As we enter the new year, here’s an idea: why not swap all the resolutions for a soft intention to improve our digital wellbeing? We have prepared a few simple ideas to inspire you to improve how you use digital technologies for your wellbeing this year.
Tending to basics – water, breath, movement
Are you taking care of the building blocks of your health? Plan for getting up, stretching and moving at least a few times between meals. Find an app to practice breathing (even on your smartwatch). Put an empty glass next to your tap and shop for nice, healthier drinks. Small adjustments can make all the difference to your health.
Planning for breaks
Take a moment to rest at least every 45-6o minutes – plan your work around, and for those small breaks, it’s important to prioritise health. Stretch, even just a little bit and check your posture now and again. Look away from your screen, check out the window (if it leads to a view of Nature, even better!) or a moving image on your desk. Water your house plants, pet the dog, and make a cuppa.
Managing notifications & screens
Notifications can cause anxiety and lead to stress, so plan, organise them and organise your screens. Check all your working and communication apps to focus only on essential notifications. Move intrusive apps or toxic communities to the second screen of your phone. Design how you experience notifications – you only have to do this once to feel a huge difference.
Basic curation
We always say: “let go of the toxic, seek the nurturing” – curation stands for choosing your sources, and that means unfollowing, deleting or at least muting individuals or communities that cause you distress, as well as actively signing up for people and brands that make you feel happy, relaxed, calmer and supported.
Play & joy
Create a play and joy folder on your phone and try out a few games and apps for play, relaxation and restoration – if you struggle with addictive behaviours, experiment with apps and games that are less intrusive and don’t use too much dopamine rush, but remember – it is okay to have fun too.
Tech for Nature Connectedness
Spend a week building in connection with Nature into your digital habits. Find apps that educate you about Nature. Try out Nature photography. Use fitness apps to track your runs or walks. Explore your local parks with PokemonGo. Opportunities are endless, so challenge yourself.
Get creative
Try out a little bit of creativity with drawing, collaging, photography or video editing apps. Use them to capture good moments from your day (work and rest time too). You can even create a daily gratitude practice simply by taking one phone of something you are grateful for each day and storing it in a photo folder on your device.
Learn something new
Use dedicated learning apps or mainstream social media channels like TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube to explore a topic and learn something new. You can even learn the functions of those platforms themselves – knowing just how many choices you have on each channel to stay in control of how you experience the content and the people out there can feel very liberating.
With those few suggestions, you can use the new year as an opportunity to start paying more attention to your digital wellbeing. We would love to know your thoughts and your ideas too!
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