24d • General discussion
🔺 Creating Better Phone Habits ⚡️
Our phones are a big part of everyday life. They help us communicate, work, navigate, learn and stay connected. So I don’t think the goal needs to be “phones are bad” or to stop using them.
But I do think it can be useful to ask:
Am I choosing when I use my phone, or am I just reaching for it automatically?
Research has found associations between problematic smartphone use and higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms, although that doesn’t mean phones necessarily cause these problems.
Sleep is another area where the relationship seems important. A meta-analysis found that greater smartphone use was associated with poorer sleep, and a large Danish study found that using your phone during the sleep period was particularly associated with disturbed sleep.
So rather than trying to completely change how much you use your phone, here are 3 small habits you could experiment with:
🚶 1. Take a walk without your phone
Leave your phone at home and go for a short walk.
This has personally been especially helpful for me. I noticed that I had some anxiety around being away from my phone, so intentionally going for walks without it has helped me become more comfortable with not always having it available.
Start small. It could just be a 10-minute walk.
🌙 2. Sleep with your phone outside the bedroom
Instead of putting your phone next to your bed, find somewhere outside the bedroom where it stays overnight.
This creates a physical boundary between your phone and your sleep. It also removes the opportunity to automatically check it when you wake up during the night.
🏠 3. Give your phone a home
Choose one place in your home where you regularly leave your phone.
It could be a shelf, table or charging station.
Instead of carrying it around in your pocket from room to room, put it there when you don’t actually need it.
Creating a little distance means that checking your phone becomes more of a choice rather than something you do automatically.
📝 Your challenge
Choose one of these three habits and try it for the next week.
Don’t aim for perfection. Just pay attention to what happens.
Do you reach for your phone without thinking? How does it feel when it isn’t there? And does creating some distance change anything for you?
Sometimes changing our habits isn’t about having more self-control.
It’s about changing our environment so the behaviour we want becomes a little easier.
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🔺 Creating Better Phone Habits ⚡️
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