Episode 4: Try a Phone Fast to Reset Your Brain
Description: A phone fast, or digital detox, might be exactly what your mental wellness needs. In this episode, Tina Boogren shares eye-opening stats on phone addiction and her own simple practice for less screen time. Start small, even five or ten minutes screen-free, and notice how much better you feel.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I am your host, Tina Boogren, and I'm so happy you are here. I'm grateful, I'm thankful. I just love you guys so much. Thank you for coming back each week. Thank you for sharing this podcast with others, and thank you for being part of this badass community.
So this is week four of season seven, and for this week, let me just start off by sharing a few statistics. So listen to this. 60%, 60, six-zero, percent of Americans admit to being addicted to their phones. The average person spends over four hours on their phone every single day, which adds up to 1,456 hours per year spent on their phone. That's just a lot, and you know what? I struggle with this big time. I think a lot of us do. It's sometimes, I don't know, for me personally, hard to admit to because I feel like I should be better than this. But the reality is when I am tired, right? We know when decision fatigue sets in, we're just holding in the palm of our hand this device that is so, so addicting, so easy to turn to, and it can just take our mind away from the stressors.
And listen, you know, we talked back in episode two of this season, we talked about bloom scrolling, which is a great kind of first step, right? That if we are going to spend time looking at our phone, let's at least make sure that we are not consuming all negative nonsense. But now I want to talk about going one step further and thinking about how might we do a phone fast or a digital detox, however you want to think about it.
Listen to this. With over 80% of millennials cite their phone as their constant companion, and on average, people touch their phone 2,617 times a day. But the reality is we have never been lonelier, more anxious, more depressed. So many of us have started to think about is there this connection between our phones and these adverse effects on our mental health? And the answer is probably yes, right? And here's what I know for me personally. I know that I just feel better, I am happier, my overall wellbeing is increased when I spend less time on my phone. And listen, I spend time on my phone and there are parts of it that I enjoy. I love our Facebook group. I love, man, what I have set up in my bloom scroll that makes me happy. But here's what I also know, is that when I just, even if it's good stuff, if I have stared at that screen for too long, when I turn away, oh, I just feel like, depleted, and I feel like, did I just really spend like a full hour just looking at my phone?
And I have all these passions and hobbies. I personally said this to a girlfriend not very long ago, I do not want to list one of my hobbies as scrolling, right? But I really do want to list hobbies such as art, and journaling, and reading, and writing, and going for walks, and all of those things. And so if I want that to be a hobby, I've gotta spend time doing it, which means that I've got to work on the muscle of being able to put the phone down, engage in that digital detox or that phone fast.
And so there's a lot of benefits to this. So when we do this, when we engage in this digital fast, the effect for our mental and emotional wellness is incredible. Just as, you know, some people fast from food for a while in order to allow their body to reset and kind of optimize its systems. Taking a break from our phone and our digital devices and constant connectivity, being online, gives our minds a chance to recalibrate, make better choices, reset our dopamine centers, and just allow ourselves to be bored for a minute and take pleasure in simpler things, right?
So here's what I've been playing with. Now, you can go, as always, everything I present is always on the spectrum. So, you know, there's a real appeal to like turning off your devices for a full 24 hours or 72 hours, but that, for me, feels a little bit startling. I'm not going to lie. So I take that dial and turn it way down, and what I have been playing with is when I get done with dinner, I put my phone in a completely separate room, because we also know that if our phone is sitting near us or even in the same room, even if it's on silent, our brain knows it's there and just, ugh, wants us to grab the phone. So I put the phone in a completely different room. And my goal is always an hour, at the very least, to go do something else. I have been playing around with creating this thing that I'll talk about soon, I'm sure, this book of delights that I play around with. So I spend time in there or I spend time doing a little bit of artwork, or decorating, or just something away from my phone and away from screens in general.
Now, I think it would even be good to, like, watch TV. I keep hearing like, "Hey, it's okay to watch TV." Just watch TV and don't be distracted on your phone, right? Just do something away from your phone, and if an hour feels like far too much, bring that dial way down. Start with five minutes. Start with 10 minutes. Start with 15 minutes, whatever feels good. See when you start to get a little bit twitchy, right? Those withdrawal symptoms are real, and maybe make a list of the things that you want to do instead. Things like doing some writing or some artwork or some journaling. Just getting outside without your phone, taking a walk without your phone. Cooking, watching a show without your phone, right? Playing games. Anything that we can do where we're just not on our digital device. And then see how you feel.
So for me, every single time, I feel so much better than when I ignore this routine that I want to set in, and I find myself just going down the rabbit hole of my phone. When I get done, even when I'm bloom scrolling, when I get done with all of that time spent on my phone, I usually don't feel great. I feel like, ugh, God, time just like got wasted, not in a good way, not in that kind of flow state. Instead, it just I don't feel good, and I get that sense of like, did I just really spend all that time just staring at that little screen? But when I do other things, I invariably feel so good. I sleep better. It's just a way to wrap up my day, shut off work, shut off the other stressors, right? And do stuff I love, the things that I really want to call my hobbies, making time for them. And I always feel so much better. I'm not sure. I'm sitting here thinking, did I start with an hour? My guess is I probably didn't start with a full hour after dinner. It was probably a half hour. But whatever that number is, just moving it up. And then my favorite thing is when I say, "Okay, I'm going to spend an hour away from all screens," and I really get into whatever it is I'm working on, and I look up and I'm like, "Ah, it's been two hours." I mean, like that feeling is so great.
So I invite you to play around with that this week, a phone fast or a digital detox, whatever terminology you want to use. And again, think of that whole spectrum and play around with do you want to do this every day? Do you want to take a full day on the weekend? Do you want to do this as a family? Do you want to do this on your own? Where in your day would it feel good to take a phone fast? Is it in the evening? For a lot of us, my guess is it's in the evening, or maybe it's Saturday morning, or whatever it is, just play around with that this week, and then see if your, in particular, mental wellness, but I would also argue your emotional wellness, and maybe even social wellness. Do we show up differently with other people? See if that gets a little boost from engaging in this.
Have an amazing week. I am just so grateful for all of you. We are also especially grateful for Adrienne. We are grateful to Solution Tree and to Marzano Resources, and just, ah, to you, the incredible badass squad of listeners. I'm cheering so hard for you. Let's engage in a little phone fast or digital detox this week, and see how that makes us feel. Have an amazing week, you guys. I love you. I'm cheering for you
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