Resisting The Itch

Who’s using who?

“Hold on, I think I just felt my phone vibrate.”

“God, this line is so long, might as well check Insta”

“Well, I’m not doing anything, I wonder what’s going on on Reddit.”

And so on and so forth.

In this time in history, the phone has pretty much become an extension of the modern human’s body. Most of us probably couldn’t even remember the last time we went an extended period of time without it. It’s become a necessity — Or so many of us have come to believe.

I know I personally struggled with an unhealthy attachment with my phone for a long time, and even currently I still feel as though I use it more than I’d like to. If I wasn’t physically or mentally preoccupied with something else, you could almost guarantee I was looking at my phone.

Like an itch that needed to be scratched. Any time my brain wasn’t getting some form of stimulus it became extremely uncomfortable — A very common occurrence in this age of distraction many of us have found ourselves in. But lo and behold! I had a tiny savior tucked away in my pocket for just such occurrences.

With my phone on me at all times, boredom became the enemy.

Just woke up? Check phone. Waiting in line? Check phone. Going on a walk? Check phone. On a long car ride? Check phone. The boring part of a book? Check phone. Listening to someone give a talk? Check phone.

And on and on and on.

Does this sound familiar? Perhaps you’re even doing this right now.

For many people living in the digital world, we’re in now, the phone has long since been a tool that we use and instead, we have become the tool that the phone uses.

Life is going on around us, but Facebook’s or Reddit’s(Or any other app) death grip on our attention has convinced us that life should be a non-stop sprint from one distraction to another. That life in its raw state is boring and not worth our time or attention.

But this is a trap and we must break out of it. We must resist scratching the itch before it’s too late and we all wake up one day wondering where our life went.

If you’ve seen the movie Click, This is a good representation of the reality we’re heading to. For those who haven’t seen it, the main character essentially gets the ability to fast-forward through all the parts of his life that he’d rather just skip over, only to wake up one day and realize exactly how much of his life he missed, how many precious memories and experiences he skimmed over because he was too preoccupied with “getting to the good parts”.

If we want to avoid a similar future for ourselves, we must start being more mindful about our phone usage.

With that said, here are some things that helped me:

Delay The Rollercoaster.

I had a particularly bad habit of checking my phone first thing in the morning. This was usually a bad idea because all it helped to do was get the rollercoaster of distractions started the moment I woke up.

To combat this I did two things:

First, I kept my phone out of reach from my bed because I found myself way less likely to scroll on my phone in bed if I was already up and about.

Second, Since I was trying to combat the feeling of needing to check my phone first thing in the morning, I decided to add a meditation/ Yoga session to my routine as the first thing I do when I get up.

Normally I prefer to meditate later in the morning, and I still do, but I found adding this extra session in or even doing yoga instead before looking at any screens made my mornings much more mindful and in control.

Setting Mindful Alarms.

Seems counterintuitive but I used my phone to help keep myself off of my phone.

To do this I set mindfulness alarms or check-ins throughout the day. Little notifications would pop up to remind me to be more mindful and present instead of jumping from one distraction to another.

This helped a lot earlier on in my journey to be more mindful. Eventually, as I became more mindful and aware I got better at simply catching myself being distracted without the need for the alarms. But this is definitely a nice tool for those starting out.

Setting Mindful Phone-Free Zones.

Simply having areas or times where I intentionally wouldn’t bring or allow my phone with me was a great help.

Some examples are: The bedroom at night. The kitchen when having dinner. Any time my spouse and I are having quality time.

I found that if I went in with the intention to not use my phone and simultaneously kept it out of reach during those times I was way less likely to needlessly check it.

Lastly, all of this was on top of a general shift in mindset and lifestyle as I worked on living a more mindful and present life as a whole. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the itch of needing to be on my phone, but it’s something I’ve never forgotten about because as I continue to grow and develop in my journey of living my life as mindfully as possible, one of the things I make sure to keep an eye out for all things that threaten this way of life I’m trying to develop.

I want to be here for my life as it happens. I don’t want to wake up one day, wondering what I did with all the time. Do you?

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this story feel free to give it some love.

If you’d like more from me, be sure to join 1,500+ others and read my newsletter here.