Tech Addicts: Five Easy Ways to Take a Real Break
| 3 min read
It’s way too easy these days to be attached to your phone, tablet or laptop from the moment you wake up (what emails did I get overnight?) to the moment you fall asleep (just one more glance through Facebook). But if you make a point to truly disconnect from time to time, you can reduce your stress, sleep better and even be a nicer person. Here are five ways you can do that:
- Don’t take your phone on your run. Sure it has music on it, but why not listen to birds instead? If you can’t run without tunes playing or want your phone with you for safety reasons, put your phone in airplane mode so you also aren’t getting notifications of emails or texts.
- Go offline to focus. If you have to get something done at work that doesn’t require the internet, don’t tempt yourself by leaving a browser window or your email up. It’s way too easy to procrastinate or try to multitask. If you don’t trust yourself to ignore incoming messages, disconnect your computer from the internet for half an hour so you have no choice but to do your work.
- Make vacation really a vacation. It’s tough for anyone to leave work behind when they go on a fun trip, but to really unwind and come back feeling refreshed, you have to. In the weeks leading up to your trip, make sure your bosses, coworkers and clients know you’ll be unavailable so that nobody expects you to respond to emails while you’re basking in the sun or exploring a new city.
- Have conversations without distraction. Whenever you ask your children how their day was or catch up with your husband at night, the last thing you should also be doing is texting or glancing through your social media feeds. Put the phone down, look directly at your family members and listen to what they’re saying.
- Set limits. It’s unrealistic to think you’re going to never be on your phone. It makes life easier, why would you go completely without it? But if are finding it super hard to cut down on how much time you’re online, install something like the Moment app—it times how long you are on your phone and lets you know when you should turn it off.
For more help living in the moment, check out these blogs:
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Photo credit: m01229
