Mindfulness in the Digital Age: Managing Screen Time and Distractions

Are you spending too much time on your phone and other electronic devices? You might not notice its effects but it's taking a toll on your health. Its adverse effects may show up as an inability to focus, insomnia, and worse - addiction to screen time. 

In this episode, let me guide you to understanding the digital landscape and finding balance in a world of screens and distractions. Learn how to effectively manage screen time in this digital age and discover practical strategies to overcome distractions and regain control of your attention.

Join me on a journey to reclaim your presence, productivity, and well-being amid digital overwhelm.

Introduction (00:00)
The Power of Mindfulness and Autopilot Awareness (01:59)
Mindfulness as the Antidote to Digital Overload (05:39)
Sleep, Mood, and Beyond: How Digital Overload Affects Us (07:24)
Practical Steps to Combat Digital Overload (08:36)
Mindful Solutions in the Digital Landscape  (11:26)
Building Better Connections Through Mindfulness (14:09)

Additional Reference: "Can Too Much Screen Time Harm You?" https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/NIDA_YR18_INS3_ACTION_StuMag_2pg_508.pdf

Transcript

0:00

It is really important for our generations that we be better with understanding when are we digitally overwhelmed? When do we need to do a digital detox and how can we keep that appropriate balance of using screens and technology as much as we do, but not letting it spill over into true dysfunction. Hey, everyone, welcome to the end game podcast, where I bet you didn't know what you didn't know. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. I invite you to sit back, relax, tune in as we discuss the topic of"Mindfulness in the digital age: How to manage screen time and distractions." To start off today, let's talk about what are the distractions? Why are we talking about this? Right? Why is managing screen time and distractions important and how does it relate to mindfulness? I would say that in my profession and what I've seen along the way and coaching others and, working as a leader in different organizations. This topic of screen time has come up over and over again. There's this idea that digital technology, frankly, there are documentaries on this around the technology behind Facebook and Instagram and, LinkedIn. And what that can do to our productivity and happiness, right? So as we think about how does that impact us professionally, how does that impact us personally? And so when you talk about mindfulness and the setting of distraction around screen time and the impacts that can have, it's really important to redefine what is mindfulness. As the slogan of this podcast goes, I'm here to teach you how to exist today. And that's really true and really encapsulates the idea of mindfulness. Mindfulness is this concept of getting yourself out of autopilot and being present in the here and now through your different senses. So if you think about mindfulness, maybe an example being, think about your routine drive to the office every day. I bet you, if you were to think back for the last seven days or the last five business days, you've driven to work. You probably couldn't recount in detail what happened, right? Your brain, your body, your mind was in autopilot. When you do routine tasks when you do things that don't require a huge amount of brain energy, you know, your brain's an incredibly resourceful and effective organ. So it will not expend energy or turn on areas of the brain for remembering things when it can do it in autopilot. So the idea of mindfulness is to, is to actively pull yourself out of autopilot for things that are otherwise routine or mundane, and to do that through your, like I said, your five senses. So exercises for mindfulness really helped to enhance that ability to both pull you out of autopilot, but also keep you present in the moment. So as you start to practice this, like if you were to think about meditation as a really good example of a very well established mindfulness training exercise. If you think about meditation, most people really struggle. You know, you don't become a, a master of meditation overnight. People really struggle to, be good at meditation early on, and you might only get glimpses of it, or you may only be able to be present for truly seconds at a time, but with the right effort, the right energy, the right time, the right practice, you know, you use the word practice a lot in meditation. And frankly, in life, you can become more mindful. You can begin to master the technique and idea of meditation. So when we think about screen time and how it leads to distraction is very much the opposite of mindfulness. You're putting yourself into autopilot. You're consuming massive amounts of data, massive amounts of content and doing so relatively mindlessly. So not mindfully. Mind listening and really what we know is that has had dramatic impacts on our generational mental health. It's had dramatic impacts on our professional economic and kind of productivity and work related health. And clearly that has impacted us as a society. It's actually been been shown to lead to more social isolation in these kinds of steps along the way to someone becoming notably more anxious or overwhelmed or depressed. So when we think about why it's important and why this topic is important, it really does impact our day to day, both from a personal and professional, a physical health and mental health perspective. And as you know, that is what I hold very near and dear to my heart is the ability to help people be better there. So again, as we think about the effects of digital overload and consuming all that content and all the screen time there's this idea that in doing that you actually become more distracted, right? So that there's this isolation and disconnection where spending a bunch of times on digital meetings or on. Digital content with social media actually creates this separation, you know, not in full technicality to separation of like depersonalization or derealization, like out of touch reality. But it is critically important to understand that when you are in those digital overload settings, you are not often building rapport and engaging with people the way we have evolutionarily done that. And that is creating neurochemical changes that then can lead to problems with focus and concentration, problems with distraction, frankly, problems with productivity and problems with relationships. And so when we talk about why this is so important and what techniques you can use to help, again, the, the burden of this actually has become quite substantial, and there's a number of studies to show just how impactful this is, negatively impactful we will include in the show notes, a link to a PDF that's a real simple tips and tricks around kind of the thoughts behind why social media and, distractedness and screen time lead to dysfunction and what are some important tips that could help you with non dysfunction or becoming functional. A couple of super big highlights there. Number one trouble sleeping. We, we know very well that your body's natural hormone for sleep is melatonin and that it is naturally released at night when the sun goes down, it gets dark out and we know that dysfunctions in that lead to things like delirium and and insomnia. And one of the things that tricks the brain into thinking it's not bedtime is screen time. So when you're bright lights or TVs on or phones in your face, those lights are actually tricking the brain to not release melatonin there and by not initiating the cycle through which the brain naturally turns the brain, or naturally turns down and off so that one is easily able to fall asleep traditionally. We know that, as I said, distraction and screen time lead to mood changes. That's been well established now with imbalances in some of the neurochemicals and hormones. And so it's really important that we focus on being present and not distracted by screen time as we think about a healthier mindset and health set. So ways in which you can get away from or kind of separate yourself from the negative effects of too much screen time or digital overload. The latest iPhone updates, I don't know about Android, I'm an iPhone person, but latest iPhone updates actually will tell you how much screen time you're averaging per day. So it's a really, you know, they always say what measures gets done or what can measure can be changed. So if you know what you're doing in terms of average screen time, then you know what you can do. Or what you must do in order to impact that as I said, the screen digital screens on right before bed is, is certainly causing or impacting one sleep. So turning screens off, lights off, TVs off, phones off, tablets off 30 to 60 minutes before sleep has been shown to allow that the body's natural melatonin cycle to kick back in over time. And there, and by helpless sleep. And by the way, sleep is really important for restoration, for resilience, for recovery. And so when you're not sleeping well, you can imagine that your daytime activities, your mood, your energy, your focus also decline. And so that's unfortunately a vicious cycle that we can break through reducing our screen time. You can schedule time through the day to go without phones or without screens, right? You know, pick up a book use a lunchtime to be away from silence, turn off the phone, turn again, turn off your email alerts. We know that exercise helps with kind of reversing some of the negative effects of screen time although if you're exercising while with an iPad right in front of you, it's probably not quite a net positive, but we do know that exercise helps to release some of those endorphins and some of those neuro hormones that can be helpful in reducing some of the deleterious effects of The digital overload and screen time. We've talked before about journaling, journaling is another way in which you can really and really, some of these tips are focusing on the idea of mindfulness, right? So exercise has been thought to be helpful and being more present in the moment. Journaling is certainly a technique where you can take a pause, think about your day, be present in the moment, and then write that stuff down. We will include that as part of our show notes today, so you have that to reference. But those are some super high level thoughts behind and tips and tricks around digital overload, distraction, the impact on mind and body, and how We might reverse that and improve that over time. We've talked in the past around some guided mindfulness again, meditation being one of those. There are also digital digitally guided mindfulness exercises. So on apps like calm and headspace. And many others now you can actually find mindfulness trainings, brain trainings guided imagery or guided mindfulness that will allow you to be better at pulling out of autopilot and away from the digital overwhelm and the screens and the distraction and put yourself planted in the present. Because what we know is when you're in the present. You're actually at a better in a better headspace mindset to be able to make better decisions moving forward. So how this all kind of synthesizes back to why does this matter for me? What we know is less screen time kind of reversing or using some of the tips and tricks to be better here. Allows for less distraction, which allows you to be a better leader. It allows you to be a better boss, allows you to be a better business owner. It allows you to be a better father or mother or sibling or parent. So it is really important for our generations that would be better with understanding when are we digitally overwhelmed? When do we need to do a digital detox and how can we keep that appropriate balance of, using screens and technology as much as we do, but not letting it spill over into true dysfunction There's even addictions now to social media and screen time. And so we, there's anything you can be addicted to means that you have to do it in moderation or else you run the risk of becoming addicted to it. We mentioned the butterfly effect before just to kind of, pardon the pun, but compound that one step further, which is when you are able to do the tips and tricks and do a digital detox and be more mindful, it will pay off in dividends or it will compound with time in terms of your effectiveness at parenting, partnering leadering, et cetera. So really important stuff here, guys. It's something we see every day. As a psychiatrist, I will tell you the, the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses has gone off the Richter scale, so to speak, and a lot of it has to do with not actually being ADHD, but us training our brain the wrong way and getting too distracted. And so there are very simple things we can do here so that we can ensure better sleep, better focus through the day, better energy through the day. Better connections. We know that when you isolate, when you do digital the love hormones for the oxytocin release, if you think about digital meetings as compared to in person meetings we know that digital meetings actually, or digital relationships or digital connections with patients only releases about 80% of the oxytocin that an in person engagement would release. If you think about our brain as being so smart itself and so effective and efficient it knows digital versus in person and it will release different levels of that hormone, which does impact rapport building, connectedness, teaminess and effectiveness, right? At the day, if, if you're not as strong of a team, you're not going to be as strong or as effective for yourself or your patients. So all that being said it is important that we are able to first be aware that there is digital overwhelm and that that leads to things like isolation, distraction insomnia procrastination, we've talked about that in the past that there are things we can do about it. Mindfulness exercises, tips and tricks through digital apps or otherwise, we can do a digital detox and we can be very intentional about that and that in doing so we're going to create a better more present person today that will compound over time and that butterfly effect and have massive returns on that investment over time. So with that being said, I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur, and your end game coach. I'm here to teach you how to exist today so that you can expand tomorrow. And create the ultimate end game of your wildest desires. If you liked today's episode, please don't hesitate to like, share, tune in again pass it on to a friend, subscribe anything you can do to help yourself and help others with digital detox and digital overload is greatly appreciated. Talk to you soon.