With such a significant increase in daily tech device use, many of us are experiencing a wide range of health issues related to overuse. Whether that’s pain in our neck and backs, stinging and tingling in our extremities, and/or our emotional and mental wellness is suffering, it’s important to give our bodies–and our minds–a break from our dangerously normalized increased screen exposure through a digital detox.
What Is a Digital Detox?
Simply put, a digital detox is a decrease in your typical screen usage. Stepping away from scrolling our phones endlessly–while reading and watching countless stories, social media posts or other entertainment sources–can reduce muscle tensions and help get us out of the fight or flight response cycle that external tech forces like social media and work email can cause. It helps our sympathetic nervous system settle down, catch its breath, and helps us sleep better.
It also helps us become more present to the physical and social world that is reality around us. Our relationships with others can improve from the added effort, and spending time with others improves our well-being. From a physical standpoint, you’re helping your neck, back and shoulders by releasing the stress of looking down at screens.
How Do I Start?
Take your digital detox one step at a time. To begin, try focusing on just one screen while working. When you jump back and forth from one activity to another, using various screens, it distracts us more than helps us. It takes our bodies and our brains several minutes to recalibrate.
Stop looking at reels and videos for hours at a time. Set a time limit for yourself, and try keeping your social media usage to a set time each day. For instance, at 3:30 p.m. you will give yourself 15 minutes to look at Instagram each day. Scrolling can be like drugs for our eyes and our brain, and limiting your usage can help you break the habit of mindless social media use over time.
Chiropractic Solutions exercises are crucial to improved health and well-being. Simply walking is integral to producing good movement and motion into our bodies. Patients can try using the Bruegger’s maneuver, which is a great exercise for opening up the chest and getting the shoulders back and getting circulation back into the arms.
Another type of extension exercise that can be helpful is called Bird Dog. In this exercise, you start on your hands and knees with the hands under the shoulders and the knees under the hips. Extend one leg and the opposite arm at the same time, holding the pose for three to five seconds, and then switch sides.
Start looking up! Looking out windows and looking up takes a lot of stress off of our bodies, and off of our minds.
Make an appointment for a chiropractic adjustment. They’re not just for pain, they’re also for resetting our nervous system. Alongside the overabundance of information we’re processing each day now, our bodies are also dealing with the physical stresses we put on them. It’s trying to help us adapt to those stresses and function the way we’re supposed to. Adjustments disrupt those patterns of stress in our bodies and improve our spinal function and movement.
Take the First Step — You Can Do It!
When you take the initial steps in starting your digital detox, you will likely feel uncomfortable. It is a true benefit to your physical and mental health and wellness, however, and you’ll feel like a brand-new person on the other side of the process. If you have kids or grandkids who overuse devices (article here), you’ll also be setting a great example for them.
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