From churchgoers to nursery school children, video calls, conferences and meetings have become a lifeline at this time. But this has also meant the boundary between work and family life has become blurred and unbalanced – with notifications, calls and messages, interrupting mealtimes and conversations. The coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown, has led all of us to stay restricted to our houses, which has inevitably increased our screen time.Too much time glued to the TV or our smartphones can cause eye strain, and lead to damage to our eyes. In this sense, lockdown isn’t helping those who are already addicted to their screens. The need to constantly check the news is also creating new screen addicts – linked with increased levels of stress, anxiety, insomnia, and even trauma.How to de-screen?All of which highlights the importance of taking a break from screens – particularly during this time of increased stress. Below are some tips to help.Take a day offPut one day a week aside to give yourself and your gadgets a rest. Turn off the laptop, TV, tablet and smartphone and spend some quality time ‘offline’. Cook a meal for your family, do some gardening, work on your hobbies, tick off some chores on your to-do list – anything as long as it’s away from the screens.Don’t carry your phone aroundYour phone does not have to permanently reside in your pocket, this just encourages bad habits like checking it on the toilet or at the dinner table. Being “deviceless” helps you to live in the moment, unwind and focus more on what you’re doing – without worrying about what might be happening ‘out there’.Allow yourself to be boredExperiencing boredom off-screen is a natural path to creativity. We can use our boredom as fuel to motivate us to achieve tasks we have been putting off. This will allow your dopamine receptors to recover from all that tech use as well – excessive screen use causes too much dopamine to flood the brain which has been linked to addictive behaviors, changes in mood, increased stress and difficulty sleeping. Time away from the screen can also give you the chance to think about what you want to accomplish and how.Try a family switch offSet aside some device-free time into your family schedule a few times a week. On certain days, after 6 pm the whole family should switch off all devices. This will push everyone to have a few hours of quality screen-free time before bed.
Step away from the screen It might also be worth thinking about how to counterbalance all that screen time. For every hour you spend working, you could take ten minutes to walk around the house, make a cup of tea, jump on a trampoline, go for a quick run, do some stretches – anything to get you up and moving. This will help to bring some separation into your life – allowing you to switch off and think – without all those notifications and alerts.All of this is important because exceeding 2 hours of recreational screen time directly affects our brains, resulting in slower processing speed, shorter attention span and deterioration in memory. Reduced screen time, on the other hand, sharpens our concentration and allows us to complete tasks more efficiently and manage our time more effectively.In fact, why not start now: put down your phone, tablet, or whatever you are reading this on, look at something in the distance to give your eyes a good stretch, and get up and do something else – your body and brain will thank you for it.You consult our medical experts online at eahomecare.in/medical