A Social Media Detox Changes Lives
Improve your Mental Health
I realised that I needed to disconnect from Social Media when I was in a good mood, feeling myself, feeling very pretty, loving my body, but as soon as I got tired from dancing around and vibing to my favourite songs, I took my phone and opened Instagram, and tragically, my good energy varnished away when I started to scroll through videos and photos of people with beautiful and “perfect” bodies.
Although my subconscious knew that those bodies were not “real” and that I love my body and I feel good in it, I felt the pressure and the need to workout again and start a diet.
I closed Instagram, turned off my phone and realized how toxic Social Media can be.
I wondered how I would be feeling right now if instead of picking up my phone, I would have started cooking, painting, or just doing something more creative and productive. Would I be feeling good right now?
Another big reason why I wanted to start a social media detox was the fact that I realized how frustrated I was at the end of the day for not having completed everything that I had written on my goal list for that day; for all the hours I wasted daily on watching TikTok and other unnecessary things on my phone.
At the end of the day, you decide if you want to be manipulated and feel bad about what you see on Social Media or not.
The Social Media Detox
We become competitive seeing how many likes and comments we can get from random people on the internet that we will probably never meet in real life. Taking a break from Social Media gives us a chance to break from this destructive cycle.
Those who spend a lot of their time on Social Media have reported feeling lonely and isolated in real life.
A digital detox can allow you to focus on yourself and reconnect with the things that really make you happy, like your family and friends.
As you will not be able to spend 3 hours watching TikToks before going to sleep, you will fall asleep earlier and improve your sleep, so you will have more energy at the next morning.
By having more energy during the day you will be more productive, you will work on more projects and have enough time to dedicate it on taking care of yourself.
Do your soul and health a favour and disconnect from everything for a long time.
Many people, after disconnecting, do feel so free that they do not want to use Social Media again.
Benefits you will get from the detox:
- Your physical and mental health changes; your skin will look better and your physical condition will improve.
- You learn how to calm your mind, meditate and have fewer headaches.
- Get a good posture because you will not be looking down to your phone.
- Your social energy, your curiosity for learning new things and start new projects will increase with which you will teach yourself new things so your intelligence will increase dramatically.
- You will be more productive during the day, so, at the end of the day you will feel proud about yourself.
- The anxiety will decrease, you will no longer worry about what others may think about you, you will stop comparing yourself to others and you will love yourself more for the way you are.
- You will start to invest your mental energy in things that make you feel likea better person.
- Living the moment: the moments with family or friends willl feel better and you will live more in the present.
- You wil learn how to be happy without posting everythting on the internet.
- How unimportant people from online platforms, aka “your followers”, in your daily life are, is something that you will also notice.
- Maybe, you clear up your ideas for your future, and find new ways to achieve your goals.
- You learn how to appreciate more the things you have and everyting the people around you have ever done for you.
Just start, it will feel complicated and I am sure you are afraid of missing all the new trends and everything that happens on the Internet, maybe you are afraid that your followers will forget you, but honestly, you do not miss anything interesting, it will always be the same, everyone does look the same nowadays on Social Media, the “follower” do barely realise when someone takes a break and disappears from the internet.
Start with 1 detox week to see some results, and work your way up to 1 month, 6 months, 1 year.
If you do not want to delete all the apps at once, you can start by deleting the apps that you do not really use and one of the big ones you are using the most. But you try deleting as many apps as possible.
As next deactivate all the messages; do not worry, if it is something important, they will call you.
Start controlling the total hours in which you are in front of the screen, the total of times you unlock your phone in 24 hours, the times you open an app for no reason, and the times that you catch yourself searching for your phone to unlock it without a reason.
Think of all the time you lose in the mornings and nights with your phone.
One of the worst thing is to wake up, and open a social network..
That´s why you are going to try to leave your phone in a different room, so that you do not have access to it when you get up. You will use a table clock for the morning alarms and a normal clock to read the time.
If you want to know something, google it, that will help you improve your intelligence. Use google only to increase your knowledge.
For the rest of things you will not need internet, you have calendars, diaries, calculators, and everything you need daily at home, but you have never realized it.
If you want music, listen to the radio, or download music and podcasts before starting the detox, so you do use your phone only to have it on the table and leave it playing at the background.
Try to plan what you are going to do when you do not have TikTok and Instagram because you will notice that you will have a lot of free time; it will also make you imagine that your phone rings or vibrates and that someone calls you. You will be unlocking your phone a lot without sense.
The good thing about this is that you will be able to do more activities such as:
- draw and practice new techniques
- read new books
- watch old movies with your family or friends
- go for a walk or run
- discover new songs
- discover new tastes
- get to know yourself better
- take care of your body, skin and mental health
- dedicate more time to the things and people you lve
Something very sad that we have normalised nowadays is that “EVERYONE should have apps like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook on their phones”, and if you do not have them, you are an “outsider”.
If this society keeps going on like this, the phrase “do you remember when we..” will no longer exist; we will not have any valuable memories with anyone because we have spent our entire lives in front of the screens.
