Make a resolution that will improve your anxiety for good
IT'S JANUARY 10, 2020. HOW ARE YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS GOING?
I love New Year's resolutions, and birthday resolutions, and post-Labor Day resolutions, so I'm not here to give grim statistics about how unlikely you are to stick to whatever plans you made on January 1. It makes sense to take stock and see where you might want to course correct and address what isn't working in your life. Of course, resolutions can be tough to keep. Change is hard.
A proper resolution is one that, if achieved, would make a big difference. For example, if you have no concrete plans to visit Italy, no Italian friends, and no particular interest in reading Italian literature in its native tongue, it's going to be very hard to stay motivated to hit the Duolingo often enough to become proficient. Whereas if you're learning Italian to impress your Italian fiancee's parents, the impetus to study will be much stronger.
Likewise, if you are someone who struggles with anxiety, then making—and keeping—the following resolutions will have a significant impact: Take control of your mood and attention by controlling your time on-screen. Research continues to pour in showing what many of us have already strongly suspected: Being tied to our devices and constantly pinged by email, social media, and the news is hurting our relationships, diminishing our quality of sleep, and cratering our moods.
Think of a time you had to go without your cell phone, tablet, or computer. How did it affect your mood? What did that do to your ability to focus? Did it make a difference in your ability to connect with the people around you? For the vast majority of us being away from our phones improves our mood, allows us to focus and helps us connect to the people we are with. These factors all have a profound influence on your anxiety. Information highways and the devices they live on are now monetized. Your attention is the commodity they are selling.
There’s no doubt that improved communication and the democratization of information are amazing features of the digital age we are living in. But it should give us pause when we consider that the average American is in front of screens 10 hours each day. Cal Newport, aa Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University and author of the book, Digital Minimalism puts it like this, "Outsourcing your autonomy to an attention economy conglomerate—as you do when you mindlessly sign up for whatever new hot service emerges from the Silicon Valley venture capitalist class—is the opposite of freedom, and will likely degrade your individuality."
The answer is not as simple as permanently disconnecting. Most of us probably cannot imagine navigating the world without google maps, texting, and Spotify at our fingertips. While unplugging for certain days a week or after a specific time in the evening makes a lot of sense, we also want to stop checking our devices constantly even during the period when we need to have them available to us. One of the geniuses of smartphones is their endless functionality. If you receive a prompt to wake up, check the time, or take a picture with your phone, you're typically also trigged to check email, texts, and social media. It's too easy to fall into a cell phone vortex.
INSTEAD, TRY THIS: BUY AN ALARM CLOCK, A WATCH, AND A CAMERA.
Use an alarm clock. Take the time to do a little research and find one you like. I hate waking up to a blaring alarm or static-filled radio station, so I found an alarm clock the lights up gradually for 30 minutes before an "alarm" of birds softly chirping goes off. Who knew waking up could be so relaxing?
Phone addiction continues throughout the day because many of us check the time on our phones, which leads to noticing an Instagram notification, checking email, reading through texts, etc. The little dopamine hit we receive every time we check our phone seems to take the edge off our free-floating nervousness for a second. But in fact, our anxiety accumulates as we force our brains to toggle back and forth between online and offline lives. Curb this habit by checking a wristwatch instead.
Finally, when are you typically taking pictures? Probably when you have connected moments with people you love, you see something beautiful, or you want to remember something special. Your son takes his first steps, and you grab the phone to take a picture, and …you notice a text notification from your boss. You try to ignore the text because this is a big moment, but now you're worried about your boss. Get a camera.
Stay in the moment. Leave your phone at home when possible. Smartphones, tablets, and computers are amazing. I use them all. But they're highly addictive and need to be carefully managed to live a productive, meaningful, engaged life. There are additional things you can do, such as turn off all notifications. Furthermore, every person I know who values deep thinking and productivity makes liberal use of "airplane mode."
Having an alarm clock, a watch, and a camera changes your environment in a way that supports your goal of reduced screen time. This is much more effective than merely telling yourself not to check your phone so much. Some of the greatest minds of our generation have spent considerable brain power making these devices addictive. Don't waste your willpower trying to resist them all day.
THINK OF YOUR NEW ALARM CLOCK, WATCH AND CAMERA AS BARRIERS PROTECTING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS, YOUR MOOD, AND YOUR FOCUS.