So yesterday night I did something unthinkable! I did something so crazy and new to me I didn’t know what to expect and how I would feel! Yesterday night… I purposely chose not to bring my phone with me into the bedroom! Sorry, I know its not quite the exciting steamy story you were expecting but its the truth.
For the first time in maybe 10 years since I laid hands on a sexy new touchscreen device (shout out to the iPhone 3G – my favorite phone to this day) I made the conscious effort not to sleep with the phone by my bedside. Instead I left it on the living room table, plugged in, with a morning alarm set as usual. I thought this would also force me to get out of bed to turn the damn alarm off.
Why did I do this? Well during this pandemic one thing that I have said constantly is how much I hate my phone. I love it, but actually I hate it. Yes of course the apps and the tools and mobile access to my entire life is on my phone, that part I love. But then there is this other side. The side that sucks you in. Where an innocent click to check out a quick article becomes 40+ minutes of shameless scrolling away on anything my phone will feed me. Jumping around from app to app, just show me something new, swipe down, refresh, show me anything new… I NEED SOMETHING NEW! If any of you have watched Netflix’s The Social Dilemma then you know what I am getting at.
Anyways, its come to a point where my sleep and wake up patterns included mandatory time on my phone before anything else – checking any app or website that can deliver an update. Before bed time, I’d grab my phone to check the time, make sure my alarm was set and then all of a sudden find myself scrolling away another hour or two as if I had magically come across this extra time for phone surfing. And in the mornings after turning off my alarm, I’d unlock my phone and immediately, even with my eyes barely open, check for all updates on my news feed, emails, messages, socials all while pretending that day hasn’t already started an hour ago. So ya, I decided yesterday this needs to change. I decided that I refuse to be a slave to my phone as I recalled that just a decade ago I was perfectly fine living without a computer by my side. Everything would be okay.. right?
Well, here’s how it went. At first I was excited and thought this would be easy and a nice change in my routine. I took my phone charger out of my room and plugged it into the living room, plugged my phone in, set my alarm, and off to the bed I went. Almost as soon as my head touched my pillow I got hit with my first sense of panic. What time was it? Im not sure why I always need to know that time, and maybe I’m just so used to grabbing my phone to get that time. So I caught my self being dependent on my phone. I took a breath and shrugged it off. It didn’t matter the time because I was already in bed so all I had to do now was fall asleep. Well not so easy because normally I get some updates and entertainment from my phone and now that was gone. Ok, no problem, I grabbed my book and started reading. 20 minutes in, I got my next panic as I tried to reach over to my phone while wrapping up the last paragraph of the chapter. Not sure why I would need to check phone at this point, but ya, I reached for my phone and it wasn’t there of course. Caught again. This time it wasn’t as simple as shrugging it off. This time I had to consciously tell myself that there wasn’t nothing on my phone I needed to look at now. I took a minute to think about it, still not feeling tired, glanced around the room for some other forms of entertainment and eventually came back to my book. I finally fell asleep naturally and quite peacefully.
The next morning I got a rude awakening. My alarm was going off in the living room. I just wanted to snooze a few more minutes but couldn’t escape the relentless never ending alarm from the living room. So I got up, turned it off, and threw my phone onto the sofa. I wasn’t that interested in opening my phone and getting caught up in updates. Maybe it was some lasting feelings from my pep talk late last night? I don’t know exactly, but what I do know is that everything was okay.
Yep, that’s right. Life without looking at my phone first and last things everyday was okay. The world did not implode nor did I miss out on the apocalyptical news I could have missed in the last 12 hours. Everything was… just fine.
Do you sleep with your phone in the bedroom? If so, I openly invite you to challenge yourself to follow in my footsteps and share your experience.