What happened when I stopped sleeping with my phone for a year:
We are all in the culture of being dependent on our phones for EVERYTHING.
Communication, calendars, emails, texts, Instagram, youtube, recipes…and the list goes on. There are tons of benefits that come with technology. I am able to connect with so many great people that without it I may never of had the opportunity to! We can be better self advocates by having the ability to have so much knowledge at our fingertips. I don't want to sound like I don't use, enjoy, or lack gratitude for this tool, but I also want to share some thoughts.
I believe that we have created habits with technology and our phones in particular, that could be affecting us negatively more than we know.
I’ve gone through phases with my relationship with my phone. At times, I am all in...spending a lot of time on it and super addicted to it and all it comes with. Then there are times where I want nothing to do with it.
One thing that I have been so strict about for myself and my boyfriend is absolutely NO phones or technology in our bedroom for the past year. It blows my mind all of the years that I slept with my phone next to my head on my nightstand. (insert teenage years here)
I started researching the effects of wifi and technology and the way it interferes with our brain and sleep patterns and it encouraged me to give this a go! Everyone asks me "What about my alarm??" The alarm on your phone still works when your phone is on airplane mode. I usually sleep with my phone in the next room and when I do have to use an alarm I can hear it from there.
What I noticed during the year:
I have always been a good sleeper but this has taken it to the next level. I fall asleep right away and most of the time I don't wake up until the morning.
When I walk into my bedroom it makes me feel a sense of peace, I am always relaxed and excited to get into bed.
I feel more rested in general and that the quality of my sleep is much better and deeper than it was before.
What I think about in my mind has changed. I’m not influenced by what I am seeing on my phone right before I go to sleep or right when I wake up. I feel more clear headed and in tune internally.
Having a routine and realizing we don't need to be available or distracted by our phones 24/7 is a huge game changer and quite frankly a freeing feeling. The goal being to use our phone as a tool and not let it use us.
Waking up in the morning is the most sacred time for our body and mind. We are renewed, restored, rested, in a pure like state and its important to use that time to focus on what we are grateful for, the sunshine greeting us, and checking in with our mind and body. I feel best when I wake up make some warm lemon water, light my sandalwood , stretch, journal, and slowly work into picking up my phone.
Being in a relationship and especially with both of us being entrepreneurs, I feel like there are times when one of us is looking to connect and talk and the other is deep on the gram or vise versa. Setting routines and cut off times for work and our phones has been such a great change. We never use technology during meal times and we set cut off times for work (usually before dinner) and then after we spend our time talking, reading or watching an occasional Netflix series together.
I would love to hear what routines you have set up with technology when it comes to your wellbeing and what that balance looks like for you!
Erica xx
