I knew I had a problem with my phone when I found myself staring at the bright screen in a pitch black room sometime after midnight on a weekday. I was mindlessly scrolling through various tabs, either online window shopping, Googling that one-off symptom to make sure it wasn’t anything more serious, and distracting myself from sleep by nodding along to stranger’s thoughts on TikTok. Basically, anything to avoid actually sleeping.
This wasn’t a one-time occurrence, this was happening nearly daily at this point – and not just at night either. I would find myself checking my phone first thing in the morning too. As soon as my alarm went off, I would roll over and check the notifications and begin flicking from one social media app to another with one eye open, forcing myself to wake up.
It was sometime in late summer, when I lay awake with my mind in overdrive at 1am one morning, that I realised enough was enough. I had to make a change.
I, like many people, felt as if I was going from my phone, to working on my laptop all day, back to my phone, then to the telly, and then my phone again. This constant screen exposure was making me feel overstimulated and now allowing my mind to rest. I felt stressed often and tired most of the time.
Talking to some friends, I realised that many of them have a morning routine. One always woke up at 6.15am with her cats pawing at her to give them breakfast, so that acted as a natural alarm clock. Another swore by a morning fuelled with coffee and yoga, while a third hasn’t gone a day without her morning smoothie bowl and reading pages of a book for years.
So I set myself a goal: I wouldn’t look at my phone before 8am in the morning or after 9pm at night and I would cultivate a morning and evening routine that would allow my mind to calm.
I wish I could say that this has been hard or difficult, like an addiction I had to overcome, but it has actually been easy. Freeing almost. Now, as soon as 9pm comes around I put my phone into bedtime mode and get on with other things. I sit and have a peppermint tea while I read, or finish watching that series without seeing what people have been saying on Twitter (or X, ugh) about it. In the morning, I still use my phone as an alarm, but I make sure to only swipe it and not linger to see any notifications that have come up overnight. I now spend a bit of time reading in the morning instead, or exercising, or sitting eating my overnight oats without a screen in front of me – something I never did before.
Which is why I’m not surprised that recent studies have found that increased screen time can cause a decline in physical and mental health, as well as interrupt sleep patterns. We are so dependent on our digital devices that we allow them to seep into every aspect of our life, so setting a boundary with at least one of them could be a step in the right direction.