Signs you might need a digital detox (and how to fix it)
40:19 Share

You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that. You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that.

The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank, and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International Incorporated. Card may be used everywhere MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply. 5 a.m. I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink. Running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work. Meetings. Workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius. Live. Fit. Go.

Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. Good morning. Welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I'm your host, Lexi. And today we're going to be targeting you, attacking you, stabbing you in the heart. And I might make you mad. I might piss you off. I'm also doing the same to myself. But we're talking today about our addiction to social media.

how every single one of us needs to learn to put our phone down a little bit more. And you're probably saying, "Lexi, you're literally an online creator. Why don't you want people watching your content?" Well, that's really not the point at all, but it tends to be a common comment that I get when I talk about putting our phones down.

People are like, why would you ever want anybody to stop consuming what you're posting and creating and yada, yada, yada? I'm like, honestly, I want people to be happy more than I want to like or a follower on any platform across any account that has never been what it's about for me. What I want is for people to feel good, to feel happy, to feel content in their own life and inspired and motivated to make their life whatever it is that they want it to be.

That's aside from the point, but I guess that's a little bit of an intro to me. So today we're talking about a digital detox and signs that you might need one. Now I made an outline for today. Again, if you're new here, outlines aren't always something that I do. I like to just talk in circles and somehow with an outline, I still managed to do the same, but somehow you guys are here and you're listening. So hopefully you're loving it.

The first thing, the first sign that you probably need a digital detox is that you clicked on this episode to listen to it. I think that subconsciously, most of us know that we're struggling with some kind of addiction to social media. And it might not just be social media in the way that you think about it. It might not be just that you can't put stop scrolling on TikTok or Instagram reels. It might be that you constantly need a source of

connection or attention, whether that's constantly needing to be Snapchatting somebody or texting somebody or on the phone with somebody. Obviously, I think those are better addictions to have than just being stuck in the doom scroll. But regardless, we are way too attached to our phones. Now,

I don't know my demographic of who's listening to this. Usually it's girlies my age and a little bit younger. We have unfortunately had access to social media for pretty much as long as we can remember. But unfortunately for this generation, I guess you could say, it is now even worse. You know, people are having access to social media at freaking zero.

six years old, seven years old. My cousins who are nine years old are constantly talking in TikTok sounds and in TikTok dances. And there's kids I know that age whose parents have told them that they can't be online, but kids will be kids. They will find a way to get on the internet. I think back to when my mom took away Snapchat for me because she thought it was a really horrible idea for seventh graders to have access to an app where you can just send disappearing pictures and think that nobody could screenshot or save them in any way, shape or form. She was right.

But guess what? I found my way to get on Snapchat. I made secret accounts and then I would delete them and then I would go on my friend's phones and I found a way to be on Snapchat the same way that kids are finding a way

to be on social media. And like, that's a conversation for a whole nother time, because I know that there's not seven-year-olds listening to this thinking that they need to take a digital detox. But what I'm really saying is that our world has gotten and gone too far down the rabbit hole of an online world so much so that we are completely forgetting what is going on in the real world. And I think that's another sign that you might need a digital detox is that you are always thinking about what's going on online so much so that in your real life,

You're not really paying attention to what's going on. You're not appreciating small moments like you used to. You're not even aware of your real life. You're only aware of what you're online consuming or you're so aware

addicted to other people's lives that you really don't care about your own. And I know that sounds really deep and dark, but it's something that I've faced. It's something that I've experienced. I get so caught up in watching other people online that I'm like, oh, I'm just like living through them. I'm just living. Their life is great. I'm just going to watch them. And that's good for me. But the truth is that we have our own lives to create. We have our own life to go live and experience and enjoy and appreciate and just to be present in. So

Neither of those things were on my bullet pointed list. So now to get into my bullet pointed list, the first sign on my list that you need a digital detox is that you're embarrassed of your screen time. Let's say you're in a group of people. I feel like I'm talking really fast today, guys, and it's only 8am. I'm going to slow it down. You're in a group of people and everybody pulls up their screen time and it's your turn to go and your screen time is four hours on TikTok.

Obviously, what feels like a lot of screen time to you might be very different than what feels like a lot of screen time to somebody else. Like me, for example, I'm always trying to justify my screen time by being like, well, I'm a creator. I was probably editing. Drama. No, you probably weren't. I was probably scrolling. My screen time is disgusting.

Hence the need for me to record this episode. Like I said, everything I'm learning, I'm sharing with you. I'm learning that I'm addicted to social media. I mean, we all could have known that. But if your screen time feels high, maybe you need a detox a little bit. Okay, maybe you want to be able to be confidently in a group of people and say, guys, look, my screen time across all apps, an hour and a half. Slay, slay, slay, slay, slay.

A lot of you guys might be listening to this with no addiction to social media at all. And for that, I applaud you. Maybe you can listen and share these tips with a friend, or maybe you could just turn this episode off because good for you. You're doing wonderful. Next.

You're subconsciously scrolling and then you end up in a deep rabbit hole or on a deep dive. Now, what happens for me, I also struggle really badly and truly with ADHD, not just in a fake way, in a real diagnosed with three different types of ADHD kind of way. What will happen for me is I'll go on my phone, say I am in communication with a brand and I'm trying to organize some kind of deal with them. Oftentimes I'll have to DM them first to get in contact, to get on email thread with them.

And somehow I will never make it to my DMs to DM that brand. I will somehow end up on my explore page looking at people's proposals from across the world or saving recipes that I'm not ever going to make or end up finding a new brand to like and scroll through and just

go and I go and I go and I go. So I think that that's what a doom scroll can look like. But I think a doom scroll can also just look like not moving from one place and just simply scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through your feed for what you thought was five minutes. And then you look at the time and it's been 30 minutes. Every single one of us, our days look different. Our jobs look different. Our school looks different. So I might say here, like,

People scroll on the internet for two hours in the morning before they get out of bed and you're like, well, how is that possible? I have a job like I have to get up for work. Okay, maybe you find your doom scrolling at night or in the middle of the day or on your lunch break. Never judge another person's doom scroll to your own because if you're still listening, you probably are doing it too. The next one is that you're feeling emotionally drained or constantly exhausted. Being online is not for the weak.

You are constantly just consuming and consuming and consuming these little short bits of information. And we'll get into short form content versus long form content in a second over here. But when you're constantly just consuming little bits and little pieces of this and of that and of recipes and of outfits and of relationships and of friendships and of travel, what do you think your brain is going to do?

Our brains are not designed to consume that much information. And then on top of that, you're probably in school or you're probably working or you're probably trying to create a business or run a business or whatever it is that you're doing in your life. That should be your priority. But instead, our priority in our brain, what it's pouring into is just constantly consuming all this nonsense information that really isn't adding much value to us. I think a lot of times we think

I fall victim to this. I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and I'm like, oh my gosh, I learned something from that. I love that girl's outfit. I'm going to remember that for sure. And I think that I'm learning things or grasping onto things or putting them into like a little save for later section of my brain. But then I want you to think about how many videos you've saved that you've never gone back and looked at. Your brain is doing the same thing. No wonder you're exhausted. Next.

You're not sleeping well. One of my very, very, very wonderful friends in my life, one of my best friends in the whole wide world, she falls into her doom scroll at night. And I used to have this problem too. And I honestly, I really thank my fiance Gabe because he was never a nighttime scroller. And I had to fix my sleep schedule because especially when we first started dating, I was like, well, I can't be up until 3am if he's going to bed at 9pm, you know?

If you're on your phone until 2, 3, 4, even 1 o'clock in the morning, even if you're on your phone at night before you're closing your eyes, you are messing with your sleep. Okay, there's a statistic that says, and I wrote it down, 47% of people have their sleep negatively impacted because of social media or because of screen time or because of being online.

As we get into it later, we need to work on putting our phones down before bed. We do not need to be consuming, straining our eyes, straining our brain, straining our whole body and mind just for a couple videos to watch before we go to sleep. It is messing with your sleep.

Another sign you need a detox is you're constantly multitasking. You can't do one thing at a time anymore. Used to think that was a superpower. Now, if I'm physically doing one thing, I like go crazy. I'm literally jittering, freaking out. I'm like, I need to be doing something else because I don't feel like that one thing is productive enough. And that is a result of being online too much, being chronically online. Next, comparison is eating you alive. I silent pause because I think that is something different.

From the feedback that I've received, from being a creator for so long, from experiencing it for so long, that is one thing that social media has really proved to screw us up with. We compare ourselves to everyone and everything, people across the world, people at completely different points in their life. Suddenly we feel like we're supposed to be at the exact same points that they are. Wrong. Put your phone down. You can't do nothing, okay? This one is hard because...

Listen, listen, I'm going to be brutally vulnerable and honest here for a second. I know that I struggle with social media and my consumption of it, but I go in phases of like detoxing from it and then I get addicted again. And it's kind of like this endless loop, but I'm just proud that I'm trying. And you know what? Something is better than nothing. But I'm going to be brutally vulnerable and honest here for a second.

When I get back on my little addiction wave, I can't even go to the bathroom without my phone or without like subconsciously I'm opening apps. I'm opening Instagram. I'm watching stories. I'm opening TikTok and I'm watching videos or I'm

doing a whole bunch of nothing. So this morning, actually, I have not gone on social media. And I think that's maybe why I'm so alert and I'm so excited. And I'm so happy this morning to be talking to you guys because I have not compared myself to anybody yet today. I have not exhausted my brain yet today. And it's getting me, taking me a really long time to get through this episode because instead of just giving you the bullet point list of signs, you need a detox. I'm like really deep diving into them.

Next, your relationships are suffering. This, I think, can happen for a lot of reasons. One, you're not even being present in your relationships because you're online so much. Or two, you are comparing your relationship to so many other online relationships and it's making you feel like your relationship isn't good enough. It isn't strong enough. It's not as good as that couple that you follow in Australia's relationship, mind you.

That couple literally creates content for a living. Okay. Comparison will kill you in a relationship. And this isn't just intimate relationships or romantic partners. This is your friendships. This is your family relationships. This is so many things. Like if you are just constantly comparing yourself to online relationships or online relationships,

relationship dynamics instead of like working on your own relationship you're just going to deteriorate because you're just getting more and more mad about what you have instead of actively working to try to fix it if you do see somebody that has something that you feel like your relationship is lacking instead of making an effort to add that into your relationship you're just getting upset with the other person and not communicating why you're feeling that or why that thought even came to your mind t

Quick little intermission, you guys. Telling you about something you know that I know and love and I'm constantly telling you about. I feel like makeup is so fun to play around with and to try new things with and to just get inspiration from other people who use other makeup products. Let me tell you about the mascara that's going to change your life. If you haven't already purchased it from this podcast...

Now is the time, okay? Thrive Cosmetics Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara will be the best thing that you ever put on your eyelashes. Trust me. It's a vegan tubing mascara. It has over 40,000 five-star reviews with good reason, okay? There's six different shades. Your lashes look so long, okay? And then you don't turn into a raccoon because it just comes off.

In little tubes like it is the best thing ever and I mean it and one thing that I think is really cool about thrive cosmetics as well Is that they've donated over 150 million dollars worth of product and cash funds to over 600 Giving partners across the u.s. I love a company that not only has a great product, but also gives back to the world It is really incredible and that is something that is really important to thrive cosmetics They have a thousand trillion amazing products But i'm always going to be telling you about the mascara and the brilliant eye brightener because those are my go-to products

You are going to love them. So try your new trusty favorites with an exclusive set. Guys, I'm not even joking.

Get this, okay? New customers can get the Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara and a mini-sized Brilliant Eye Brightener, which, by the way, will last you forever, at a special set price with free shipping at thrivecosmetics.com slash moments. That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash moments. Bye. In case you haven't heard, it's officially an Abercrombie summer. The A&F Vacation Shop has everything on your packing mood board.

I desperately need their new one piece, the A&F Marina. It's strapless, so flattering, and paired with denim shorts will be my go-to beach outfit this summer. Finally, your suitcase isn't complete without finding that dress. You know, the one for the photo shoot. Abercrombie's boho dresses have that perfect beachy romantic look.

Make it an Abercrombie summer. Shop their newest arrivals in-store, online, and in the app. Next, your mental health is lacking. I think a lot of us are struggling with our mental health. Mental health has just gotten worse and worse and worse in the last few years.

And I strongly believe that social media is a huge reason for that. Again, going back to the comparison, going back to the lack of attention span, the need for constant dopamine hits. The second that we stop scrolling, our dopamine goes away and our mood gets lower. That's science. It's how it works. We don't feel well.

None of us. How many of you are listening to this and have struggled with bits of anxiety, bits of depression, bits of just like feeling down? A lot of this can come from social media. And I'm not saying that just because if you put social media down and you do a digital detox that you're going to be happy and you're never going to struggle. Again, that's really not how mental health works. That's not how the brain works. But...

I do think it'll help you feel better. I think it'll help give you more hope. I think it will push you in the right direction. Next, even in your free time, you're going online. Now, I mentioned this one because a lot of times on TikTok, once in a while, I'll get on there and I'll make a video saying like, hey, put your phone down for the rest of the day. It's like a challenge kind of because it's really hard for all of us to do.

And sometimes if those videos perform well, a lot of the comments will be like, well, I'm on my lunch break, just let me scroll. Or well, I just got off of work, I wanna lay down and go on my phone. I don't think there's anything wrong with those things. I think that there's something wrong with that if like,

That's all you're doing in your free time, okay? Say you are somebody who is in a really, really grind heavy era of your life, okay? You're waking up, you're working out, you're going to work and then you're taking classes, whatever it may be, and you only have a little bit of free time in your day. If you're feeling that free time strictly with being online, I don't think that's necessarily the best thing for you. I think maybe you need to walk, you need to read a book, you need to not only fill the time that you have

That is your time just for you with other people's lives. You know what I mean? Moving on. Next, you feel isolated. A lot of people go to the internet for community, for comfort, for friendship. So much so that when they are offline, they feel even more isolated than they did before. I think that both online community and in-person community are equally as important. I think...

Each and every one of us needs to really evaluate if social media went away tonight, right now, what does your community look like? Who do you have in your real physical life that is in your corner and on your side? Okay. Do you have a church group that you go to or a book club that you go to or a cooking class that you go to or friends in your local town or a coffee shop that you like to go to? What do you have in your real life?

And I think if you can think of at least three things, then you're doing great, you know, because online community is also important. But it's just something to think about because I think for a while, maybe this has to do with being a creator myself. I felt like I had no community. Honestly, this didn't even happen for me until I got to wedding planning and kind of creating a guest list. And I was like, wow, wow.

All my friends, not all, a lot of my friends are kind of across the world. They're different social media creators. I don't really talk to them every day, but part of me feels like I do because we're always interacting with each other's stories. But I have no idea what's actually going on in their head or in their life. And I realized that was kind of a problem. And then I was like, wow, I don't even really have that many things that I do that are offline things.

So then I joined a Bible study group. I've been really building my at-home community. I've been working on blossoming friendships that I have that are here. And it's been a really, really incredible experience for me. And I really do highly recommend it, creator or not. I think a lot of us kind of have this struggle. Okay, moving on. That's my list of signs that you need a digital detox. And before we get into how you're actually going to take one,

I'm going to tell you some of the impact of a digital overload. Honestly, we've talked about most of these things already, but excessive screen time shows signs of leading people into a deeper moments of anxiety, deeper depression. And then again, think about how much you're consuming. Think about how rapidly you're consuming things. Of course, you're going to feel anxious about your own life. Okay. When you are sitting at your house, you wake up in the morning, you go on your phone and within five minutes, you've seen somebody

who just hiked Mount Everest, had somebody who's seen somebody who just had their second baby, somebody who's planning a wedding, somebody who just read 150 books in three weeks, somebody who is in school getting their PhD, somebody who just got a promotion at their job, somebody who just got married, so and so and so and so. You see all of that within five minutes. You are going to feel behind in your life.

naturally. That's a human reaction that's going to give you anxiety about your future. It's going to give you anxiety about your past. It's going to make you unhappy with where you're at.

And it's not your fault. It's not any of our faults. It's literally the dark hole that is our phone. That is what society has turned into. And it often feels like we don't have the power to change those feelings. We don't have the power to turn off that anxiety. But, but we don't give ourselves enough credit. You do have more power than you realize. Okay, next. Information fatigue. We kind of touched on this earlier.

You're being fed a million things at once. I promise you're not remembering any of them. You ever go to try to tell somebody a fun fact that you learned and it's just nowhere to be found in your brain. Maybe that's because you learned it, um, on your 20th video out of the 75 that you watched in a 20 minute span. Crazy, right? And then you think about why can I go back

Why can I think about that random fact that I learned in ace marine science my sophomore year of high school? Why is it that you remember everything from that class? Because it was slow learning. Your brain wasn't exhausted

from having so much information. So it was able to hold on to it. Now, is that science? I don't know. It's personal experience. Again, I am no professional. The tips and the tricks and the things that I talk about are things that I have experienced, but most of us are experiencing the same thing. So I digress. Do you guys know that our attention span, Microsoft did a study, okay? They did it in 2000 and then they did it in 2015. In 2015, our attention span is eight seconds. Let's do an eight second pause.

Eight seconds. My seconds might've been a little bit fast. That is less than a goldfish. Our attention span is less than a goldfish. And we think that we don't have an addiction to social media. We think that we don't have a problem. Eight seconds. Next, we talked about all these things, but the last thing that I wrote down here on like a digital overload impact is that we genuinely feel less joy.

We're so, so, so stuck in overconsumption of online media, of online things, of talking about social media that we don't even know how to appreciate the grass on the ground, the flowers that are blossoming, the breeze in our hair, the sky being blue, the clouds passing by. We cannot appreciate anything that is real. We can't appreciate our family time. We can't appreciate conversations with our

partner, we can't appreciate trips that we go on because we're like, well, this person did a better trip. This person went here. This person did this. Gosh, we don't know how to appreciate anything anymore. All because of that dang phone. You're going to feel less happy if you're addicted to your phone. Like I warned you guys in the beginning, this is a personal attack kind of episode. And if some of these things don't apply to you, I applaud you. I think another big problem that we have is

And another like sign that you might need a digital detox is if you're, your most viewed apps or your most heavy consumption apps are short form content places. I think if you're a long term, long form YouTube watcher, if you're a show watcher, a movie watcher, I think that you are,

You're doing good. Clearly your attention span is longer than eight seconds. Me personally, I don't do well with long form content. I'm really coming for myself right here. I, if for whatever reason I put on a YouTube video, I have to watch it in two times speed and I usually only make it about five minutes into the video. I've never been a long form content watcher, but I'm going to start challenging myself to watch it because the problems lie much heavier in short form content than they do in long form content. Too much of anything is bad, but

Short form content is literally such a highlight reel. You know, we're seeing the best moments of our life. We're seeing these videos that people are creating, but short form content is the worst, the worst. We're doing surface level learning. We're decreasing our own creativity. And this is one that I experience really, really deeply. I will talk about this a little bit further down, but we need to be creating more than we consume.

whether you're a creator or not you always should be creating more than you consume whether that's in social posts or in the real world because the moment that you're consuming more than you're creating is the moment that your creativity goes away and you just start to become a circle of other people not in a healthy way but in a way that you don't even have your own creative thoughts anymore and it is really hard to turn that off it is really hard to turn that off as a creator myself it's

In the past five years of creating, there have been so many moments and eras of my life where I have been consuming more than I've been creating. And then I go to create and I don't even know where to start. And I don't even know how to do it anymore. And I feel like I know nothing and no thoughts are coming to my mind. I'm going to give you a really silly example. For me, I used to be really good at creating a video and finding a sound for the video. I'm telling you, this was like my specialty. Any video, I could find the perfect sound. Now...

I can't. And that might sound really dumb, but it is a really clear sign to me that something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong. Something has lost touch. My brain has lost a bit of itself because of its consumption of other things. After zoomies at the dog park, it's time for drive up at target. In goes a big bag of kibble and one squeaky chicken toy for the good boy. Drive up that's ready when you are only in the target app. Just tap target.

Get into your body's vitals with the Vitals app on Apple Watch. ♪ I wanna know my skin, do you talk ♪ ♪ And I wanna feel like I'm in ♪ The Vitals app tracks key overnight metrics so you can spot changes in your health before you feel them. The Vitals app on Apple Watch. iPhone XS are later required. The Vitals app is for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. ♪ I wanna get into my fight, fight, fight ♪

So you might be saying, now that you've personally attacked us for 25 minutes, Lexi, how do we fix this? Well, here's my to-do list. We've talked about this on other episodes. We've touched on it a little bit, but this episode is going to be your actual guide to getting off your phone instead of just a reminder to get off your phone. When it comes to fixing this, some people, I'm actually going to give you two options here. Some people need to start small.

We have to recognize that you can't fix addiction overnight, okay? You have to accept that what we are is addicted. Sorry, you can't fix that overnight, okay? A lot of people, what I will see people do, and this was gonna be my other recommendation for you, is to just do a cold turkey digital detox, okay? No phone other than texting and calling your friends, no watching shows, no watching YouTube, no watching nothing, being present only for three days or five days or seven days. The problem with that is,

is that you will almost always go back to your old ways if you do this quick cold turkey quit, because then you're like so proud of yourself at the end of this full detox that you say, I get to go back online. And then you just go back to what you were doing before. Then a little bit of time goes by and then you just do this detox again. And listen, I think that's still very healthy. I think any amount of detox is a good thing, but I think what we should focus on is doing this slow burn detox, getting ourselves less addicted and less hooked slowly, but surely.

The first way to do this, 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night. You are not going on your phone first thing that you wake, first thing that you do in the morning. This is what ruins you. This is what ruins your day. This is what makes you feel like crud, like crap. Let me tell you, firsthand experience. Oftentimes I do find myself on my phone first thing in the morning, whether that's texting people back, getting all texting up in my group chat, going and answering my emails, going and opening, checking a post, checking my comments,

It's how you set your brain up for failure. You're not going to feel good the rest of the day if that's how you start the day. Keep the phone down. Wake up in the morning. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Make a coffee. Have a nice breakfast.

And allot yourself certain times to be on your phone. And the same thing goes with at night. Your sleep is going to be disrupted whether you want to realize it or not. Whether your aura ring tells you your sleep was a 90 or not, your sleep is not good if you are feeding yourself social media moments before bed. I think a really good way to start small in digital detoxing is no phone in your bed. That's kind of like my next thing.

Make certain places in your house tech-free places in your house, okay? Not just your house. In your car. In your car. If you're scrolling on social media in your car, you have to change something. Now, I know nobody wants to admit that because nobody should be texting and driving. We shouldn't even be changing the song while we're in the car, and I'm sure a lot of people are good at that. I have been a car scroller. I'm not proud of it. I finally don't do that anymore, but...

You should not be on your phone, in your car. No scrolling in your car. No scrolling, this one's hard, on the toilet. On the toilet. I bet you you could be in and out of the bathroom in three minutes. For some of us, don't know what your stomach issues look like. But instead we stay in there for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. My fiance can stay in the bathroom for 30 minutes.

And his dad gives himself one hour in the morning to sit on the toilet. Now that system works really well for him, but I think that you'll notice how much time you're wasting when you make things that are supposed to be quick.

When you take your phone away from them, okay? You'll realize how much time you were wasting on your phone more than you needed to be. Same thing goes with meals. I think that when you're eating, do not be in your phone. There's many reasons that this is a huge benefit. One, it makes you a more mindful eater. It makes you more of an appreciative eater. You enjoy every bite. You actually have awareness of what you're eating. It helps a lot with intuitive eating as well. I used to just scroll on my phone

while I would eat and I wouldn't even register that I was full and I would just keep eating and eating and eating. And then after I ate, I felt sick and I went into like a food coma because I wasn't even paying attention to what I was eating. I was only paying attention to what I was watching. Put your phone down during mealtimes. Okay. At the kitchen table. I really challenge you if you have a partner or you live with a roommate, even friend, whatever it is,

make these set these goals together okay what really stemmed me wanting to do this was Gabe and I saw a TikTok of course of this couple that does not allow the phones in the bedroom in the bathroom and at the table and Gabe and I are going to start doing that we started a little bit but we haven't really honed in on it um so like when we're not together we're not really following it but um

We're going to start doing it constantly because it really does make so much of a difference. So much of a difference. I feel your day doubles in length the second that you stop going on your phone at each of these times. And also recognize all of our schedules are different. Okay. If the morning is really the only time that you have to answer your texts and your emails, figure out what works for you. Okay. Don't take what I say and apply it and be like, well, that didn't change anything for me because so-and-so and so-and-so.

Think about your own life, evaluate your own life, and really just be honest with yourself. When are you scrolling that you should not be scrolling? The key to all of this is just being honest with yourself, having self-awareness, accepting that something needs to change. I think another good way to detox yourself a little bit is to turn off your notifications. Not your text notifications or your call notifications, but notifications.

Turn off your Snapchat notifications, turn off your Instagram notifications and your TikTok ones. Anytime your phone buzzes, even when I'm recording this episode, these episodes, I have to turn my phone off.

My phone on do not disturb because if it buzzes once, my brain is immediately thinking about what that notification is. And honestly, this can be really toxic because a lot of times if my phone buzzes and I hear it buzz but I can't check it, my mind just goes to the worst case scenario. I'm like somebody's calling me because something happened to somebody that I love. That's a whole other issue that I'm working on in my brain. But anyways.

Turn off your notifications. Next, have a list of go-to things when you find yourself captured in these moments.

A lot of times we don't realize that we're in a deep scroll until it's kind of too late. And then at that point we tell ourselves, well, I'm already here. I might as well just like keep seeing what's going on. Wrong. Stop it while you can and have a list of things that you do, whether that is going for a walk. These are going to seem basic, but if you have them on the top of your mind, I promise you they will feel better than scrolling will feel. Maybe not directly in the moment, but for your long-term sanity and health, these will be better.

Walk, journal, bake, call someone, read. Those are the things that I wrote down. Your list might look different. Just have a go-to list of things that you do after you found yourself scrolling too long, okay? Next, digital declutter, okay? This means we're gonna unfollow, we're gonna block, we're gonna get rid of what is not serving us. This is not personal to different creators. This is not personal to anybody. It is just...

That if you are following people that you know, every time you see their videos, it makes you upset. It makes you compare. It makes you jealous. It makes you angry. It makes you heartbroken. I don't know, whatever it is, unfollow it. If you are going through a breakup right now, or you are working through some hard times in your relationship, unfollow all the couple accounts.

unfollow all of them. It's not going to be healthy for you to see. It's not going to be good for you to see. You can go back and follow them at a time in your life where you can handle it, but you do have the power to unfollow things or unfollow people or block people that are not good for your mental health. And I think the way that you start realizing what is good for you and what isn't good for you is to just mindful scroll. Okay. As you scroll, go slow and try to register what you're feeling as you watch each video.

You'll be able to tell the difference on things that make you feel good and things that don't make you feel good. Next, plan more real hangouts. Have things scheduled in the books where you are forced to go outside and talk to people and have conversations. My social anxiety has gone through the roof ever since I started actively being on social media. And

I don't know why that is. I just get really nervous to have conversations. I can't public speak anymore. I just tweak out over everything, but that one might be personal. But if anybody else struggles with that, me too. And one thing that has helped is just forcing myself into situations that make me uncomfortable. I went to an all woman's night at my church a couple of weekends ago. It was horrible. I mean, it was amazing, but it was really hard for me because I went all by myself. I had to go sit at a circle table with a bunch of people that I don't know. I had to introduce myself. I had to talk to

That freaks me out sometimes. Other days, it's like really easy and fun for me. I don't know why that is, but...

Create more than you consume. Okay. This can be not making your own videos for the internet, but it can be journaling more. It can be taking more photos and keeping them for yourself. Always just create more than you consume. If you like to play music, play more music than you watch TikToks. If you like to cook, bake more or cook more than you watch TikToks.

Just always create more than you consume. I think that is a really essential key. And I think that will really help you from getting super, super, super stuck in the loop. Okay. The last thing that I have written down is to reflect, pay attention to the difference in how you feel when you get offline. We often forget how important it is to reflect and we simply don't do it.

Because we're on such a fast paced schedule, we like don't take the time to think about our feelings. We just keep moving in loop. We keep doing and doing and doing and doing. Get a journal, dedicate it to your digital detox. And at the end of every day, even if you just write down a sentence, even if you don't even write out the sentence, but you see the journal and it makes you think and reflect,

Think about how you feel. The more that you register that you're feeling better when you're on offline more, the more that your mind will remember that and you will actually apply it to your life. But if you don't give your mind the reflection and you don't give your mind the time to think about how much better you feel, it's just going to go back to its old ways.

You know what I mean? Anyways, you guys, I really love you. I really hope that you can take something positive away from this and that you can put your phone down because that is my goal. I think after this today, I'm going to try to be really, really light on the digital media front today. And I hope that you do the same. And I hope you know that I love you. And I hope that you know that I'm proud of you. And I want the best for all of us. And I just want us to be happy people. And I want us to chase our dreams and be the best version of ourselves possible.

Thanks for tuning in. You guys can follow me across all platforms at Lexidalgo. My accounts will be in the description if you want, but don't follow me today because that's going to get you online. But yeah, I also have a journal for whatever reason. If you really want to get into journaling, I have a guided journal that has prompts, affirmations. It is good for

any beginner or anybody who's been journaling for a while. But I really, really, really love and appreciate you, every single one of you. Hope you have the most beautiful, amazing day ever. Bye now. When we started writing our thoughts down on paper, it opened up endless possibilities. Ideas could grow beyond the borders of the mind and it changed the world. Somewhere along the way, we lost touch with paper. Distracted by devices made for every purpose except for thinking and focus.

On edge, waiting for the next notification. But what if new technology didn't pull us away from paper, but brought us closer to it? Listen. That's not paper. It's the sound of the new Remarkable Paper Pro, rewriting the future. A paper tablet with a true color ink display, gentle reading light, and unheard of tactility.

with digital features for taking notes, thinking, and organizing without any distractions. Paper is about to change the world again. Get your Paper tablet at remarkable.com today.