Resetting healthy habits with our phones
If you are like us, you may struggle with phone use and feel the urge to start your day by checking your phone's notifications or social media.
Do you wake up feeling any impulses to check your phone?
If so, that’s totally understandable, phone technology is both new and powerful. Social media apps have been expertly designed to capture our attention and keep us on our phones.
The problem isn’t necessarily about using our phones but if we use them first thing in the morning we are disrupting the important alpha and theta stages of waking up. This activity and behaviour primes our brains for distraction throughout the rest of the day and reinforces habits of instant gratification. If we allow this to become habitual, we are really creating and living in a state-of-mind which is constantly distracted and sub-optimum.
Phone use and being ‘too-online’ can leave our brains feeling scattered and puncture the flow of our day, interrupting concentration and impairing cognitive performance.
Want to shift the behaviour?
Shifting our behaviour isn’t too hard and you feel the results quickly. All it requires are a few boundaries. By putting in place what we call good sleep hygiene practices, we set the stage for good nights rest and healthy sleep. Good sleep hygiene also involves waking up in more naturalistic ways, helping keep us aligned to having more present and mindful mornings.
In our practice ‘Morning Ritual’ Anzari, a neuroscientist and yoga teacher explains the importance of waking up device free.
YOGA WITH ANZARI
Morning Ritual
Remember, when we resist the temptation to check our phones and refrain from consuming content right after waking up or while working, we create space for concentrated focus on the things that actually matter to us.
Phones can serve as a source of procrastination or a means of escape, pulling us away from the present moment. When you use your phone, remember to become aware of why you are on it.
Prompts
The night before
01
Set your phone to night mode and limit your access to apps at a certain time
02
Limit your phone use as much as possible and avoid using the hour prior to sleep
03
Try to keep your phone out of the bedroom, could you use an alternative alarm clock
When you wake
01
Challenge yourself not to look at the phone for as long as possible
02
Ease into your body and connect with the breath as you ground into the present
03
Re-hydrate (have a glass of water)