Welcome to the Simple Steps to Improved Health Challenge Day 21 Spend Less Time on Your Phone
Reminder to choose 1 of the first two actions to work on this week starting today or whatever day you want the week to start on for you. See Day 1 for more information about the challenge.
How Does Spending Less Time on Your Phone Improve Health
Screen Time impacts your body physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Physical Impacts on Health are Twofold
The first is probably what you think that being on a screen stops you from getting movement. This lack of movement increases the risk of diseases that typically happen with sedentary people. Some of these include weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
You may think you prevent that by walking around while using your phone, but that is not the case. Even if you get the physical aspect in line, you still have the normal impact of the screen time.
Most people have anxiety about their phone and not checking it. Additionally, there are impacts to hormones from the way you feel about the information you see or hear from the phone.
Both these can chronically increase cortisol which impacts your body in similar ways to less movement by an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Additionally, the blue light on your phone can impact your sleep. Not only how long you sleep but also your ability to fall asleep quickly.
Mental Impacts
The mental impacts include stress, anxiety, and depression. Many apps are designed to give you a dopamine hit that in turn over time gets you addicted to your phone. That addiction adds other stress and anxiety not just about the content on your phone, but also about checking your phone. Again leading to physical chronic cortisol.
Emotional Impacts
Emotional impacts come from the constant information you receive having an emotional impact and then stuffing that emotion for the next and next thing you read or hear and adding those emotions. When you stop feeling your emotions, you become anxious that you are missing something.
What you are Missing is the Present
The screen takes you away from the present. When you live outside of the present your relationships suffer.
Additionally, your ability to focus is impaired, taking longer to do things and those things are not done very well.
You also miss the beauty of life happening around you. Nature, art, or the expression on your friend’s face.
People who are on screens a lot have trouble identifying someone’s body language.
Communication is 70 to 93 percent nonverbal including tone of voice, facial expressions, eye contact, and body language. You lose the ability to communicate with people around you.
How to Take Action to Spend Less Time on Your Phone
A decree in screen time may show improvements in physical, mental, and emotional areas of life in less than a week. Often times taking a small break from screen time results in longer breaks or more consistent breaks from screens so you maintain those benefits.
There are many ways to take control of your screen time. The important thing is you choose to do it.
Phone Features
Use your own phone features to help you. Most phones have a tracking app that will tell you what apps on your phone take most of your time as well as how much time you spend on your phone each day.
The next thing you can do is turn off all notifications that are not essential. That way you are not disturbed by the ding asking you to pick up your phone.
Another feature of your phone may be the “Do not Disturb” feature. You can set it up for certain times of the day or turn it on when you need to focus on something. You can allow phone calls from certain people to always come through so you won’t miss an emergency.
When Life is Important
Decide when you want to be screen-free.
Maybe it is nightly at dinner with your family.
Turn off your phone during meetings.
How about when you are on a date?
Maybe you have a game night as a family.
Because it impacts sleep, you may decide to not have screens on an hour before bed.
Maybe you want an entire day without screens. On a stay or away vacation you can take a day without screens.
See how it makes you feel the next day and how well your mind works and focuses after you take any of these screen breaks.
Go Do it
1. Decide that you want a screen break.
2. Decide what type of screen break you want to take. A couple of hours, remove apps, remove notifications, or take an entire day. See the phone features and When Life is Important.
3. Implement one of those screen breaks starting today. Maybe it is the no screens an hour before bed.
4. Think about how you feel different the next day and if that screen break worked for your life.
5. Continue with that screen break and schedule that time into your calendar or choose another screen break that might fit better in your life.
I wish you a Happy Present Life.
