Part IV of blog series, One Thing.
“One day at a time” is tried & true advice when it comes to making strides towards any goal. I want to offer you a tidbit of advice each week, and feature advice from others within our community as well, that will help you be better, healthier, fitter, happier individuals today than you were yesterday.
Today’s One Thing: Put Down Your Phone!
Today, try to bring awareness to when and how often you are checking your phone, mindlessly opening up social media apps and scrolling through endless posts, photos and streams of information.
The past few weeks it has seemed impossible to not continuously check for new updates with everything going on so now is a great time to bring some awareness to our phone habits and break any we’ve accidentally formed recently!
Bringing your own awareness is a great start. Setting the Screen-Time limits on your phone is another great way to force yourself to limit your time! Even better, when you make the decision to put down your phone, reward yourself with doing something positive and that feels good for you! Associating putting down your phone with a good feeling will help you do it more often. Our brains are wired to get a boost of that “feel good” when staring at our phones with instant distractions and mini gratifications, that’s why it gets so addicting!
If we can substitute those same positive feelings but from another, more healthful source, we will feel so much better today than yesterday! Some ideas of what to do instead once you place your phone down:
- Stand up and do 1 stretch on any body part for the duration of 5 big deep breaths.
- Recite 1 or 2 positive affirmations to yourself…about yourself, your day, your goals, or anything!
- Close your eyes for 10 big deep breaths, clearing your mind as much as possible and focusing on your inhales and exhales.
- Review all the positive things in your day so far that you’ve accomplished or experienced! Every little thing is worth celebrating.