Digital Diet

 

Ironically, I am going to digital media to promote the idea of a digital diet.  I know I need one.  I have been way too caught up on the ills of Curling Canada.  I have been so angry and anger is not an emotion that I want to carry.  I can feel it taking a toll on my body.  

I not only see it in me, I see it in my friends.  I have a good friend who is funny, smart, witty, worldly, and all I see if him tweeting all day long his anger at the current government.  Believe me, I get it.  We all want to feel that we are doing something to be in control or something that is out of our control.  But, I can see that he going down a rabbit hole into frenzy.  And, that is not helping him.  His tweets are becoming increasingly mean-spirited and he is having less credibility.  I think he is too far gone, but I want him to know the concept of radical acceptance.  There is nothing he can do at this point to overthrow the government.  Just accept it.  You don't have to like it.  But, if you just accept the reality and realize it out of your control, it is just healthier for you emotionally.  

It is not an easy process.  Believe me, I understand.  I have been so mad at Curling Canada that I was continuing to look for more and more reasons to be mad.  Sadly, I was finding them.  (They issued two statements yesterday quoting a Curling Canada spokesperson.  They are such cowards, they can't even say who they are.  But, like I said, I am practising radical acceptance.  I can't control it, so I just need to accept and move on.)  Again, I didn't say it was an easy process.  

The reality is that we are all on our devices too much, especially with working remotely and remote learning.  To make it worse, we often are on our lap tops for work, got our phone out to keep track of our social media feeds, and are doing other activities on our tablets.  Three devices at once, for atleast 8 hours a day.  Or, is that just me?  It is just not healthy.  

Well, we can't just go off the grid.  But, we need to give our eyes, mind and body a break.  People who study these things say that we need to be off our devices for twenty minutes for every hour that we are on.  That is hard during the day when we are on our devices for work.  An 8 hour day means that we have to be off our devices for 2.5 hours in the evening.  Frankly, that sounds horrifying because it seems like a really long time without our phones.  But, it is not as bad as you might thing.  Most of get atleast a 30 minute break during the day.  Take that time away and you are down to only 2 hours without devices.  Plus, for every hour working digitally, we are told to take 5 minutes to just walk around or just have some time away from devices.  That is another 30 minutes.  So, at some point in the evening, taking 1.5 hours to be without devices doesn't seem that difficult.  Actually, it feels necessary.  

I am going to try it and I know my body, mind, and soul will be better for it.