Detox
Warning. Imma 'bout to talk about Facebook. If the topic of Facebook makes your head explode, stop reading now. BTW, this is meant to be a fun post on my experience so no judgment about FB or me is necessary or desired. Now. On with the post.
Y'all. I'm on day two of a Facebook detox. The withdrawals aren't as bad as I thought. The first evening when I made the split second decision to detox I found myself reaching for my phone more out of habit and boredom than anything and since then I've been fairly good at not even looking at the Facebook icon on my phone. I still check Instagram a couple of times a day but it is VERY different than Facebook. Facebook is a major time-suck. And the past several months on FB have been unnecessarily stressful. I would spend all that time on a forum that used to be really fun and a fun way to stay in touch with friends and family and then come away angry, disappointed and stressed. Like, physically ill, at times. And there are now certain family members and a handful of friends that I don't really like anymore because of their Facebook posts and comments.
So Monday evening, I'd sat down to wait for supper to bake and while I waited I reached for my phone like I normally do and the second my finger hit the home button to bring up the screen, I felt a wave of rebellion course over me and I realized that the very thing I'd picked my phone up to do was the very last thing on earth I wanted to do in that moment. So I powered down my phone and set it back down and only picked it back up to answer texts for the rest of the night. When I woke up the next morning, I looked at my phone and when I normally would have reached for it, I shook my head, got out of bed and headed to the shower.
It's amazing how much better I feel without all that noise in my head. How calmer I feel and how much happier and lighter I am. I hadn't even realized how much that interaction was affecting my mental health. I had been so used to that being a part of my life...sharing my thoughts, a few jokes and keeping up with my family that I didn't realize that it had devolved into a very negative space. And how much TIME it was sucking up. Time that I could have been rubbing Libby's belly or eating pretzels dipped in Nutella. I was even losing time with my favorite TV shows because of the compulsive habit I'd picked up of scrolling my Facebook feed all during whatever else I was doing!
I still can't escape the actual face to face conversation of recent events but I don't contribute much to those conversations and do my best to steer away from the subject whenever possible.
Now. Will I give up Facebook forever? Probably not. I do like to keep in touch with most people. And I enjoy the dog videos that pop up on there from time to time. So no, I likely won't give it up forever. But I really did need to hit the reset button on my brain and do a little detox from it to clear my mind and refocus. Maybe I'll discover a new hobby with all this extra time I have! Or maybe I'll gain 20lbs. Who knows? :-D
Twitter, on the other hand...twitter is such a volatile place to be right now that I have gone weeks without even thinking about checking my newsfeed. Twitter is full of trolls and self-righteous do-gooders. I may never go back.
For now, I'm sticking to Instagram where my newsfeed is full of adorable dogs, cute kids and sinful looking biscuits. (Sidenote: There is a full on biscuit shop in town...she creates all different flavors of biscuits. I've only ever tried her biscuits once because I'm not paying $2 for a biscuit because I can bake up my own at home but the Instagram for the biscuit shop looks delicious.)
Maybe I'll pick back up with blogging more regularly. Sorry not sorry. ;-)
Y'all. I'm on day two of a Facebook detox. The withdrawals aren't as bad as I thought. The first evening when I made the split second decision to detox I found myself reaching for my phone more out of habit and boredom than anything and since then I've been fairly good at not even looking at the Facebook icon on my phone. I still check Instagram a couple of times a day but it is VERY different than Facebook. Facebook is a major time-suck. And the past several months on FB have been unnecessarily stressful. I would spend all that time on a forum that used to be really fun and a fun way to stay in touch with friends and family and then come away angry, disappointed and stressed. Like, physically ill, at times. And there are now certain family members and a handful of friends that I don't really like anymore because of their Facebook posts and comments.
So Monday evening, I'd sat down to wait for supper to bake and while I waited I reached for my phone like I normally do and the second my finger hit the home button to bring up the screen, I felt a wave of rebellion course over me and I realized that the very thing I'd picked my phone up to do was the very last thing on earth I wanted to do in that moment. So I powered down my phone and set it back down and only picked it back up to answer texts for the rest of the night. When I woke up the next morning, I looked at my phone and when I normally would have reached for it, I shook my head, got out of bed and headed to the shower.
It's amazing how much better I feel without all that noise in my head. How calmer I feel and how much happier and lighter I am. I hadn't even realized how much that interaction was affecting my mental health. I had been so used to that being a part of my life...sharing my thoughts, a few jokes and keeping up with my family that I didn't realize that it had devolved into a very negative space. And how much TIME it was sucking up. Time that I could have been rubbing Libby's belly or eating pretzels dipped in Nutella. I was even losing time with my favorite TV shows because of the compulsive habit I'd picked up of scrolling my Facebook feed all during whatever else I was doing!
I still can't escape the actual face to face conversation of recent events but I don't contribute much to those conversations and do my best to steer away from the subject whenever possible.
Now. Will I give up Facebook forever? Probably not. I do like to keep in touch with most people. And I enjoy the dog videos that pop up on there from time to time. So no, I likely won't give it up forever. But I really did need to hit the reset button on my brain and do a little detox from it to clear my mind and refocus. Maybe I'll discover a new hobby with all this extra time I have! Or maybe I'll gain 20lbs. Who knows? :-D
Twitter, on the other hand...twitter is such a volatile place to be right now that I have gone weeks without even thinking about checking my newsfeed. Twitter is full of trolls and self-righteous do-gooders. I may never go back.
For now, I'm sticking to Instagram where my newsfeed is full of adorable dogs, cute kids and sinful looking biscuits. (Sidenote: There is a full on biscuit shop in town...she creates all different flavors of biscuits. I've only ever tried her biscuits once because I'm not paying $2 for a biscuit because I can bake up my own at home but the Instagram for the biscuit shop looks delicious.)
Maybe I'll pick back up with blogging more regularly. Sorry not sorry. ;-)
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