dog, cat… and what about money? Even though money isn’t necessarily a ‘real’ thing does that mean it doesn’t qualify as a ‘real relationship’? Money certainly impacts each and every one of our lives in some way and as we move further into the 21st century, technology is impacting us more than ever.
So if money and smartphones are merely ‘objects’ in our mind, can we not agree that a positive or negative attitude could determine what kind of relationship we have with one or both of these objects?
The primary use of phones no longer exists.
We don’t solely use our smartphone to call another person anymore, now they’re our alarm, photo album, social media, business tool, Netflix account, game console, calculator, videos and internet searches. It’s all happened so fast and it can get a little overwhelming and there have been countless times in the past that I’ve threatened to get a hammer and smash my phone or throw it out of a window.
Low and behold that never actually happened and a few hours later I’d set my alarm for the next day, automatically open and close Instagram, find an unfinished conversation on WhatsApp and start replying. It would be rude not to, right?
So to save any future smartphones from an unjust and cruel death by no fault of their own, I ask you to indulge in some ideas of how to create a better relationship between you and your main squeeze (your smartphone).
Our phones aren’t evil. We just need some boundaries. :)
I’ve put together a few action points that have helped me develop a healthier relationship with my phone.
Tip no.1 – What to do once the working day is done.
Get a paper or notebook and write down a list of activities you could do in the evening after work or in the morning if you work shifts. Once this is complete and you’re home after work, think about what you could do from the list before you open your phone and start scrolling. Here’s a few of mine for inspiration:
- Reading
- Exercising: roll out your yoga mat
- Journaling
- Cooking
- Read a blog ;)
- Self-care
- Plan future yoga classes
- Create a new playlist
- Learn to sew
- Clean or tidy my room/apartment
- Snuggle your pet (or make friends with someone has one)
- Netflix documentary
- Prepare lunch for tomorrow
- Learn an instrument
- Book and attend an evening course that interests me
- Scheduled 30-60minutes of Social Media time (*see Tip no.5 for reference)
You can disregard some or add your own to this list to make it personal to you and don’t burden yourself by thinking you’ve got to do all of them, just pick a few that call to you and roll with it!
Tip no.2 - Do you even commute though?
I have to commute and it’s personally the thing that makes me the most unhappy. I try to tackle this by doing some of the following while I’m on the train or bus.
- Read the morning/evening paper
- If you’re London based read a Time Out magazine and rip out the cool deals you like (watch everyone stare at you as you rip the paper – it freaks people out!)
- Listen to a Podcast
- Duo Lingo
- Sudoku or Crosswords
- Read a blog ;)
- Get a head start with work emails
- Talk to a fellow commuter (a rare sight but it’s been known to happen)
If you’ve got a 1-2 hour commute to and from work that’s time you could be using wisely. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of taking in our surroundings, looking out the window and getting lost in thought, but when you’ve done that commute 1972197 times, it starts to get a little monotonous to say the least. So, spice it up a bit and if you’ve got any more tips for surviving the commute please let me know!
Tip no.3 - Don’t let your phone get in the way of your dinner time.
Get off your phone if you’re at dinner and someone is talking to you. Why not put your phone away when it comes to eating dinner? Enjoy your food and look at the person or people talking, listen to their stories and give them your full presence.
*Disclaimer – Sometimes if I’ve been with someone all day and we sit down to eat, I might use my phone to answer some messages or work enquiries, but I would never let someone talk to me while I’m looking down at my phone. No way.
Tip no.4 - Bedtime phone Polyamory?
There were three in the bed and the little one said, ‘no don’t turn me off you’ve got more time to scroll’.
Do you have such a love affair with your phone that you take it to bed? Your bed is a sacred space for sleeping amongst other things so don’t let it ruin your intimate relationships. There’s a lot of science to show how the light from the phone affects our brain before sleep so for the sake of our deep sleep and our relationships, put the phone down and let your mind and body switch off and reboot.
- Send your last messages one hour before you plan to sleep
- Set your alarm one hour before you plan to sleep
- Don’t look at your phone again until you’re a zombie waking up in the morning to switch off the alarm sound
- If you listen to mediation or sounds before bed, set that up, check your alarm is on, relax, sleep, don’t touch it again.
- Distract yourself from the nervous twitch to reach for your phone by reading or journaling
- Resist the urge to scroll the moment you wake up. Wash your face, have a tea and get yourself ready for the day ahead.
Be patient with yourself - habits don’t change overnight. If overtime you’ve gotten into an unhealthy habit, it’ll take some determination and patience to undo it. So don’t worry if you slip up, just remember we always have an opportunity to do what’s best.
Tip no.5 - Give your phone some space!
If you’ve got a project or a deadline that you need to complete its always helpful to give your full attention and focus to the task. A simple but effective way to resolve this could be…
Leave your phone in another room.
Tip no.6 - When to treat yourself to a Social Media scroll.
Setting aside time to use social media could be useful as I’ve found that we need to limit our time using it in order to stop comparing our lives to others and drowning in the vortex of stories and feeds.
Try not to check your social media on your commute (prime time for the vortex)
If you use your Instagram for business can you carve out certain pockets of time in your day to market your business and also reply to your audience?
*Choose a time to treat yourself to a scroll – will it be at lunch time, will it be after work for 30, 45 or 60 minutes? Be honest with yourself and allow yourself time. It can still be an enjoyable experience.
Some last thoughts from me.
Phones keep us connected with our friends, family, partners, customers, current affairs and trends from across the World. It’s a spectacular thing that we can capture moments with our phones and share our experiences with our audience. It’s wonderful that we can find humour in the use of emojis, memojis and snapchat filters especially when our parents or grandparents get on board. The rise of social media has meant a greater connectedness on subjects such as our environment, raising money for charities to help those in need around the world and for people to have the opportunity to use phones and internet as a tool to run their own businesses.
Despite what Regina George says, we must remember that our phones are not the devil and we can make peace with them. They’re a wonderful tool and now we need to learn how to have a healthy relationship with them.
I hope this has been insightful for some of you, or maybe you just had a little chuckle! Either way, I truly appreciate you taking the time to read the post and I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions or maybe any recommendations on how you create healthy phone habits. You can comment your thoughts below!
You can read more from me here.
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Email – hello@jaxandtonic.com IG – jaxandtonic