- Track Your Cell Phone Usage
Yes, it might sound like a painful task but the more you track your cell phone usage, may it be for texts or calls or plain simple binge watching, the more you’ll be able to control it. Download apps that might do the tracking for you or jot down usage on a notepad, at least for a week. Then at the end of 7 days, review the amount of time you spend on each activity. Happy Ho organizes best Meditation and Tarot classes in Noida and Delhi NCR area in India.
- Wean-Off
So now that you know that you are spending 15 hours on binge watching in a week, it’s time to start cutting down. Start by reducing the 15 hours by 5 percent. So bring the total down to 14 hours 25 mins for the next week. Abstinence is not the key here because relapses are very likely to happen in their case. Harm reduction is what we are looking at. Harm reduction does not see things in binary i.e. using the phone too much and then not using one bit. It sees addiction as a spectrum from usage that is most harmful to least harmful.
- Commit to Being in the Present
If someone is speaking to you, try and stay with them in the present. Yes, what they might be saying can be less interesting than the gossip your bestfriend is sending your way on Whatsapp. But isn’t that the case most often? The reality is way less engaging than the virtual. Then what is left for the real? So take a pause, acknowledge the urge to run back to your phone, reason it and then come back to the person in the present.
- You’re not as Important
Some people, including myself, live under the fear that if I do not respond to a single ping on my phone that I’d be missing the opportunity to help someone in need. What is this ping is being sent by a friend who just met with an accident? What will my friend think if I do not come to help him in time of trouble? But as it turns out, 99% of the time, these texts are nothing but regular communication.
Our phones have turned into animals of anxiety and it’s time we pain attention to it and relaxed a little. If I am unable to respond to my friend, he or she should understand and reach out to someone else smartly.
- Turn it off
When you are done attending to all the calls and texts for the day, turn your phone off. Yes! Step back into the real, read a book or sip on some coffee or cuddle with your pet or just sit with your thoughts. By doing this, you tell your cell phone that it cannot control you for those few hours in the night, that you are to yourself. Instead of it calling to you, you’re telling it, “Hey, I’ve had enough for one day. See you in the morning.” Set a deadline every evening for a time to retire the technology, and then don’t check or use it again until the next morning.
