Tag: social media

Check in With Yourself Before You Check in With the World

I’ve been doing an experiment of sorts lately where I check to see how I’m doing before I start scrolling through my phone. It’s a tip I heard from a Matthew McConaughey interview. In it, he said one of his life advice tips is to check in with yourself before you check in with the world. Spend ten or fifteen minutes in your own head before you start interacting with the online world.

Some people don’t need to do this. Their phone seems to have no negative impact on their morning. For me, there’s a marked difference in my overall sense of well-being when I take some time to drink my coffee and just sit before I start scrolling through endless tweets with bleary eyes.

Now that I’m attempting to become more mindful in general I’ve noticed that I can almost watch the gas tank of my mental well-being start to plummet if I start the day checking social media.

Along with ice baths, breathing, exercise, and a host of other simple remedies I’m starting to lift the fog as to what materials it takes to build myself a happier day.

Checking in with myself before I check in with the world is just another brick.

I’ve noticed that my good days or bad days aren’t dependent on what goes on outside my body and mind. Outside stimulus, in most cases, has virtually zero effect on whether or not I’ll have a pleasant day.

Maybe this brick isn’t useful for you. But give it a try. If you usually check your phone first thing in the morning try spending the first few minutes without it. Check-in with yourself first and see what that does to your overall mood.

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The Daily Struggle for Happiness

Staying Mentally and Physically Fit During Social Isolation

Why Your Phone is Making You Kind of Sad

7 Things I Learned From My Month of No Social Media

Sometime in early January I made the hermit-like decision to not use social media for a month.  Several minutes after making this decision I realized nobody would know when I published a new blog post if I didn’t use social media a little, for blog-related reasons.

Through dumb luck and a google search, I figured out how to automatically post links to my articles on Facebook and Twitter through the blog itself.  If you’ve been blogging for more than twenty minutes, you probably also know of this trick.  I am a humble people.  Moving on.

In what i’m pretty sure is a world record, I was able to successfully keep off of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter from January 7th-February 7th and I have learned a great many things. Continue reading “7 Things I Learned From My Month of No Social Media”

Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction

There are two types of attention we give- Divided Attention and Selective Attention.

Divided attention is where our minds are giving our attention to multiple sources at the same time.  Selective attention is when our attention is focused on one thing.  Generally speaking, having the ability for divided attention is good, but often the way we choose to use that ability is not good.

Sometimes life requires we give divided attention.  Too much divided attention leads us to feel spread out and overwhelmed.

When we give something our selective attention we’re able to go deeper and get into a flow state more easily.

Many things require our selective attention, but we often try to get away with just giving our divided attention.  How many times have you been watching a movie and instead of giving your selective attention you decide to look at your phone?  At no point do you feel like you aren’t paying attention to the dialogue, but before long, you look up and realize you have no idea where the characters are, or what they’re doing. Continue reading “Using Selective Attention to Increase Life Satisfaction”

No Social Media For A Month!! AAAHHHHHHH

I watched this video roughly three minutes ago and really dug it.  It’s about a couple who decided to not use the internet for a month.  In a bid to generally take action when I run across something cool, I decided to take action.  I’m going to take the rest of the month off of social media, and substantially limit my internet use.  I am well aware nobody else cares.  But, read this article and maybe you’ll follow me.

I’ve been kicking the idea around for a while because I hate how addicted I am to my phone.  I am cognizant of how silly we are just staring into our screens even though WE KNOW nothing we scroll through will increase our level of life satisfaction.  Almost none of it makes us any happier, even in the moment.

We’re always looking for that next unicorn post that’s going to make a tangible difference in our lives.  We hardly ever find it, but the allure of social media is so addicting that we’re constantly scrolling for it.  Doing this day after day is making us depressed.  Life is passing us by while we stare into our phones and we know it.   Continue reading “No Social Media For A Month!! AAAHHHHHHH”