The Need for a Digital Detox
May 02, 2025The video above covers the self-care content for day 4 of the Whole Health 10 Day Spring Growth Reset programme.
Themes covered in the video:
- Recognising the overwhelm to our nervous systems that technology creates, often without us even noticing.
- Creating awareness around the addictive nature of the screen, including how we often regulate to a screen and attend to our self-regulation less and less.
- With so much screen time so normalised now, we need even more consciousness around coming back to reality and practicing simply being with ourselves in the here and now…
Recognising the addictive qualities of screens, smartphones and social media
- Unrelenting 'connection' creates expectations of constant novelty, and the brain seeks yet more..
- This sets up increasing habits of constantly seeking, comparison, judgement, information gathering and the security of ‘knowing’ more - less capacity with be with space, ambiguity, wonder, possibility and even the creativity that boredom can allow.
- The quick moving lights and noise lighting up front brain technology brings can leave the ‘real world’ seeming dull by comparison, creating a dopamine feel-good high that draw us back.
“Upon signing off, the brain is plunged into a dopamine-deficit state as it attempts to adapt to the unnaturally high levels of dopamine social media just released. Which is why social media often feels good while we're doing it but horrible as soon as we stop.” - Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Some simple changes can help invite your mind to be with quiet...
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Turn off sounds and notifications, on all devices (including those worn) so you're not pulled towards technology and can choose when to engage, and when to have real space.
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Limit screens into the evening and even have afternoons or days off – use flight mode or turn devices off fully whenever possible.
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Ban phones from the bedroom and read instead - blue light from screens actually tells your pineal gland in your brain that it needs to keep running, so it messes with your circadian rhythms and cortisol levels – even use candles where possible.
