If you’re a human being living in 2021, the internet is an integral part of your everyday life. We live in a connected world, and especially in 2021, in a world that had to move most of its interactions - its commerce, education, and relationships - online in the course of only a few months. Conventions, workshops, conference calls, and team meetings are spent on Zoom, Skype, or Google Teams. Lunch hours are spent on Instagram and after-work relaxation time on Netflix. In 2021, we are online more than ever before.

When 90% of waking life happens in front of a screen, this can affect our health in many ways. Tired, dry eyes, physical & mental fatigue are only part of the equation. Our online behaviour is addictive, as it serves our brain with precisely the kind of dopamine-inducing stimuli that it loves. We love exploring online, even if, in the long run, it can have adverse effects on our health.

Luckily, there are some concrete steps you can take to ensure that you keep taking care of your mental, physical, social, and spiritual wellbeing, without having to give up social media or your Hulu subscription.

We have accumulated five practices that can help make a difference immediately:

1. Go 90’s with your devices

   Some of you may not remember or even lived during the early days of MSN and ICQ Messenger. For anybody born before 1995, phones and computers didn't exist as something you could take to bed or in the car with you. The family computer was stationed in a particular place, and you had to reserve a time slot in the day. Long sessions of computer gaming or online chatting weren't possible, especially if you had siblings. Homework was written by hand and the only way we were reachable for friends after school was by landline - ideally not during dinner time.

   Our devices being available at all times is a miracle. Still, it is also something we want to handle with caution. As the time we can spend online is limitless, we must know when to get offline.

   So we have a proposal, yes you could call it a vision: to go "90s" with our devices more often. This means not only to adopt positive habits with the way we use our devices and apps, to set screen limits, or to reserve times in the evening, morning, and during the day for device-free-just-me-mode, but also to become mindful again of how often we need or want to use our devices.

   Becoming digitally mindful means asking questions like: "Am I using this in a way that supports my wellbeing?" Or "Am I spending my time in a way that nourishes me right now, that adds value to my life?" If the answer is no, we want to find a way of making sure that our devices work for us, not the other way around.

2. Decluttering digital "spaces"

   Marie Kondo revolutionised the world's view of "stuff" with her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." And what applies to garages, closets and pantries also applies to the "space" that we spend a great majority of our working and personal day in: Our devices.

   If you have ever cleaned up your desktop from old files, downloads, and photos you no longer cared about or needed, you will know the feeling. There is a lightness, clarity, and a sense of empowerment that comes with a clean digital space.

   Decluttering means making space for things that truly nourish us, and it means becoming mindful of the way we use the things we do have. Decluttering allows us to take back control of how we want to use our time. It invites a deliberate relationship with the tool that, if used wisely, can empower us to do great things.

   We came up with a "digital decluttering" ritual that will turn anybody's phone and laptop into the workspace they need to create and live their best life. It's more than a detox; it's a fundamental lifestyle revamp that will leave you with more space, both in your calendar and your mind.

   We've made part of this worksheet available for free here in the Mindful May’s "Digital Mindfulness Worksheet."

3. Limit media-multitasking

   Multi-media-tasking might sound tempting to those among us who enjoy getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible. But unlike the multitasking you know that is most likely related to your to-do list, in media-multitasking, the big "multi-tasker" is our brain.

   Envision watching a movie, while writing an email, while scrolling your social media feeds. You could be writing an essay while watching clips on Youtube. In short: There are multiple screens involved. You might think that you’re learning new information and getting things done, but your brain is experiencing a different reality.

   We now know that multitasking doesn't work. Instead of multitasking, our brain spreads the same resources across the different channels. Every activity in itself, therefore, becomes less effective.

   Media-multitasking prevents us from adequately paying attention to what is in front of us. Thus we can never fully make sense of the activity we are engaging in. Remember that time you left the house whilst speaking to a friend on the phone, only to wonder whether you locked the front door? Media-multitasking works similarly, only that engaging in media-multitasking, done over time, affects our ability to focus our attention in general.

   Studies of people who regularly media-multitask fount that actual changes happen in the brain. The 2009 Ophir study found a relation between heavy media multitasking and a reduced ability to ignore distractions and focus on important information. And focus and attention are essential to a series of processes our brain needs to perform on a daily basis, from creativity to problem-solving to critical thinking.
   
   By focusing on just one media at a time, we can give our brain the chance to properly process the information in front of us. And a brain that’s not over-stimulated and over-worked is a happy brain.

4. A new approach on hyperlinks

   If you have used the internet before (which is likely if you're reading this), you will have encountered hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are beneficial for the internet, as they make internet pages intelligible. How does your page relate to the rest of the site and the larger internet as a whole? How relevant could it be for people looking for this specific subject? If you have ever written a blog, you will know the importance of hyperlinks.

   But there is another side to hyperlinks: they are a big distraction for our minds. (You will see the irony of the hyperlink here in this spot, but we want to make sure you properly reference our sources). Perhaps you had found yourself on multiple occasions, clicking hyperlinks for hours until you find yourself looking at dog beds when you originally just wanted to send a friend a book recommendation. But hyperlinks are not just about time spent on things you might have originally not intended to spend it on. Every time our brain registers a hyperlink, it halts for a moment to make a decision: "Should I click this or not?" This momentary pause interrupts the flow of reading and thus our ability to make sense of what we have in front of us. This break in thinking affects our comprehension negatively. It is also quite exhausting for our minds, especially if there are many hyperlinks in the text.

   Now what to do to ensure a calm and rested journey online? If comprehension is your focus, you should try to avoid overly hyperlinked and advertisement-heavy pages. One option, if you want to read longer texts, is that you could print out the pages. Another option and one that we practise with our human desire to explore in mind is to reserve time to examine hyperlinks that were not relevant to the work or task we wanted to get done. Have a folder in your Notes App where you can place hyperlinks with a bit of note reminding you how it related to something you wanted to do. The likelihood is that you will not need to come back to the link later, but you know you can.

5. Take care of your body

   In a time when a great majority of our day is spent in front of the screen, taking care of our health is essential. By taking care of our body, we don't just mean fitting in a quick workout or trying to get in 10000 steps every day. Taking care of our body is more than to-dos; it is about listening to what our body needs.

   For life in front of a laptop, this means getting up at least every 2 hours, better to get up once every hour for a short walk. If you don’t have time to go for a walk, open a window regularly and breathe in some fresh air, especially when you feel tired or exhausted. To prevent your eyes from becoming fatigued or overly exposed, you can wear blue-light blocking glasses when you work and try to set a night-mode function on your laptop and phone later in the day to prepare your body for sleep. Blue light is one of the primary reasons that the release of the sleep hormone melatonin is inhibited. To facilitate good sleep, we want to make sure that we limit our exposure to it before bedtime.

We hope we inspired you with these digital wellness habits. The truth is, even though very few of us would give up social media or smartphones forever, almost all of us have felt tired or wired after a long day in front of a computer. Most of us have felt that our phones might prevent us from properly focusing and being present in this moment and most of us have watched the friends sitting at the table next to us, entirely mesmerised by their individual online experiences instead of enjoying their time together.

So let's make space for more of the good stuff - more calm, more presence, better and more intimate conversations and above all, a happier, healthier version of ourselves!

Join us for a Month of Wellbeing