MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

Eight takeaways:

The average American spends over three hours daily on their phone, and Gallup polls reveal that most people feel they overuse their devices. Excessive screen time has been linked to various potential downsides, according to multiple studies: disrupted sleep, eye strain, reduced attention span, increased stress, and even a diminished capacity to build real-life social connections. Experts warn these risks are even more significant for the developing brains of children.

But not all is lost. Here are 8 expert-backed tips for reducing your screen time.

1. Take Short Breaks Daily: Whether in a drawer, another room, or inside a timed lockbox, leave your phone in a secluded place for a specific amount of time each day.
2. Delete Time-Wasting Apps: It doesn’t have to be a permanent deletion, but getting your most time-intensive apps off of your phone will kickstart the process of reducing your brain’s reliance on it.
3. Mute Noisy Notifications: The constant pings of notifications coming in can create an urgency associated with your phone, which can lead to a compulsion. Go into your phone’s settings and turn off notifications for your buzziest apps.
4. Go Gray: Phones are strategically designed to capture our attention with vibrant colors and engaging designs. Switching your screen to grayscale can help loosen their grip by dulling the visual appeal. You can keep your phone in grayscale all the time or use it only when actively trying to reduce screentime.
5. Build Up Your Attention Stamina: Your attention span can be trained, like a muscle. To do this, silence your phone and set a timer for a beginner-friendly 15 minutes. Place your device face-down, committing to not touch it until the timer goes off. This will become much easier with practice.
6. Arm Yourself With Alternatives: When working to replace an unhelpful habit, it’s essential to have healthier alternatives at the ready. Explore new hobbies, dive into books, create art, exercise, spend time in nature, or connect with others face-to-face. Engaging in slower, purposeful activities soothes the mind and helps expand your attention span.
7. Enlist Friends and Family: Turn your screen-time reduction into a team effort. Set boundaries with family, like no phones during meals, or lead by example by avoiding social media while with friends.
8. Track Your Progress: Making changes is easy; sticking with them is harder. Make sure to monitor your progress by reviewing your goals; check weekly screen time stats and adjust as needed.

As always, celebrate the wins! Phone use can be difficult to regulate because the phone has so many useful applications– so, especially in this case, remember that small, incremental reductions in screen time can still be major wins.

By Courtney Lindwall for Consumer Reports
Read the whole story.

Three takeaways:

Although it may seem counterintuitive, treating a New Year’s resolution as an exercise in self-control or willpower is a common misunderstanding. A well-selected resolution is grounded in activities or habits that you already enjoy.

Behavioral scientist BJ Fogg highlights the value of building on activities that already bring you satisfaction. For example, if the goal is to eat healthier, it’s more effective to focus on incorporating nutritious foods you already like rather than forcing yourself to eat ones you don’t enjoy. “Help yourself do what you already want to do,” Fogg says. “And help yourself feel successful.”

Along with selecting habits that already conform to your interests, these tactics can help you make sure these habits stick:

1. Get specific and plan for obstacles: “I want to get in shape” isn’t precise enough. Instead, set a specific resolution- to run 10 miles or to bench press an amount of weight by a certain date on the calendar. This forces you to get practical about how you are going to achieve the goal, providing a clear map on the road to making that goal a reality. Thinking practically about your goal will help you forecast– and then overcome– the logistical or mental forces standing in your way.
2. Use small, simple habits: When working to change your behavior, set the bar low to ensure the habit is easy to maintain. On days when you feel motivated, you can do more, but the key is to make the habit achievable every day. For example, commit to doing one push-up each morning at a specific time rather than aiming for 20.
3. Set routines with friends: Build a new habit with a friend or loved one to hold yourself accountable. Survey after survey has shown that taking on a goal with a partner leads to not only greater accountability, but greater overall enjoyment of that task.

By approaching goal-setting with mindfulness and intention, we can turn our New Year’s resolutions into lasting habits that provide lifelong benefits.

By Teddy Amenabar for The Washington Post
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Washington Post requires an account to view the article.