Does anybody else feel like life seems to push you to be doing something at every moment of every day? I can’t just be us, right? From the moment you wake up to when you decide to sleep we are pushed to be “productive” so as to not be deemed “lazy”. People are working more, working harder, and driven to have almost no line drawn between work life, social life, or personal life. It’s gotten to the point where some countries are making legal efforts to separate out work and home life.
It’s easy to see what caused a need for such a push to keep work at work – that handy device called a cell phone. We all have one and we all love it. Being connected to everything is so easy that it was inevitable that people started going overboard. Hey, ourselves included. I’ve personally sent email out well past midnight because I could. But real question is, should we be doing these things?
The answer is a resounding no.
Now, as referenced many times on our blog we set monthly small goals. This October we decided that we would set a “no electronics” before bed goal. Basically, we wanted to disconnect about 20-30 minutes before we sleep. Good thing too, because we recently read about the effects electronic devices have on sleep!
Basically, everyone’s ability to be connected is causing us to sleep less and stress more – not a good thing!
So, what’s our evening routine now? We are reading a whole lot more! We have both enjoyed reading a bit before bed. I’m currently reading Sputnik Sweetheart by my favorite author Murakami and Jenna is reading a book called Heartless. She HIGHLY recommends the whole Lunar Chronicles series (and related books). We have both found that a bit of reading allows us to fall asleep very quickly once we turn the lights off. I also have found that I wake up much less during the night right now.
We even have a Sunday night routine. We pick a movie and watch it before we go up to read. Yes, a movie is an electronic device but we limit the phone/tablets during this time and just enjoy each other’s company. Last week we watched The Princess Bride… I forgot how GOOD that movie is!
If we’re not reading we do things like puzzles, writing in a journal, playing/writing music, creating art, or even prepping food. We both agree that this has been a positive change in both our mindset and our sleep patterns. Even if you can’t limit your screen time entirely at least try to limit it from stressful things. Stress is bad news and we are all surrounded by bad news all day. Let’s limit it when and where we can!
