A Mindful Perspective
Welcome to my podcast! I'm Nick Levesque, and I'm on a mission to help you navigate life's challenges with a mindful perspective. Join me every week as I dive deep into the realms of mindset, spirituality, and personal growth. Drawing from my own experiences, I want to provide you with tools, strategies, insights, and inspiring stories that will help you go from where you are now, to where you want to be.
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A Mindful Perspective
How to Break Free from Your Phone Addiction
What if the very device meant to keep us connected is causing us to drift further apart? In this week's episode, we navigate our complex relationship with our smartphones, exploring how they can both enhance our lives and hinder our connections. You'll discover firsthand how my own phone habits once led to feelings of disconnection and what I did to reclaim balance and presence in my life. Together, we'll confront the societal acceptance of digital addiction and discuss strategies for nurturing real-life interactions.
Imagine gaining mental clarity by simply putting away your phone; that's exactly what I experienced by stepping back from social media. We tackle the unconscious habit of reaching for our phones during every spare moment, whether we're on errands or just waking up. With constant notifications and FOMO-inducing social media posts, it's no wonder we feel stressed and worn out. This episode sheds light on the impact of this screen-focused lifestyle on our well-being and offers practical tips for breaking free from the cycle of distraction and anxiety.
In our quest for healthier digital habits, I share tips on setting meaningful boundaries and creating a balanced routine. From phone-free hours to full digital detox days, each strategy is designed to help reduce mindless scrolling and foster mindfulness. You'll also hear about the transformative power of engaging in activities that make you forget your phone, such as reading or simply enjoying nature. Let's start a community-driven conversation about reclaiming our focus and enjoying life beyond the screen. Join me in this insightful journey towards mindful phone use and share your thoughts in the comments.
Hello everyone and welcome to A Mindful Perspective. I'm your host, nick Levesque, certified Spiritual Life Coach, and I'm here to share insights into my journey of mindfulness and self-discovery. Each week, we'll explore mindset, spirituality and personal growth to help you navigate life's challenges, with practical strategies and inspiring stories. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of A Mindful Perspective. I want to start this episode today by asking you a question Is your phone taking over your life? I think that this is a question that we need to ask ourselves a little more honestly, and also, I think it's a question that, as a society and as a collective, I think it's a question not only a question but I think it's a topic that we need to start talking about a little more seriously. Okay, because I generally believe that phones are great in their own way, right. So obviously, we all know that they've made life more convenient. Okay, they allow us to talk with people that we've never met before, as an example. Right, so we get those connections with people, we make new connections. They allow us to talk with family and friends at a distance. They allow us to work on our businesses all these different things. Right, so we cannot take away of the benefits, but I'm a firm believer, as well, that everything has a polarity. Right, there are positives, but there are a lot of negatives as well.
Speaker 1:When it comes to phone usage and constantly being on our phones, right, and I think that our phones are so normal that this phone addiction is also normalized. Right, I think that not only are phones so normal now, but I think we've normalized the problem and I think, to me, that is a problem, right, and that's actually a concern because, if I'm being honest, I think a lot of us are hooked to our phones. Right, I think a lot of us are really addicted to our phones, myself included. Right, and this is generally why I'm making this video, because it's something that I really want to talk about, because I feel like it's a problem that everyone's aware of, but a lot of us it's kind of like we just sweep it under the rug, right, it's kind of like we're not talking about again, because it feels so normal, but in my personal opinion, it's not normal, right, and again, there's a beautiful quote that I want to share that really kind of highlights and captures this, and it says when the phone was tied with a wire, humans were free.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you know, I resonate with that so much because I think, again, phones are a luxury, right. Like I just said, they allow us to do so many, so many cool things. They've made life convenient in a way. But I think this luxury comes at a cost. Okay, I think this luxury genuinely comes at a cost and I'm personally afraid that this cost, this price that we're paying, is this connection, right, this connection from ourselves and our soul, this connection from the world and disconnection from people that we're with. Okay, and this is also something that I've noticed a lot is that with these phones, we are making less effort to be with people, right, because it's so much easier to pick up the phone and call someone, it's so easy to get on a Zoom call with someone. So I feel like for some of us not all of us, of course, but for some of us it's much easier to just have these digital conversations and we're making less effort to actually go out and communicate and socially interact with people, right.
Speaker 1:Myself, personally, I'm a very introverted person by nature, so for me, this has kind of allowed me to talk to different people online, right, and what I've noticed myself, you know, in myself personally, is like, okay, like this year, I really want to actually go out and socialize with people and really try to talk more to people, because I think it's maybe comfortable with just talking with people online and I still feel like I get that sense of connection. But also, it's not the same, right, it's not the same as meeting people in person and actually generally making an effort to step outside of your comfort zone, step outside of your house and go talk to people, go socialize, go interact, go make new connections, and I think that is so, so, so important. Okay, and this is kind of the paradox right, phones were designed to make us feel connected, right? Obviously, there's a lot of different things we use phones for, but one of them is to make us feel connected. Yet, I'm a firm believer that in our society, we are a society that's never been so disconnected, and that's the paradox. Right, we are lonelier than ever, we're sadder than ever. Right, we're anxious, we're stressed. All these different things and I'm not saying all of this is due to the phone, but I'm a genuine believer that it is definitely a contributing factor is what I'm trying to say? Right, with social media, with dating apps, even all these different things. Right, we are hooked onto these things, and that's where I think the problem lies, right. So today, this is really why I want to actually talk about this and not only talk about it, but I want to give you tips and tricks that I personally have been incorporating in my own life to try to resolve this issue. To be quite honest, right, because I've noticed this in myself. Right, and I think a lot of us do, and that's the thing. I think a lot of us notice it, but we actually need to start doing something about it.
Speaker 1:And for me personally, in the past few months, I've noticed that it's starting to creep up on me. Okay, and kind of just to backtrack here a little bit, but like a few years back, I remember where I took six months off of everything Right, and I did this because it was constantly comparing myself to people on social media. I was constantly comparing myself to achievements and people's bodies and everything right, everything that we see online and on social media and you know, from the availability of our phones and I was like, okay, I need a break from this. I actually need a break, setting those digital boundaries and setting kind of like the digital detox as well. So I took six months off where I deleted everything, and what I noticed is that it made me appreciate my life so much more, okay, but also I'm very aware that a lot of us do need to use our phones right For example, for me, for my coaching business, for, obviously, youtube and the podcast, everything right. So we need to be connected, we need to stay connected, and it's not a bad thing, but it's about learning how to incorporate those digital boundaries so that your phone is not taking over your life, and that, I think, is so, so, so important.
Speaker 1:And another thing that I've personally noticed is that when we talk about disconnection like we just did, not only are we disconnected from again ourselves, the world and people, but we're no longer very much present with people. We have difficulties maintaining and focusing on a person when we are having a conversation with them, and I think that is actually quite problematic. Okay and Simon Sinek said something about this once where, as an example, let's say that you're you're having a one-on-one conversation with someone and you've got your phone maybe in your pocket or like in front of you on the table, okay, and you're having a conversation. Well, part of your attention is still focusing on the phone, part of your attention is still focusing on am I going to get a text? Or maybe I'm waiting on a text. Maybe, you know, I'm looking down, oh, I get a notification and I'm wondering what that's about. So you're losing that interaction with the person, right? Maybe that person's opening up to you about something, maybe they are sharing something that we're so excited to share, and now you are you're unconsciously, you know, out of habit focused on the phone, focused on, okay, what am I missing here? Right? Or oh, is she texting me back? Or all these different things, right, and you're not present with the person.
Speaker 1:And another thing is for me personally, I'll give you a very personal example of something that I noticed myself do months ago that I was like, wow, okay, like this is kind of a wake-up call for me. And I was like wow, okay, like this is kind of a wake up call for me. And I was actually talking to my mother on the phone and you know, my mom and I talk a lot and and what I noticed was that lately, when I was talking to her, I typically put headphones right, so I want to hear her. Well, I just want to be able to talk to her and hear her very well. But what I noticed was that, as I had my headphones on and such, I was actually unconsciously just scrolling on my phone as we were talking. Right, I was checking Instagram or Facebook or replying to a message and whatever as we're talking, and I caught myself doing that a few times. I'm like whoa, like this is a problem, like this is actually a problem. So I started just, you know, when I'm talking to my mom now I put my phone in the other room because, unconsciously, sometimes I'll have that unconscious urge to grab my phone.
Speaker 1:Right, we're doing this not necessarily on purpose and not because we're trying to be disrespectful and whatever. It's because we are hooked to these things, right, this constant dopamine hits that we're getting from these things. So it's very hard to break free from this habit, especially this one, because it's hard to break free from something that you kind of need to use on a daily basis, if that makes sense. And this is why I'm saying I think that most of us, including myself, like I'm saying, are hooked to our phones. Okay, we're actually hooked to these things, and this is another thing that I want to clarify as well. Obviously, a lot of us. We doom scroll, we're stuck on the doom scrolling, whether it's TikTok, instagram, the short reels, all these different things, right, youtube, you name it, you know what it is.
Speaker 1:But not only the phone usage, but it's also the unconscious compulsion to check our phone when it's not even needed or when it's not even necessary. Okay, kind of like I'm just talking about, right, where with my mom, I'm talking on the phone, I'm randomly reaching for my phone. I'm not even aware of it, I just reach for my phone. Or another example this is something where I realized like, okay, I think I have a problem with this is when I was reading. So for me, obviously I love reading a big part of my life but a lot of times, you know, a little while back, when I was reading, I noticed that I was unconsciously checking my phone. So I had my book, I was reading and then, like my phone was right in front of me, right, and then unconsciously, I would again either grab my phone or like think about something, or I'd have trouble focusing because my phone was there and part of my attention was actually on my phone, even though I was trying to read the book. Part of my attention was stuck on the phone. So this is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I started moving my phone into a different room, moving my phone away from me when I'm reading, and that changed the game, completely, changed the game for me, and I'm able to focus, I'm doing the thing, okay. But when I started doing this, there's two things I noticed. One is that, again unconsciously, I was reaching for my phone and sometimes I'd be reading and I'm reaching for something and then I'm like there's nothing there. I'm re, I'm literally reaching for nothing, okay. And the second thing that I noticed was that sometimes it's almost like I heard my phone. Okay, it's almost like I I heard my phone notification go off or something, and the funny part is my phone is always on silent because I didn't I wanted to stop hearing those notifications, but I felt like I still heard it.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is when I realized, like, okay, like I think I'm sinking too deep into this thing. Okay, this is when I realized like, okay, like I think I'm sinking too deep into this thing and I think this thing is actually more of a problem that I even admitted myself for a little while or for a long time, to be quite honest, right, and that's when I really sat down with myself and had this conversation, like, okay, I think I think I might have a problem with this and I think it's time to actually start seriously taking action to set those digital boundaries for myself personally, right, so that I'm present with people that I'm talking to and that I am just, you know, not caught up in this, in this device, so that I can live a meaningful and mindful life. Is what I'm trying to say, right? And and then we wonder, like, why are we so stressed? Why are we so anxious? Why are we so like? Why do we feel so depressed and so lonely and so sad and unable to focus right? Personally, I blame that on TikTok reels and YouTube shorts and all these different things. I think that is a killer of attention, because now we can't concentrate on anything that's longer than 30 seconds without actually scrolling to the next thing as an example. But this is why I'm saying why are we so sad all the time and such? And we feel anxious and we're always on these things. We are connected to these things.
Speaker 1:And let me ask you a question, Okay, when was the last time that you had a peaceful meal without your phone, without checking your phone at all right. Your phone's not even next to you. You're having a meal, you're not checking your phone. When's the last time you went to the bathroom and didn't bring your phone right? I think it's something that we do unconsciously, kind of do it the past the time. You know what I'm saying, but it's a problem. That's what I'm saying, right, even the little things. Our phone is with us all the time, right, and again, this is why I'm saying I think that this is a problem, and one thing that I noticed in my own personal journey, an experiment that I started doing, and you can do this yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, when you're going somewhere let's say you're driving somewhere, maybe you're going to an appointment, maybe you are running errands, maybe you're going to groceries, whatever may be Okay, keep your phone in the car, if you can think about it. It's a conscious effort. I'm telling you that because sometimes I want to do it and it's just a habit, right To put your phone on you, and sometimes I get it. You don't want to miss a call, all these different things. But if you can and you're, you know you're not expecting anything or whatever just put your phone in the car and then go to your thing. Go to do the groceries, go to your appointment. You will notice something Everyone's on their phones, everyone's on their devices, everyone is like this either it's a tablet, either it's a phone, whatever, right, most people, most people, are doing this.
Speaker 1:Okay. And this again brings me to the disconnection from the world and from people. And no wonder we're, like, socially anxious because we're not talking to people like we used to, maybe 50 years ago, as an example, right? So this is what I'm saying. We are always on these things, we are completely stuck and glued to these things, and that's why I'm saying it is a problem. And here's the other thing as well this is only one screen that we're looking at throughout the day. This does not include TV, when we're watching Netflix. This does not include our work computers when we're working, our laptops, all these different things. This is only one screen, okay. So now you've got all these different screens hitting you throughout the day and again, this is why I'm saying I think this is a problem. And no wonder we are addicted to these things.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the other thing is we wonder why, again, we're anxious. You know, we're tired all the time. These things are depleting us, and not only are they depleting us, but they're ruining our sleep. That's one other thing as well. They are generally ruining our sleep. How many times have we not slept, or slept way later, or didn't go to bed on time because we are unconsciously scrolling, we are doom scrolling on the phone. We're watching YouTube shorts, we're watching YouTube videos, we're watching TikToks, we're watching reels, whatever reel it is. We know we're supposed to go into bed, but we're sleeping with that, and then we sleep with the phone next to us, right?
Speaker 1:Again, this unconscious attention to always check our phone, this unconscious compulsion to want to check our phone. Okay, here's another thing, something I know as personally in myself that I did for a long time. How many of us check our phones when we wake up in the middle of the night? Not only when we wake up to wake up during the day, but we check our phones in the middle of the night, right? Sometimes it's to check the time, but then you notice you've got this notification or something here, and then, and then, all of a sudden, you're on Instagram and you're checking videos. Right, it's happened to me many times and I'll tell you a bit later how I personally resolved that and fix that for myself, but it's happened to me many times, right? So now we are disrupting our sleep patterns because we're on these things all the time.
Speaker 1:And then we wake up and the first thing we do is check our phones, right, check our phones, check our phones, check the time, check our phones. And then again we wonder why we're anxious and stressed. The first thing you do when you wake up, you have a bunch of notifications. You've got all these different things. You've got five different reels hitting your face. You've got a text from maybe your girlfriend and maybe something happened. You got an email that you don't know what it is about. Now you're stressing for nothing. Then the what ifs, what ifs, what ifs, and now you're already projecting into the future. You're anxious, you're causing yourself anxiety. You haven't even been woken up for more than five minutes, right? So this is what I'm trying to say. These things are impacting a lot of our lives, over and over and over, every day, right? And then we wonder why our dopamine levels are shot. Right, we're stressed, anxiety is through the roof. These are reasons, right? Obviously, there are other contributing factors in life, but I'm just saying this is a big contributing factor, okay?
Speaker 1:And now let's talk about another thing social media. Right, social media is a big part of the phones as well, as we all know TikTok, all these different things you can call whatever you want social media. I you know YouTube, instagram, all these different things. And then we get FOMO. Right, we look at other people's lives. We start comparing to other people's lives and then we're like, oh you know, I wish I could be there, I wish I could be on that trip, I wish I could be doing that.
Speaker 1:And then we start to compare everything about our lives to other people. Right, we compare our lives, we compare where we should be at the shameful shoulds. You see someone's achievements. Oh, I should be doing that. I should be further in life. Yeah, I should definitely be further in life. I should be doing more with my time. I should be doing this.
Speaker 1:And then we end up in this spiral of shameful shoulds. We're not helping ourselves. We're not helping ourselves at all. Right, the comparisons we all know, we all do it.
Speaker 1:This is why, personally, I took a break from social media a few years back, right, because it was constantly comparing my life to other people. And that's the thing when you're so busy watching other people do things and live their lives, you're not living your own. That's the biggest lesson I learned from six months of social media that I took off and I deleted all my apps. What it made me realize was that my life was actually more important, right, and I wasn't worried about what other people were doing. I wasn't always seeing what other people were doing and I didn't care what other people were doing. I was focused on me, and all of that time that I spent worrying about all these things were reciprocated onto me and I was like wow, and guess what it did for me?
Speaker 1:It made me realize how much abundance I had in my own life, because when you're so busy on social media, worried about what other people are doing, watching other people's achievements, you forget about yourself. You forget about all the achievements you've done and that you're working on. You're forgetting about all the good that's in your life and all the abundance that's in your life that you're maybe taking for granted, right, even though you're not on that trip that people are on right now. It doesn't mean your life sucks, okay, but sometimes I feel that's what social media does, right. It makes you wish that you were somewhere else and sometimes it makes you wish that you were someone else, and I think that's a big problem. I generally think that's a big problem because the only person that you should be focusing on is yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this is why I'm saying social media is a big thing that we need to start also using mindfully, because that's the thing, and I think we all know this, but it still bothers us. Okay, we all know that social media is not the pretty picture that it's painted to be. Okay, we know this, but it's still bothering us. Okay, and I just want to kind of reiterate and drive this message home here Whatever you're seeing on social media isn't real life. Most of the times, it's not. Yes, some people post genuine stuff, but there are some people that are posting stuff that isn't real life. Even though someone's posting a happy picture, you do not know what's happening behind closed doors.
Speaker 1:Okay, and let's talk about fitness for a second. I'm just going to tangent onto that because I'm a big fitness guy. I love the gym. I've been working out for 12 years.
Speaker 1:What you see on social media isn't real. There are so many people that are editing photos. There are so many people that are looking so much better because they're getting out of the gym with a pump. They're getting out under perfectly good lighting, all these different things, right? People don't look like they do on social media a hundred percent of the time. Right, it's all lighting, it's all these different things.
Speaker 1:So do not compare yourself to what other people are looking like, because chances are they don't even look like their photos when you meet them in person. They don't even look like that, right, and if they do, it's probably not all year round either. Okay, but what I'm trying to say is to really not focus on what other people are doing, right, focus on yourself. Use all that time and that energy that you're worried about other people in their lives and reciprocate that onto yourself. Okay, because again, now we're comparing ourselves to other people and all these different things, and then no wonder we're feeling lonely and disconnected and sad and anxious and such right, because we feel like we're not where we should be in life because we're so busy. Again, comparing ourselves to others, right, and also, now we're scrolling, now we're doing all these things, right, like we all talked about, another thing that we're losing is our productivity. In our focus, right, focus of attention. We are so focused on other people. We are so focused on, you know, just scrolling all the time in these different things, and now we can't watch a video for more than 30 seconds because we're scrolling on the next one, we're scrolling, we're scrolling, we're scrolling, and then that actually has an impact on everything in our lives.
Speaker 1:I noticed that in myself a little while back, when, you know again, I was doing the scrolling all the time and watching TikToks and watching reels, and then, when it came to reading, I noticed that I was very distracted, very distracted, even though my phone was in the room. Like it took me a little, a little bit of time to actually get used to not focusing on the phone and such. When you know, when I started putting my phone away, when I was reading, but what I noticed and what I was doing was that I was reading and then I get lost. And I was reading and then I get lost. I'm like, oh my goodness, like this is very strange, right, but because I was so much on my phone, I just couldn't focus anymore. I couldn't concentrate on a single task. I just couldn't do it right. So it took me a bit of time to get used to that and now my focus is good and honestly, I'm going to tell you right now, if there's one thing in life that has helped me with my problems with the phone, it's reading, because when you put your phone away and you just sit down and read, you're retraining your focus, right.
Speaker 1:Reading is one of the greatest things that you can do, not only intellectually and the knowledge and stuff. We all know that it's good for your mental health, all these things but it trains your focus, right. And I truly believe that reading is almost like a sort of meditation, because when the mind wanders back, or when the mind wanders sorry, right, so you're reading, you space out, you go somewhere, you bring your mind back, you bring it back to the book, so you're reading, mind goes away, you're like, oh okay, I'm in space, bring it back right. And to me that is kind of like this meditation. It's a meditative thing for me personally and that increases your focus of attention. It helps build focus again. But that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:And oftentimes maybe, we're at work and we're texting someone and we're trying to work on a task and we're doing all these things. We're at work and we're texting someone and we're trying to work on a task and we're doing all these things and then we get a text and then, oh, we're distracted right now. We reply to the text, we go back to the task. We check something else, we go back to the task. Research shows that, after being distracted by a notification from your phone, it can take up to 23 minutes to regain full focus on the task that you are working on, right? So if you're someone that works with their phone next to them, it could be impacting your ability to work as well.
Speaker 1:And I'm not just talking about work, I'm talking about anything. Well, any type of work that you do. Maybe you're sitting down and writing something, maybe you're actually at work doing something, you know. Whatever type of work that you're doing, it doesn't matter If you've got your phone next to you and you're constantly, you know, checking your phone for notifications, or you get a notification and you check your phone and then you're checking, then you put it away again. You're killing, you're distracting yourself and you're killing your ability to focus on one singular task at a time.
Speaker 1:And personally, I don't believe in multitasking, right? I generally don't believe in multitasking. I think it's a myth, right? I personally, I truly believe that if you really want to get something done. You focus on one thing at a time and you drive that thing home, right? If you're reading, you focus on that singular thing. If you're working on an essay or book report or you're writing a letter, it doesn't matter what it is right, you focus on that one singular thing at a time. That is the most important thing. So I think this is another thing that I think our phone kills, is our focus, and that is another big problem, right?
Speaker 1:And the other thing that I wanted to talk about really quickly was our phone sometimes can be used as an escape. They can be used as a mechanism, right, a coping mechanism. More specifically, and this is something I have noticed in my own life, right? So if you watched my first episode, I talked about my story the phone for me was not only doom scrolling, right, but I this is another thing, right. If you're constantly doom scrolling on this all the time, it could be that you're running away from something. It could be that you are trying to push something away, so you grab onto your phone, right, and that's what I would do. I didn't want to sit with myself. I didn't want to feel what I was meant to be feeling, right, all these different emotions and such, whatever happened. I couldn't process it. And what would I do? I went to my phone, mindless scrolling. I would numb myself all the time, right? So we use it as an escape, we use it as a coping mechanism.
Speaker 1:So, if you're someone that's constantly on your phone, you're constantly doom scrolling. I'm not saying you have a coping mechanism with this, but I'm just saying it could be something, right, it's something to think about as well. So, what are you running away from? What are you running away from? What are you scooping under the rug? What aren't you facing and what aren't you dealing with? I think, again, this is another thing that's so, so, so important to talk about Because, again, like I just said, I've been there, right, just mindlessly scrolling on my phone because I didn't know how to feel, I didn't know how to deal with my own stuff. So, rather than deal with it, I would just numb myself with my phone.
Speaker 1:So let's say that you're going through a breakup, as an example, you're heartbroken, right? You don't know how to deal with this and you don't know how to kind of process all of this and you're in pain and you don't want to be in pain. So you grab your phone, right, you're constantly grabbing your phone and sometimes you don't even notice that you are, but you're constantly grabbing your phone and you're on social media and then you're scrolling and then, oh, you see a picture of her or him. And now you're sad, right, and now your mind goes into this scenario, right, what if, what that? And then it's projecting you into the past, actually thinking about all the things you could have done differently, thinking about all of the good memories.
Speaker 1:Right, because when we break up with someone or get broken up with, a lot of the times is we don't see or we don't really think about the bad, right, at least not initially. We only think about all the good things as an example. Right, and again, this is all because we took the phone, we opened it up, we go on social media, we scroll, right, and it doesn't necessarily need to be a picture of her. It could be something that you're watching where you see relationships, someone talk about a relationship, all these different things, right. And then maybe you check a story and you see her or him in a story at a party somewhere. And now, oh, my goodness, mine goes wild.
Speaker 1:This is what I'm trying to say. And now we're sadder, we feel lonelier, we are feeling more depressed, feeling more disconnected. So this is really what I'm trying to say with the message today. Okay, I think it's so important that we talk about this and talk about all the things that our phones are doing to us right and not for us. It does a lot of things for us, but it does a lot of things to us as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I actually want to take some time now to talk about how to break free from this phone addiction and personally, like what I've been doing personally in real time and over the past few months, to really help myself with this. Because, you know, in my own subjective experience, I should say, my addiction lately has been my phone Right, and I'm just being genuine honest, like genuinely honest with you guys. I'm I want to share that because I think it's important, right, and I think a lot of us need to sit down with ourselves and acknowledge that. So, tip number one that I want to share with you is this have a radically honest conversation with yourself, sit down with yourself and ask yourself Do I have a problem? And just think about your phone consumption over the past few weeks or over the past few months and just ask yourself the question Sometimes as well, like my phone does this for me personally. It sends me these weekly usage reports. You can check that, right? You can check the weekly usage reports on your phone to see how much time you're spending a day, and you actually might be shocked I know I was personally. You might be shocked to see the results that you are. You know the results that are shown to you and how much time you're spending a day. Right, that could be an indicator of hmm, wow, I didn't think I was on my phone this much and a lot of us think we're not. But then when you get the results and you get the proof and you're like, oh, okay, this is. You know, this is a bit more of a problem than what you thought, right? So tip number one that I want to share with you is just generally, sit down, have that honest conversation with yourself and acknowledge that right, like, if you do have the problem and if you don't, and you're like good with that, awesome, like kudos and if you're that person that has zero problems with it, please leave in the comments, like how you're doing with that and what strategies that you're using, because I think that could also be beneficial to other people, and I think that would be great to hear from you as well. Right, because when I'm sharing it from my own subjective experience and what works for me, but if there's something else that works for you, please share it down below. This is made to talk about, right, this is why I'm doing this video today. Right, obviously because I want to help other people that are going through this or having this problem. Again, tip number one is really sit down and have that honest conversation with yourself, okay.
Speaker 1:Tip number two that I want to share is boundaries and digital detox. They kind of go hand in hand, but I think setting boundaries for yourself, digital boundaries, is so, so, so important. So what I mean by this is initially, I think that you need to create phone free time in your day every day, every day. Okay, phone free time in your day every day, every day. Okay, I would aim for at least an hour personally, like at least an hour, and my hour personally for me, like that I know that I don't have my phone typically is when I'm reading, right, I tried to get you know an hour of reading done every day. I will put my phone away. So, whatever that is for you, but try to get at least an hour of phone free time a day.
Speaker 1:Whether you are, as an example, going for a walk and you're not bringing your phone, maybe you're going, it doesn't matter where you, maybe you're going to a friend's house and you don't bring your phone right. It doesn't need to be on a routine schedule, but, like, if you can just forget your phone for a little bit, take some time to digitally detox every day and, if you can, if you can try to take like one day a week where you have no phone at all, right, so, maybe on the Sunday or maybe whatever, like it doesn't matter what it is. But if you can choose a day in your week that you're saying okay, today, I'm choosing this day, or maybe this day every week or whatever, but I'm setting a day where I'm going to have a digital detox and you're like, okay, no phone today. Right, like no phone today. I okay, no phone today. Right, like no phone today. I'm not checking my phone, or at least you don't check it for like the majority of the day, and then you check it at night, like I get it. Some people, you know we got things that we need to do as well. Right, maybe we have a business to run all these different things. But if you can take some time to really just sit down and take time to actually like, okay, think about a day and then tackle that, right, and actually like, set yourself a reminder and like, just take responsibility for it that's what I'm trying to say and then when you get to that day, you're like, okay, I'm going to throw my phone away for the day and then you go and you'll see just how much like, if you can start doing that consistently, you'll see how much like, wow, this is, it's nice. It's nice not to have the phone every day, cause guess what? This is the other boundary thing that I wanted to talk about that is so important.
Speaker 1:Just because you have a phone doesn't mean that everyone has access to you 24 seven. This is an important thing. And, yes, I understand some of us have kids and such, but also, you know, if you have kids, I get, maybe you have to reply to them and such, but you don't need to text everyone. You don't need to. As soon as someone texts, you don't need to reply right away. You don't. You actually don't, right, set that boundary. Some of us feel like we need to reply right away. I was that person before, right, it's like someone messages me. He's like, oh, okay, well, I'll get back to them soon, or whatever. And then you have a phone does not give someone access to you 24-7. Okay, it doesn't. So that's another part, and I think that's a very important part in the setting your boundary with the phone, right. So that's another thing that I want to say about this as well.
Speaker 1:But another thing is to turn off your notifications. Right, if you can actually turn off those notifications, not hearing the sound all the time I think that's very powerful. Okay, I think that's extremely, extremely powerful to have those notifications turned off. Okay, for me personally, my phone is on silent 24 seven. So my notifications are on, but I don't hear them. Okay, so they're not consuming me all the time, they're not. I'm not like, I'm not thinking about you know. Oh, I heard my phone. I should get my phone, all these different things. My sound is off. But if you need to keep your sound on as an example, maybe you're waiting for a call from someone, or maybe you're waiting for a call from your kid Well, you can actually set your phone where you've got specific notifications that are off for specific apps. So maybe you take your notifications off for Instagram, facebook or the social media type of thing, right? So that's actually another powerful tip that I've implemented, which is like wow, and also just a quick one as well that I was thinking about.
Speaker 1:A lot of people say, like, oh, you know, I need my phone to check the time and such. Well, we have watches, right. Like, actually, I know this sounds silly, but we do actually have watches, right. Maybe you don't like wearing watches, I don't know, but you know, if you're someone that's, you know, constantly checking your phone all the time and you want to have that digital boundary, but you know, you've, you've got your phone a lot because you want to check the time and whatever you can also, just, you know, put the phone away for a while and wear a watch, right, Watch gives you time and that's pretty much it. If you need to check the time, you time, is it? Oh, check the phone. Oh, boom. Five seconds after, we're scrolling on Instagram, we're scrolling on TikTok and now we are, you know, five, 10 minutes deep into YouTube. Shorts is an example, right? So this is what I'm saying. So sometimes that's just another little hack, right? And a final little digital boundary that I want to set as well is when we're sleeping or when we're about to go to sleep.
Speaker 1:Okay, what I personally do is and this is what I wanted to get back to that I was talking about earlier when I am going to bed. Now, okay, there's two things you can do. One is personally, I would just recommend that you don't sleep with your phone next to you. Okay, I generally think that's not a good idea and something that I stopped doing a little while back. There's two things you can do One just by a physical alarm, like just a normal alarm that you have, right, so a normal alarm that you wake up to, typically, right.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, if you want to keep your phone, like, personally, I've got my phone, I use my phone as my alarm, but the thing is, what I do is I put it at the other end of my room. So basically, what that does is when my alarm goes off in the morning, so I wake up at five, I go to the gym. So this does two things for me is one is allows me to get up early and actually get up. And secondly is I'm not sleeping with my phone next to me and I'm not waking up checking my phone first thing, right. So typically what I do is I'll have my, like, I'll have. I'm sleeping, I have my phone in at the end of my room and basically that's where I go, right. So my alarm goes off, I wake up, I grab my phone and then I get ready for the gym. And what I've done that way is you wake up and you're like, oh well, you don't have a choice to get up, to grab the phone, right. So now you're up, I grab the phone and typically when I do that, I'm not thinking about my notifications or checking whatever. I'm just okay. I take the phone, I put the alarm off and then I just start my day, right. So I'm not checking my notifications either. So this is something that works for me.
Speaker 1:But again, if you're someone that sleeps with your phone next to you, I would highly recommend that you try to again create that digital space, that digital boundary, and take your phone and put it somewhere else when you're sleeping so that you're not unconsciously thinking about grabbing it, right, you're not just grabbing or you're not doom scrolling at night and you're going to bed on time, when you're supposed to be going to bed, and then you'll see how much sleep is so powerful. And I think sleep is one of the most underrated things. When we're feeling not good, let's say we're not feeling well, or we're not feeling rested or tired or whatever. One thing that I say to people and clients as well, is how are you sleeping? Say to people and clients as well as like how are you sleeping? Right? Like sleeping is literally, I would say, probably the most important thing that people can do and really focus on right To have a consistent bedtime routine. I think when you get that adequate level of sleep, it impacts all other areas of your life, right? So, again, tip number two is really to set those digital boundaries and have that digital detox every once in a while.
Speaker 1:Tip number three that I want to share and this is something that I did for a while when I actually had so, when I took my break from social media for a little while, okay. When I started again, I was kind of like hmm, okay, like I just want to make sure that I don't get hooked on this too much. So what I did is I had a second phone. Okay, so you can call this a burner phone. You can do this a burner phone, you can do whatever.
Speaker 1:But basically I had two phones. I had my primary phone that had all my apps on it and like what I needed to do, and I would keep that one like at home or not really touch it, as an example, and I would have a secondary phone and this secondary phone had no social media and nothing on it, and this is the phone that often I would bring to the gym with me because I wasn't doing the scrolling of the gym. People do this, by the way. Because I wasn't doing the scrolling of the gym. People do this, by the way. I wasn't doing the scrolling of the gym. I wasn't checking TikTok or anything in the gym. The only thing I had on that phone was Spotify, right, and then that's basically the only phone that I would use throughout the day and then when I needed to do something actually on my phone that I would allow myself to use my phone for a little bit and then, basically, I would go back and use that phone as a primary phone, right? So this is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:I think it's very like for me, that really helped because the phone that I was using had no apps on it. Right, the phone that I was using had no apps on it, no ways of distracting me, all these different things. And what ended up happening is like, when I needed to go on Facebook, when I needed to use Instagram, sometimes if I was doing something on my laptop, I would just access the websites the actual Instagram and Facebook websites and do whatever I needed, right, so my phone only had Spotify and Facebook messenger. Facebook messenger, because I just did that's my way. Personally, I like to communicate with people, but I wasn't doing scrolling on anything because I didn't have anything to scroll on. I didn't have any apps to scroll on, right, so, and that's personally what I did for a while, and then you know, I get it.
Speaker 1:If you've got a phone that you have business on and all these different things, you can keep that phone and access it at specific times in the day when you need and such. But I think having a phone with no apps on it is such a powerful thing, right, because there's something I also heard is like people, what they'll do is like they will delete their apps and reinstall them anytime they need to right, and that's completely fine. If you want to do that, you can do that Absolutely and reinstall them anytime they need to right, and that's completely fine. If you want to do that, you can do that absolutely. What I noticed, for me personally, is like I would just constantly reinstall it, right, I would constantly reinstall the apps, but I found that if I had a secondary phone that I had nothing on it, it was kind of like this challenge, right, it's like I've got nothing on this phone, like I want todownload the apps, right, so, having two phones and you don't need to do this forever. But for me personally, what it did is just it helped me not check social media all the time, right, and then now I only use my one phone, but I find that I still have the habit that I carried from that phone as well, right, so this is just personally, something that I started doing and it helped me a lot. So that's why I wanted to share that.
Speaker 1:And another thing you can do as well is you know, if you only got one phone, if you don't have access to a second phone, if you don't want to use a second phone, another thing you can do is download an app blocker. There are many different app blockers that you can download. This is something that I did and, in fact, for me, it did two things. One Instagram, facebook. You can do that. You can also even block the websites right, you can even block the websites themselves as well, so you're not accessing them in any way. Secondly, what it did for me was really a slap in the face, because every time we try to open the app, it counts it and it told me how many times in the data that I tried to open the app and, like I remember when I first started, like I had blocked Instagram after like 9 PM, as an example. So that's what I was doing. Right, you can also another part of the digital boundaries that you can also set a specific time where you want to block that app. And I noticed for myself I had tried to open the app like 23 times in a day and I was like, oh my goodness, like this is crazy, right. So that ad blocker was a slap in the face for me. It was a wake up call as well. I was like, okay, this is good, right, so you can also use the ad blocker on specific things that you want, that can actually be beneficial, right? So, if you're hooked on YouTube, if you're hooked on Instagram, whatever, you can set those times where you block the app, or you can block it indefinitely, it doesn't really matter, okay. So, again, this is tip number three. You can have that secondary phone or, as well, you can have that app locker.
Speaker 1:Tip number four that I want to share with everyone is do more things that make you forget to check your phone. Okay, I think this is probably the most important tip that I can share today is do more things that make you forget to check your phone. Right, so, it's immersing yourself in activities and doing more of the things that you want to be doing. Right, because sometimes, like we are just we're scrolling and we're scrolling and you know, an hour passes by and like, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I've been scrolling. And we all know, we all know, right, we know that feeling of when we're doom scrolling and we're like, oh, I just spent an hour on my phone, I could have been doing something else. I just spent an hour on my phone, I could have been doing something else. Or, oh my goodness, I was on my phone again for an hour as an example right, that time could be used to do something else.
Speaker 1:So if you start immersing yourselves in things that you actually enjoy and do more of that, you're not going to be on your phone as much, you're not going to be thinking about your phone as much and you're not going to be unconsciously checking your phone as much. So if you're someone, maybe that's very creative and you like painting and such, you could do more of that, right? Or maybe write down a list of things that you've always wanted to do but you haven't done yet. So, as an example, maybe you want to start fitness class, maybe you want to start Zumba, maybe you want to start an art class, maybe you want to start drawing or painting. Right, get that creative side of you flowing, right. And that's one thing as well.
Speaker 1:I think as children we're so creative, but sometimes, when we grow up as adult, into our adulthood, we lose that sense of curiosity. We lose that sense of creativity. So this is what I'm saying when you spend more time doing things that you enjoy, you forget your phone, right? And then the byproduct of that is that you spend more time with people, right? You're more present with people. This is what I'm trying to say You're more present people, you're more present with the activity that you're doing and you're not thinking about your phone.
Speaker 1:So, again, tip number four is do more things that make you forget to check your phone. And these are just some of the things that have personally helped me in my life Okay, and personally helped me with kind of setting those boundaries and not being glued to my phone at all. And I think you know it's. It's a battle, right, it's a consistent battle against yourself, it's a consistent battle against that phone, but I'm I'm a firm believer that if we can learn to have that separation and those boundaries, then we can use the benefits of our phone but not lose our life, not lose our soul to this little soul sucking device.
Speaker 1:Is what I'm trying to say, okay, so again, like I said earlier at the beginning of the episode, if you have any other tips that you want to share, please leave them in the comment below, right? I really want this to be an open conversation. I want this to be a topic where, as a collective, we can kind of troubleshoot, if you will, and really brainstorm and come up with things that can help us be more mindful so that we're not missing out on life. So, that being said, that's all I've got for you guys on today's episode. If you did like the episode, please feel free to leave a comment or review, share it. It really helps bring awareness to what I'm trying to do, which is really kind of spread this podcast on a broader scale to really help people just navigate everyday life challenges. So, again, with that being said, I hope you have a good week and I will catch you guys next week. You
