Not Your Mother’s Meditation: Stress Management in the Smartphone Era
Category: Anxiety
Daily scrolling doesn’t necessarily have to stress you out.
Topic Of Discussion
In the generations before modern technology, discourse around stress management often favored big changes or rewards. Sure, a vacation to the Bahamas is a great way to relieve stress if you can get it, but the trip alone likely won’t leave you with the tools you’ll need to resist the pressure to post all those vacation photos to your Instagram story.
The truth is, stress management and technology are still getting to know one another, so to speak. It’s a new frontier that Gen Z, and especially Millennials, (who still have some memories of life before smartphones) are having to navigate without precedent. But maybe your daily scrolling doesn’t have to stress you out.
Screentime doesn’t have to numb you
Having trouble unplugging? There’s an app for that. No, seriously. There probably is! Whether we like it or not, technology is a super prominent part of most of our lives out of necessity, not to mention its endless entertainment offerings.
If you find yourself habitually scrolling, maybe you don’t need to beat yourself up about it, so much as you need a reminder that you have options for scrolling. Do you like crossword puzzles? Give your mind a workout with a word game app. Or many meditation apps are free. Or how about FaceTiming a friend?
By using your phone intentionally — to help you relax — you might find yourself wanting to trade doom scrolling for scrolling that energizes you.
Unplugging can be a reward
Speaking of activities that energize, for many kids, screentime is a reward that energizes them to get through a day’s work for the “prize” before bedtime.
Maybe for adults, after spending all day plugged in on our computers at work, or on our smartphones as we coordinate after-school activities, the opposite can be true. What if your kids’ screentime is your meditation time, or, simply your time to sit still and focus on taking deep breaths?
You can be as fancy or simple as you want to be with it, but by making time spent unplugged a reward, you can maintain some control over your daily stress…and model healthy habits too!
Wrapping it up
If only stress management were as simple as being on or off our devices at any given time. If you’re having trouble navigating day-to-day stress, our counselors at Tri-Star Counseling are ready with a funny, friendly, down-to-earth approach to navigating stress in a hyper-connected world.
