Take a good look around the room you are currently sitting in and feel for {notice} the various energies around you. Then take note of how that makes you feel.
Do you feel lightheaded after being surrounded by Wi-Fi all day? Or slightly dizzy/nauseous even after a single hour?
Are the amount of screens beginning to multiply, gather and clutter your home? Is there a tendency for household members to be online from sunrise to sunset? Is your hard-working router plugged in non-stop?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, or all of them, you are definitely in need of a digital detox.
Or rather, as we like to call them: non-technology days.
Non-technology days
Farther in the past, days easily flew by without a computer or smartphone in sight. Luckily, there are still plenty of people who remember lighthearted, stress-free days like these, and even wish them back for our children.
If you are young and new to the concept of what it feels like to live hours out of your week in a tech-free way, I encourage you to go off-grid for a weekend and sample a life closer to nature. One that is unplugged from the information-crazy modern world. Chances are wonderful that you will find it relaxing, alluring, charming and desirable enough to try it again.
A non-technology day is an entire 24 hours without screens, even without electricity, depending solely on the weather, time of day and time of year, of course.
It is a time to relax, read, play, refresh your adventure for life, renew your love for each other, reimmerse yourself in nature and rediscover life beyond the screen.
We aren’t here to convince you that you need to take a non-technology day at least once a week. That judgement is up to you.
Take as many tech-free days as you need. All in a row, spread throughout the month, or whenever you feel like your body needs a respite from technology.
Benefits of tech-free days for adults and children
No matter what your age, we all need time offline. Lots of it!
Magic up a number from your intuition. How many hours/days a week offline would feel sufficient for you? Then add another five hours to it, top it off, rather than shortchange yourself.
We all need much more time offline than we care to admit. Especially when we are at home for extended periods of time – whether we are alone or with our family.
When we are screen-bound, we are stuck in our heads.
Watching instead of doing. Listening instead of being listened to. We are in a one-way conversation with an entity that has no feelings towards us. In essence we are alone, or at best we are being entertained.
Yet, there is so much more to life than that!
In some ways we are connected more than ever via social media at the touch of a clever finger. But even as we write and text our emoticons, hugging and handshakes have gone out the window, easily replaced by fear and distrust, stirred up by online doings. Human interrelationships have been greatly dumbed down this way, let alone our relationships with the other-than-human world.
The only way to opt out, is to unplug.
Get offline for an entire day so that you can return to yourself, to your own thoughts, to your own reasons for being.
Bathe in the quiet of a house that does not hum with electromagnetic radiation – for your health, the future of your children and for the sake of all animals and insects too.
How to unplug for an entire day
Set your intention the night before, or a few days prior, to taking an entire day offline. Then share that date with others who may also be affected by it (family members, friends, etc.). After all, a non-tech day works best when everyone is on board. That way you can have loads of non-digital fun together.
Limiting screen-time is always going to have its naysayers. “Why do I have to shut everything off when all my friends get to be online all day?!”
One way around this is to invite those friends over to join in.
Go hiking, swimming, out for a picnic in the park. Do something together that encourages social interaction and intelligent conversation. Cook dinner as a family, start sewing a sustainable garment for your ecological wardrobe, plant seeds in a garden, learn and pass down life skills that are best gleaned in person, not online.
And most importantly – stick to it!
If you decide that for the next 24 hours you are going to be offline, don’t go back on your word. Take those joyful 24 hours and relish the quiet, calm, unrushed moments of the entire day.
You will find that there are so many things to get done in that time, that there is no way you can accomplish them all. Leaving room for a non-tech day next week too.
Knowing all this, it is easy to imagine how unplugging from the grid can greatly improve your quality of life.
Now, go out there and feel it!
In the meantime, feel free to pick up a journal and start writing by hand once again. It helps immensely in figuring out how to create a life you don’t want to escape from.
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