We’ve put together a little guide here with some actionable steps that may help in relieving your mind of the connections it has made and help you reconnect with the present.
Make the Decision to step away.
Stepping away from your phone can be tough and sometimes we aren’t really sure we need to do it, however it can also be a fun experiment to look up and see what you’ve been missing. We all use our phones for different reasons and sometimes your situation is that you rely heavily on your devices for work or family reasons. So establishing the extent of your detox can be critical to this experiment. Are you able to leave your phone in another room all day while you go about your day? Do you need set hours that you will allow yourself to have the device? Creating these schedules has even been proven to appreciate the time spent on the devices more.
Turning app notifications off
Heading into the notifications tab within your settings, you are able to change the way that you see and receive notifications. You may be notified for apps or sites that you aren’t frequently using and not even knowing it. This is a great place to start and may even help you understand some of the programs that you are no longer using and that you could possibly delete.
Removing the temptation.
One really simple way of resisting the urge and catching yourself slipping is to move the apps each day to a new area or folder in your device. This means that each time you are reaching to check out todays stories, there’s a small challenge in the way. Science shows that we base our instincts on fast rewards and usually they’re ones we do from habit. Putting this small challenge in the way may take you a little longer to find the app you’re after and will give your mind a second to reason and a reminder as to why it was moved in the first place.
Deleting the apps for a period.
If you can live without the apps, we would also recommend taking a few days to a week off them entirely and removing it from your device. Giving yourself a goal for the detox of maybe 3 days to cleanse can give an even bigger reward then just blocking out the hours that you don’t use the programs, and you may even find that when the detox is over, you’re less inclined to use the app as much as you did previously!
Over all, countless studies have show our addiction to these apps and the way that they have wired our brains reward system to check and looks however, sometimes it can be see that these perfect profiles and unrealistic standards of life we view on socials are taking a toll on our own worth and quality of life. Its important to keep in mind that social media is not real life. As much influence, or seeming influence, it has, it’s a curated and selective sample of what’s actually going on in the world.
So what do you have to lose? We think there’s only room to gain and start taking in more of the present and being with your thoughts.
