Unplugging to try and create more space
I’ve been battling a migraine that just won’t shift for over a week now, with months where the pain is manageable to hours where only a dark room and my thoughts will do.
But in this time it’s given me space to think, to notice what creates anxiety in me when it wasn’t there a moment before and to wonder what could life be like without this constant pull in may directions.
We’re all busy, but the world now has a hold on us in a way that no other generation before has ever experienced. The pull of the external into our very internal space from notifications to, addictive scrolling. The flood of information pouring into our brains, most of which is pointless and not needed…I didn’t need to know that a persons car got broken into by a bear in Calgary, and the choice to ignore such information creates a fatigue on the brain like no other.
The constant filtering of to watch or read or to ignore and scroll past, is its own element of brain fatigue.
I realise the irony as I write this on a digital forum, but it’s the fast quick nature of life that is making my head burn right now, and I can’t help but think this headache is a symptom of overload.
A couple of weeks ago I made the decision to take back control of my social media experience, and move all the apps to my old phone, which lives in my office and so it’s scheduled time to catch up and a choice that I make to interact, I did this because I found myself scrolling at random times the addiction being real, midway through mucking out, first thing in the morning; last thing at night, whilst waiting for Olive to leave school, whilst watching tv, whilst trying to do work…I was hooked and I hated it, I hated that it was stealing my focus, I hated that it was removing my presence from the real things I loved and I felt it was controlling me rather than me controlling it.
For me no social media would be business suicide so I have to have an element of presence on the “gram” but I battle with this as I don’t want to inflict others to my own fate of overwhelm.
So how do we take back control of our own social media input? How do we take back control of our tiredness?
And you may say, as I did, I scroll to unwind…BUT the reality is our brain doesn’t know the difference between scrolling insta or reading emails, it registers it all as work, it’s all just as tiring for the brain and when we look back at our day no longer does our brain see the moments of quiet but it just sees “busy” because we keep our brain active from the moment we wake to the moment we sleep wit our phones!
If you have control of this and don’t live on your phone then I applaud you, you may not need to read this but there are many of us that are slaves to our phones.
After stripping the apps off my phone I noticed space develope in my brain, I started to pick up a book rather than scroll memes and I’ve started to read again.
But my head still feels on fire
I then noticed that emails were very much in my pocket, when did emails become a thing that we had to have on us at all times? Maybe you don’t have this maybe your emails live on your work computer so you don’t see them when you’re with your horses, my emails were burning holes in my pocket at all times.
My choice to read an email at random times would mean that the moment I had a quiet spell I’d open it to work, or just deleting crap emails, all “brain activity” all contributing to overwhelme and exhaustion.
Yesterday I deleted the email app from my phone, last night was the first time I sat in my living room having no idea if there was an email waiting for me to respond to, I knew I’d check it in the morning and so I sat, with my book and space in my brain 🧠
My head still hurts, but I feel less anxious, I feel more creative, I feel I’m taking back control.
I write this as I think is an epitomic in women, the overwhelmed and anxiety of cups overflowing. And one of the things we can start to remove is the amount of information our brain has to sort through each day.
The amount of information we’re exposed to now in a DAY is that of someone in the 1930s whole LIFE
We’re not designed to be sorting through so much, and let’s be honest a lot of it is rubbish, it’s mindless memes and useless stuff being sent to us all the time.
Some ideas I’ve had if you’re like me:
• if you can’t remove social media, move it to an old phone, designate a time or place to have your “daily scroll” maybe it’s on the loo 😉, try to do it when nothing else is going on so you’re not multi tasking as this is more exhaustion for the brain to filter out the other stuff.
• If you can’t remove social live without social media get rid, or at least reduce the apps, TIK TOK is the most addictive and exhausting on the brain.
• if you scroll don’t look at the comment section, the comment section is no longer a place to see a balanced argument, it’s generally people saying something for no reason just to make noise…you don’t need anymore noise in your life
• Do you need email on your phone? Can it just be on your work computer? If you want it on your phone unsubscribe to all the things you no longer want to be contacted for, I did this, I unsubscribed to every email I was sent that I didn’t want, it took about a month but I now only get emails from people I want to hear from…it’s saved me money too as I’m not being tempted!
• Look at your screen time in settings, if you don’t think you have enough time in the day note how long you spend on certain apps…it’s an eye opener and can be very scary to think how many hours, days and years were being dragged into on these things. Remember whilst playing, scrolling or doing on your phone your brain is being fatigued, it’s adding to your exhaustion not taking it away.
And if you’ve managed to take back control of your focus, presence and life drop below how you did it.
I’m on this journey, a journey of how to manage an online business whilst not being overwhelmed by the online world.
It’s taken me three days to write this due to my headache so apologies for any disconnect but hopefully it helps a few of you.
Megs x