These days, most of us spend hours online. Your digital persona is an extension of the real-life you and a way for many of us to relax and catch up with friends and family from all over the globe. However, experts have warned that spending too much time online can negatively impact health. It affects the eyes, brain and loads more.

Go on, log off, unplug and pack away the devices because ditching digital regularly can only do you a world of good.  Remember, having a healthy relationship with the online world in which you can control your consumption is absolutely fine and normal. These tips are for if you’re feeling as if you have lost control of your consumption of online media. 

Here are a few benefits to logging off every once in a while.

No time for anything or anyone

The smartphone stays on 24/7. It wakes you in the morning. You go straight to one of the social media apps to check who is doing what. 

You do exercise to an online app, and then you switch on the TV to watch the news or catch another episode of the series you’re addicted to before you go into a Zoom meeting with your colleagues. 

All-day long, you spend time chatting on Facebook, WhatsApp and being distracted by this podcast or that post. Then there are the 1001 Google searches you do while you’re supposed to be doing your work.

All of this leaves you exhausted and disconnected from people you used to enjoy being with, things you enjoyed doing and which you say you don’t have time for. It’s normal; that’s how billions of people live their lives these days, right?. 

According to Cleveland Clinic, you need to unplug if you are adversely affected by negative social media experiences to the extent that it triggers anxiety, depression and raises self-esteem issues. 

Social media can be so unhealthy and toxic that:

• You may find yourself constantly angry or upset by posts
• Or you might end up being victimised by cyberbullying
• You could feel isolated
• You become fixated by social comparisons and judgments
• And you are paralysed by fear of missing out. 

Other experience depressed moods, increased irritability, frustration or anger; feeling insecure; lack of sleep or disrupted sleep and feeling obligated to always be on call, responding, checking in or reacting.

How do you do a digital detox? 

As with all addictive, compulsive behaviour, you have to acknowledge that you might need to step back from your devices.

For some people, a digital detox means; stop checking their emails, playing video games, scrolling social media, using smartphones and tablets, stopping texting and stopping watching 4 hours of TV at night. 

These are the steps you should take to break the cycle of addiction:

• Decide to change your behaviour. Figure out where is your big problem area and eliminate
• Set specific goals such as having digital-free days or spending only 15 minutes a day on social media
• Set a time commitment in which to break your habit, such as using the idea that it takes 21 days in which to unlearn old habits and replace them with new healthier habits 
• Get support from family or a friend as an accountability measure.
• Refrain from swopping one social media site for another
• Make long-term plans and decide on the amount of time you will give to social media if any.  

What happens when you detox?

According to Forbes, once you start reclaiming your time, you’ll find your humanity again in the smallest of things, like not checking your phone at the dinner table or actually listening to people when they’re speaking to you instead of being distracted by pinging and bleeping. 

You slow down time and learn to reconnect with your family. You see beauty in the world again. There are walks, dancing and reading, and all the things left abandoned for the sake of being connected. 

What are the benefits?

You can experience these benefits once you’re offline a bit more:

• Sharper focus: instead of being distracted, you notice more of what is around you. You have a greater connection to your environment and to people, thereby improving your attention span. You are also able to concentrate better and execute your tasks efficiently.
• Stressless; Information overload can be upsetting, and with a reduction of screen time, you’ll experience calm.
• Discover new hobbies: instead of being plugged into a device, you may rediscover old hobbies or learn new ones such as surfing or drawing, which are more fulfilling.
• Better sleep: studies show that digital devices impair sleep. Switching off devices prevents sleep disruption.
• It gives you time to just reboot and be yourself with room to breathe and to think healthy thoughts.
• It breaks the cycle of the bad habit of always being available and not having boundaries. You learn to practice self-care
• Improves your health – hunching 24 hours a day over a screen leads to headaches and neck pain. Without the screens, those niggly health issues disappear.

According to Healing Holidays, going on a digital detox will break the dependency on your devices and lead to you using them only when it is helpful and beneficial.