It can be tempting to take one look at the digital landscape we live in, throw our hands up, and say, “Well there’s no use now!” We’re talking about trying to stay sane. Now that we are completely surrounded by the distractions of smartphones, TVs, and computer screens, surely it’s time to let go of our fondness for a simpler time and accept that sanity is impossible in the modern age, right?
A sense of clarity isn’t something that died with the birth of the smartphone. It is still resting inside each and every one of us and still shining as bright as ever. However, feeling constantly lost in the sea of social media and news feeds we surround ourselves with has distanced us quite a bit from our truer, saner selves.
We’re happy to say that staying sane is still manageable - all it takes is a little practice and a little intention. These are some of our favorite tips for staying sane in the digital age.
Having a support network of meaningful relationships is one of the best ways to survive the digital landscape. Keeping steady contact with friends and family members is motivating, uplifting, and comforting – especially when you do it screen-free.
While interacting in-person for some quality catching up time, a crafty project together, or a little fika break will always be our top vote, seeing people face-to-face can be difficult now during the current outbreak. The next best thing is sitting down and writing a heartfelt letter by hand and sending it snail-mail style in the postal system. The writing process allows to unwind and divert our attention to something meditative and expressive, plus we can have a little fun with our mail art and postage stamps. How gratifying it is to receive a handwritten letter in the mail!
Working with your hands to create something does a lot for us: it lets us creatively express ourselves, it puts us more presently in our body, it allows us to enter a meditative “state of flow”, and as a bonus we get a beautiful result to remind us of the fun experience we had making it.
Activities like paper flower making, origami, calligraphy, and drawing are great ways to leave the stresses of the day-to-day behind and instead allow our attention to be immersed in the creation at hand. We love hosting creative workshops at our studio so you can be fully absorbed in a new skill and meet other like-minded people.
This is a big one. With all the ways our attention is pulled away from ourselves and instead towards flashy social media posts, celebrity gossip, and political concerns, your inner self is craving a little TLC.
Set aside a little time every day to keep a daily journal. Feel free to tailor it to whatever suits you best, whether you would like a gratitude journal, dream journal, or a good old-fashioned journal for thoughts and feelings. As long as you have a safe place for honest expression, you’ll reap the benefits and will notice yourself feeling more centered the longer you stick to it.
Another great practice is scrapbooking or documenting. While it’s not for everyone, this activity brings so much enthusiasm to the everyday experience if you find yourself enjoying it. Having a fun and decorative home for nostalgic memories can make those simple scraps like a subway ticket a portal to a memorable time in your life. Getting one set up doesn’t have to be arduous as long as you are patient. Just start one page at a time, pasting a picture or a keepsake and writing a note whenever a day comes that you know you’d want to remember it. Enjoy how present it makes you during those special moments in life.
Screen free! Screen free! We can’t say it enough! When we are constantly surrounded by screens in front of our face, it takes a deliberate effort to make sure we carve out time away from all those screens. You can ease into less screen time by limiting the amount of time you spend on your phone, computer, and TV by a specific amount of hours. It’s helpful (and your sleep cycle will thank you) when you have a “cut-off time” for screens in the evening, especially if your line of work makes it difficult to limit screen time during the day. In fact, if you are like many of us who have no choice but to be at a computer screen for at least 8 hours of the day, a saving grace is “Screen Free Sundays”. This can be “Screen Free Saturday”, “Screen Free Tuesday”, or any day of the week that works best for your schedule. It is simply one day spent completely away from any screens as much as possible. Crazy, right? But it’s how we used to spend every day not so long ago.
Enjoying a digital detox on a regular basis does wonders for quieting the constant buzzing of our minds and bringing us back into our own bodies. We made our Little Box of Calm specifically as a response to the digital dilemma to make easier for anyone to enjoy a digital detox any time of the day.
The soft ease of feeling sane and whole again is what naturally comes to us when we deliberately make an effort to step away from the digital world. Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t feel at ease right away. The all-consuming digital landscape didn’t happen overnight; screens and social media crept up on us, and before we realized it, we were waking up, interacting, working, and going to sleep all with a screen inches away from our eyes. It’s all to say that we have been spending a lot more time in a dysfunctional state of screen dependence than we realized. So it might just take some practice in sticking to these analog habits before we start to let go of our need for screen time and enjoy our renewed sense of self. But once we do, it will feel so good. We promise.