The Power of a Digital Detox [Episode #746]

This week’s topic is: The Power of a Digital Detox

I’m personally very passionate about today’s show because I know what this could do for our lives. I know the benefit of taking a detox, scaling back, creating healthy boundaries between you and your phone and other screens.

I have personally been on a digital detox specifically with digital news since June, and it has only benefited my life. We can keep in touch with what’s going on through other people and check-ins, however, not getting overwhelmed or fixated on it. It’s really important in today’s day and age to have those healthy boundaries and to have that very clear vision of where this fits into our life.

Otherwise it just trickles in, at dinner, it comes to the grocery store with us, and when we’re picking up our kids from school and we don’t really get that break from it. It’s just this pervasive energy and it can just derail us and keep us from being really present and really creative and really showing up for ourselves and each other.

Today I want to share some tangible ways and tips for creating these healthy boundaries, and hopefully we can create a whole new perspective of this as we flow into the new year and we create a very different relationship with the digital world. We’re going to keep it punchy with some real takeaways.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Allison – Los Angeles  (Emotional Well Being Cornerstone)

I am always on my phone / computer / TV for work and I sometimes feel anxious when I don’t have them near me. I know I have too much digital stimulation with work but what can I do to offset this imbalance in my everyday life.

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Namaste loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A show where our topic today is The Power of a Digital Detox. And I am personally very passionate about today’s show because I know what this could do for our lives. I know the benefit of taking a detox, scaling back, creating healthy boundaries between you and your phone and other screens. I just know what it can do. I know the benefits firsthand. I have personally been on a digital detox specifically with news, digital news detox since June, and it has only benefited my life. I mean, we can keep in touch with what’s going on through other people and, you know, check-ins, but not getting overwhelmed or fixated, and we can stay connected to other people. But wow, I just feel that when it’s really clear, when I’m on my phone, when I’m off, when I’m using it, and what I’m using it for and what I’m not using it for, my life flows so much more.

And it’s really important in today’s day and age to have those healthy boundaries and to have that very clear vision of where this fits into our life. Because otherwise it just trickles in it’s present at dinner, it comes to the grocery store with us, and when we’re picking up our kids from school and we don’t really get that break from it. So it’s just this pervasive energy and it can just derail us. It keeps us from being really present and really creative and really showing up for ourselves and each other. So today I wanna share about some tangible ways and tips for creating these healthy boundaries. And hopefully we can create a whole new perspective of this as we flow into the new year and we create a very different relationship with the digital world because it isn’t natural and it isn’t, um, well, things evolve, but this, you know, being in between worlds and not really being present can really have a detrimental effect on everything from our relationships to our digestion.

We’re, we’re on screens, we’re not even fully engaged in eating and chewing. And so we get more bloated and we overeat, and there’s a million different ways this plays out. So, very important discussion today. We’re going to keep it punchy with some real takeaways and I can’t wait to get into it.

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And finally, our new book, baby, she’s still new. Calling her new, she’s about 10 months old, is out. You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life. And in this very potent period now between Christmas and Hanukkah and whatever holidays you celebrate in New Year’s and beyond, this is a great time to read, to sink your teeth into something a little bit deeper, to help you really reconstruct your life over the next year and beyond. So check it out. Wherever books are sold, you are more than you think you are. Alright, so let’s get into our topic today, the power of a digital detox.

Question around the topic of:The Power of a Digital Detox: I am always on my phone / computer / TV for work and I sometimes feel anxious when I don’t have them near me. I know I have too much digital stimulation with work but what can I do to offset this imbalance in my everyday life.

And so our question today comes from Allison, who lives in Los Angeles. So hello Allison, my neighbor here around wherever you happen to be in la I’m in the mountains near Malibu, but sending you love, sister, wherever you are. Thank you for your question. You write, I’m always on my phone slash computer slash tv for work, and I sometimes feel anxious when I don’t have them near me. I know I have too much digital stimulation with work, but what can I do to offset this imbalance in my everyday life? So first of all, Allison, again, thank you for your question. I think a lot of us can relate to this, where there is some anxiety sometimes where we’re away from our phone even for an hour or a few. I noticed when I would go to yoga class sometimes, like the class would end and everybody would just run straight to their phone and check and oh my God, did anything happen in the last hour and 15 minutes?

That was so important and so big, right? It’s like we’re so addicted to this, this thing, this, this, this screen that comes around with us. And and you’re right here. And your question is, you right There is an imbalance. You use that word, you know that there’s some sort of correction that needs to take place, and that’s okay. We’re on the journey, we’re all evolving and it’s, it’s normal, right? There’s communication, there’s, there’s things that are coming in. We feel like, oh, we’re in the flow. We can go on TikTok or Instagram and see what’s going on with our friends, and it can just be this monster that eats up so much energy and attention and time in our day. So what’s important to remember, this is really interesting. This comes from the diagnostic and statistical manual of Mental disorders Technology Addiction is now considered a mental disorder and it’s classified up there with drug and alcohol addiction.

In 2021, there was a global study about technology, est addiction estimates, and it found that about 27% of people are addicted to their smartphones, addicted, not just using them prevalently, but literally an unhealthy over-reliance feelings of stress build when we don’t have that phone or that technology right there, 17.42% for social media and 14.2% for internet addiction. So the constant scrolling, and I imagine this includes online shopping and just being online all the time. So this is serious guys. We’re talking about a mental disorder, something that has skewed from our natural lifestyle and living. So when we are present here in now, we are breathing, we are speaking, we are being in our bodies, we’re looking around, we’re using our senses to see and, and perceive what’s in our environment when we are online, when we are in the digital world, we’re between worlds, as I mentioned, in a sense, because our minds are somewhere else than our physical space.

And so we can become disconnected. Actually, a mom this morning at, at Bubby’s school was telling me she read a study about where children are getting desensitized to colors and senses because they’re interact, they’re, you know, with the pandemic as well, just interacting so much with their lessons in class time through the digital world, that real aliveness and real living becomes more foreign to them, which is something that we definitely want to combat more research. Um, and you can check out the show notes over mysolluna.com if you’re interested in going deeper into this. But more research shows that there, the very harmful side effects of technology addiction include anxiety, depression, dishonesty, feelings of guilt. And this dishonesty, I think can, can sort of parlay into, you know, exaggeration and blurred edges around, you know, what we wanna display about our lives. You know, there’s a little bit of dishonesty there, <laugh>, potentially feelings of guilt, poor time management, back aches and headaches. So there you go. It’s literally affecting our bodies and our bodies position out positions, procrastination, isolation, strain, division, lack of focus, and repetitive stress injury. So isn’t this interesting that we are using things like social media in a way it’s, we think we’re connecting, but we’re actually ended up feeling more isolated and more alone.

So there are some serious consequences here. And so, and again, this beautiful potent time where we are rethinking the vision of our life. And if you happen to miss our winter solstice solo cast, which published on the 19th, please go ahead and listen to that one, because that show we talk about dying and rebirthing this death and rebirth that happens around solstice. And even to now with January 1st and New Year’s coming around, what do we want to die <laugh> in our lives? Let the branches fall. What can we let go of in order to have this rebirth, to have this resurgence of more energy and aliveness into what is passionate for us now, what we feel joy for around now, what we want to enliven, what we wanna nourish so deeply. So it is important to realize that if we don’t take control, if we don’t take healthy boundaries, we don’t create them, it will take over.

It will start to eat away and decay what is vital and important to us. So we need to really take stock here and let some of this old addiction die. Our old habits around digital, in the digital world and social media die, just go away. Let the past be the past, and we create the vision, the higher vision for what we want in our lives going forward. And so here are some of the benefits and also some of the tips to move forward out of this, um, murkiness this addiction and to create more clarity in a new way of being in the future. So the first thing is we wanna be present with our physical in-person connections. And so it does mean putting down the phone for dinner, for conversations, for interactions. We don’t wanna be on the phone when we’re checking out at the store or with the barista making our coffee.

We wanna treat people as humans. We wanna look them in the eye and be present and be grateful, right? So this physicality of seeing what is around us and being present is so important. And what can support us here if we’re, you know, we need to get back into it. There’s a little bit of, so social awkwardness, we’ve been online a lot. Start with yourself, start with meditating, start with breathing and feeling your own body, feeling your feet, seeing where your present body is, looking into people’s eyes, getting back into the conversation, right? Physical surrounded. You can look around the room, you know, periodically if you’re on your computer working, look around the room and just notice the colors. Look at three interesting things in the room around you right now. Be present. So the skin involve physically putting your phone in, your pocketbook, in your, you know, desk drawer, whatever it is.

Put your phone away as much as you can when you don’t need it. And you can start to increase the length in which you do that <laugh>. So it could be periods in the day, of course you have to, you know, keep your ringer on if you need to check in with your, you know, be available for your kids or your teachers if they’re calling, whatever it is. Of course, there’s this checking in, but you also wanna make sure that you have these periods. And just like any sort of muscle, any sort of habit that builds over time, you wanna build that resilience. So it could be two minutes, then it could be 30, you know, five minutes. And then one day, oh my gosh, I’m all five foot for 30 minutes. And it feels really liberating and wonderful. But see what’s present in your environment.

Get present in your body, be consistent in your meditation practice, and just see how that really builds. And there’s so much joy. Life is happening now. This power of life and this mysterious, wonderful mystical life is right here, right now. We just have to open up our eyes more to it. Number two, we wanna get out of this habit of multitasking and cluttering our minds. And so we start to, to go forward with one task at a time. So there’ll be times where your phone isn’t put away, but you’re doing a text or you have it, and then you wanna put it away. If something is coming at you or you have a task in front of you, it could be driving the car, right? Please do not text. It could be being with your child, right? It could be being on a zoom. How many times are we on zooms?

And we’re tempted to just check our phone and then we’re not really present in the conversation. And it’s so important that we’re not trying to multitask, which pulls ourselves in different directions. And I would say this very importantly, with meals and eating. We don’t wanna multitask when we’re eating. We wanna be present with that food. Sometimes we’re eating a meal with other person so we can be present with our food and the other person. But please continue to chew. Well, please be grateful for your food. Please be aware of the smells and the colors and be present with it, right? Multitasking. While multitasking, while eating is one of the worst things we can do for digestion, it doesn’t honor the food, it doesn’t honor our bodies. We think we’re trying to save time, but in the end, we’re, we’re really squandering our energy. We will not assimilate the food as well.

We will not chew as well. We will have some level of IBS or bloating. And it’s really sad, right? We don’t have, it doesn’t have to be that way. We really have this power to be present and to enjoy and to nourish ourselves. So please honor these sacred spaces, including when we are eating. And then the next thing is to give yourself some tools to support the, um, I’ll call it the non-digital space around you. And so what I mean by that is get a journal, get a meditation cushion, um, you know, some of the things that you’re excited about, books, physical books, or a new yoga mat. So you can stretch and you can make this fun and give yourself a reward or some rewards to reinforce this habit of being off your phone. Because it is this addiction, it is this habit. When we have downtime, we’re used to just scrolling or going on it.

When we’re online or at home, we’re bored or we just wanna fill time. So fill it with something else, right? You may say, oh, you know, Kimberly always talks about those journaling prompts. I’m excited to get back into them or get into them at all. Well, now’s the time. So get yourself a beautiful journal, a pen that you’re really excited about, or you know, like I said, the mat or some books you’ve been wanting to read or, you know, create that alter, get into your meditation, whatever it is. Get excited about non-digital things, which is again, that reward. Those little wins just help to reinforce habits. And it’s really powerful to do that. So I, um, I encourage you to do that. I also encourage you to nurture your body in this transition. And what I mean by that is we mentioned back aches and headaches.

The digital space keeps us unaware of our bodies. Uh, we’re on screens and so this red, this blue light is coming in and it stimulates us and it doesn’t allow us to sleep properly. So in this period, give your body some extra care and nourishment. Maybe get a massage, be aware of your posture, do some stretches, rebalance your body. And then when you notice that your body does feel healthier and more resilient and stronger without all this digital stuff, you’ll wanna keep going. You’ll have more time to work out. Maybe go to the gym, do a yoga class instead of just sitting there parked on YouTube all day. <laugh>, right? So it’s really important that we nurture the body as well. And then very pragmatically, you know, this could be as simple as turning off alerts on your phone as a starting point, but we just wanna change our relationship.

So alerts going off all the time has to go, or I encourage that if you feel ready for that. I don’t even have text alerts, I have no alerts on my phone, right? So it’s just, if I need to wake up, there’s an alarm, which is rare. I usually wake up on my own body schedule pretty early. But if there’s, you know, flight, I need to use my alarm, I’ll use it. But other than that, there’s no alerts along with that. You wanna make sure that you’re creating really healthy boundaries. So it’s like with my child, or let’s say with food, and first we may say, oh, I’m just hungry here or there, I’ll just eat all the time. I’m bored, da da da. But then we realize, okay, it’s, it’s healthier for us to have some sort of schedule. So I’m gonna have my G gs, I have my probiotics, I’m gonna have my mid-morning wrap, then I have lunch around one 30, and then I have dinner, you know, whatever it is.

Like these are the times I’m on. And in the beginning, breaking an addiction means we need to create really healthy lines of boundaries. So you could say, okay, I don’t get on my bo I don’t get on my phone for the first, first 30 minutes of waking up 10 minutes and then I’m on my phone from 10 to 11, or I check into social media from 1230 to one 30. I encourage you in the beginning to really create a realistic schedule and then you can start to scale it and shift it over time. But these boundaries, having a really clear idea of when you’re gonna be on there and when you aren’t, are gonna really serve you. Because in the beginning, maybe it’s just been this free for all and you’re on all the time. And it’s so important again, that we really start to reestablish healthy lines.

So for me, and I’ll share a little bit about my digital detox is I have a Apple phone and there was, you know, there’s these headlines when you swipe left, there’s these headlines that come on. And I noticed I would go on my phone whenever I would go on my phone, I would look at texts of course and emails, and then I’d go on the So Luna app and you know, there’s my little things that I would do. And then I would swipe and then I’d look at headlines and it was this, every time I was on my phone almost, I’d sort of scan them and I started noticing that it really wasn’t serving me. And I’d go down this rabbit hole sometimes of clicking on links and reading these articles and then feeling, getting my head space into really deeply, you know, what’s going on in the war in the Ukraine, or Oh my gosh, look at this.

Or what is whatever is completely pulled out of the space that’s not helpful. It’s not helping the people in the Ukraine or, you know, wherever my mind was going. What is helpful is us staying on track. What is helpful is us sending love and peace and then taking inspired action, whether that’s joining an organization, making donations, helping however we can. But this proliferation of reading and just being, uh, putting our energy into the digital world actually eats away at our power and our ability to serve. And so that became really clear to me. So I took the Apple headlines off my phone. So now it’s very specific. If I go to a website and I read what is on there, and those headlines were, you know, you can choose whatever news sources, so it’s like a grouping of them. But now sometimes I will go to that site or there’s other ways which are very specific, I’m going, versus this constant deluge of news which really wasn’t serving me.

So I got really clear about that and I have that boundary now. You know, once a day or less, I will check, I set time, and other than that, I’m not just checking the, the, the headlines all the time, which has a detrimental effect on my energy. And then this may apply to you to just take a, a periodic break. And it could be, you know, one day a week. And this applies to me where I am not on my phones very much on Saturdays or Sundays. I don’t take a full break. I’ll check in, I’ll kind of look around. But other than that, I don’t work or do things on my phone very much on Saturdays or Sundays. Now for you, you may say, I’m going on vacation, I’m gonna be with my family over the holidays. I’m gonna take three days off digital break, no social media, no da, da da.

So it’s sort of like when I worked with clients on their diet and cleansing, some people would wanna do that cold Turkey and some people would wanna do that periodic cleanse. And some people just wanted a healthier management day to day of their time and their energy. So it’s very, um, you know, it’s specific to each of us and it doesn’t have to look a certain way. But I hope that this show really imprinted in you, really inspired you to see that this is a real addiction. This is considered a mental disorder. And I hope some of these tips can really support you in just being connected online, but really being able to live the fullness of your life, which is happening right here, right now. Your unique human experience, your beautiful journey with your beautiful soul, your unique soul moving through and not always just giving it away, giving our power away to this in between digital world, we will use it to serve us,

But where it does not serve us, we can let it die. Follow it, be recycled and be reborn. So please go over to mysolluna.com for notes, the show notes, more information, the tools to support you, some of this research, other podcasts I think you would enjoy. And recipes, meditations, many other resources are on there. So we’ll be back here Monday for our next show. Till then, happy early New Year’s. Sending you so much love for 2023. Hope this is an amazing year for you. So much love, so much light. Namaste.