As we begin a new week (and my birthday week!) I would like to offer a small challenge to each of you. It will only take ten minutes. I promise. This is peer pressure in the kindest, gentlest form, so please just go with it. :)
I want you to put your electronics on do not disturb and put them out of sight. I'm serious lol A drawer, another room, anywhere that you cannot see them. Then, for the next ten minutes, what I want you to do is sit quietly. No music, no tv. Just sit. Focus on your breathing. Count in for five, hold for three, out for five. Listen to the sounds around you. Can you hear birds? Is the washing machine running? The dishwasher? Are you outside and hear kids playing in the neighborhood or the din of the traffic on the highway? Maybe you are in your office and hearing your coworkers chatting in the hall? Next, I want you to check in with your body. Are you feeling anxious that you may have missed a notification or a call in that short time? Are you wondering what others are posting in that funny group you follow? Are you worried that work is missing you? All of those thoughts are valid and normal and unfortunately a part of the information overload that comes along with our age of technology.
I recently tracked how much time I was spending looking at a screen every day and to be completely transparent, I was absolutely appalled by the numbers which averaged 7-10 hours of screentime just on my phone. While I am generally mindful, and in the past have been incredibly careful of my technology time and taking regular breaks, I have noticed that I have been spending more and more time with my eyes fixated on a screen and my mood is definitely affected by that. If I am not sitting at the computer writing or doing business (scheduling marketing posts, editing pictures, cleaning up websites, etc.), I am scrolling through social media, playing games on my phone or watching one of the multiple streaming stations to "decompress" while inherently knowing that it is actually doing the exact opposite. I also, as many of us do, find myself having the TV on for background noise while I sew or cook or clean.
I posted recently on my social media business page (do you follow on FB and IG? I would love to see you there and see the irony of promoting those platforms on this post lol!) about how I have struggled with balance since I brought my rescue pup home in February of 2021. She lives with severe anxiety and, even medicated, it is hard for her to allow me any autonomy for solo activities in the home without much drama. I firmly believe she was a theater major in another life. She is beautiful and silly and kind and sweet and loving but, she follows me around huffing and puffing if I am up and active in the home and prefers for me to be only paying attention to her. IYKYK! I presume many of these behaviors are from past traumas and I find myself appeasing her by sitting on the couch watching TV or editing pictures or scrolling mindlessly on my phone while editing pictures and watching TV so that she has access to me in an effort to lessen her stress.
So let's talk about what is happening during these daily hours of having our faces embedded in electronics. For example, for the purpose of this article, I spent five minutes each on five different social media sites on my phone; Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and Next Door. These are the apps I utilize most frequently. In the course of those minutes, I was bombarded with political posts, individuals' personal dramas, notices of people passing (people that I may or may not know), pets passing, breakups, mental health crisis, break-ins, neighborhood watch alerts, selfies galore and the occasional gratitude or uplifting post. Notice how much negative there is to pilfer through to reach the "good stuff"? There is an old phrase, "Garbage in, Garbage out." that came to mind when I decided to address our information overload problem. No matter how mindful we are, if we are consistently surrounded by negative energy, we can, and many times will, absorb that. Every notice how your mood changes when you listen to certain music? The same rings true for the information we ingest on a regular basis. We also can really develop a dependency on having access to all of the things all of the time. For those of us of a certain age, we can remember a time that we had to wait for someone to get off the phone to call our friends, and hope that their line wasn't busy so we could talk to them. Many of us only had one TV in our homes. News was on only at certain times and you had to buy a newspaper to get the stock information. There were no phones at family dinner and when I took pictures with my 35mm camera, I had to wait until I could take them to get developed before I could find out if they had turned out. In today's world, we have instant access to nearly everything and whether we realize it or not, it affects our mood, behaviors and how we interact with others. We get upset when someone doesn't immediately respond to a text message or email without empathy or realization that they may not be available.
I fully realize the irony of this post as I prepare to post it on the website and put it out on all of my platforms for you to have instant access to, but I want to go back to the challenge at the top of this article. One of my regular clients recently went on vacation and I encouraged them to spend one day or a portion of a day without their phone and just experience the events that were happening. There was an instant panic, and doubt but let's think about how even ten minutes without that constant information can help. What if we spent those ten minutes reading a book, meditating, painting, going for a walk, stretching our body, repotting a plant, writing, or simply looking at the world around us. What exactly have we "missed" in that short period of time? Pictures from a wedding that we attended on our cousin's social media? A snapchat of an internet stranger's cute dog? Or perhaps, we have actually been missing the peace of living without constant stimulation and seeing the "bad news" that can cause blood pressure spikes and additional stress. Maybe, we can be a little more "free" in our day by implementing a regular technology detox and breaks. An hour a day screen free? One day a week? Every meal? How can you challenge yourself?
What if we spent that "screentime" obtaining positive information by connecting with others, meditating and bettering our souls, volunteering our time, engaging in the arts, or simply just "being".
Give it a try. I promise you won't regret it. In order to practice what I preach; I am implementing some new challenges in my own life that I hope will serve as an example to those I come into contact with. As I move forward with building my wellness coaching curriculum and continuing to grow my massage and energy business, it is vital that I am consistent in my own wellness goals so that I can continue to help each of you live your best lives. This maybe should have been a Wellness Wednesday post now that I have reread it, but I am going to leave it because maybe that will encourage each of us to take that information overload and turn it into a meditation practice and afford us a more balanced life.
Be the good my friends.
Now close this screen and go meditate ;)
Namaste
Chrys Whitmarsh, LMT