Self-care around technology is a formidable challenge in our digital age. Studies show, however, that unplugging from news and social media can be beneficial to our psychological wellbeing. Unplugging from technology is more than just turning off your phone although that in itself can play a part in helping get some “psychological distance” from what we are inundating our brains with on a daily basis. As a practitioner, I am simply advocating for being mindful with the choices that make up our “digital diet”. We must pay closer attention to the amount of time spent on our phones or in front of our computers, as well as look closely at the quality of the content we are consuming.
What we must remember is that as we expose ourselves to the news and what is on our platform feeds, there are internal processes in our brain constantly making judgements about what we see. This can be good or bad depending upon what we are looking at and why we are looking at it. Expose our brains to positive information and we push the needle toward a more positive outlook. Expose our brains to things that make us anxious, depressed, jealous, or agitated only pushes the needle in the negative direction. Brain science 101: The thoughts, feelings, and behavioral responses that get repeated most in our brains become the strongest thoughts, feelings, and behavioral responses.
Questions to ask yourself related to your “digital diet”:
Are you comparing yourself or your life to others on social media wishing you had what they have?
Are you reinforcing a negative sense of who you are because you don’t look like others on social media or have their extravagant lifestyles?
Are you growing increasingly more stressed or depressed by taking in hour upon hour of news reports about tragedies around the nation and the world?
Are you losing hours of your day being in your “digital headspace” because you are bored, anxious, dissatisfied, or avoiding things in your life that you should be attending to?
Do you end up feeling guilty, irritated, or depressed after spending excessive amounts of time engaging in digital media?
Confirming any of these questions is a reg flag for you to further investigate! Take control and be mindful of your time and attention.
The Mindful Mustache 
Leave a comment