Do you know what bored is?

So we all know what social media is. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, What’s App to name but a few.

Ask yourself this question.  How long do you spend on your phone or tablet?  Well, I have just listened to a masterclass on a meditation app and it is surprising to know that however long you think you spend on your phone you can easily double it.  If you think you spend 2 hours a day its more like 4.  

There are numerous apps that you can get to check your own screen time and even if you just do it for curiosities sake, monitor your phone use for 1 week. 

If we spend 4 hours a day, that’s 28 hours a week, that’s 112 hours a month.  There’s a lot of living to be done in that time. We are only awake for maybe 15 hours a day, 4 hours of that is on a phone, 8 hours in work, then you have to eat, live, travel, talk to your partner / children / parent, commute etc. 

Why do we reach for screens?

If you are sitting in a waiting room or travelling in an elevator what’s the first thing you do?  Do you say hello to the person next to you & strike up a conversation or do you reach for your phone, check what you need to and endlessly scroll through pages and pages of whatever. 

We need to remember how to be bored. 

We need to remember that sitting for 10 minutes in a waiting room, we can be still in ourselves, listen to our body, be aware of the sights, the sounds, the smells around us. 

We can travel in the elevator 3 floors without looking at our messages or e mails. 

We need to bring back mindfulness in the stripped bare form.

When I was a child walking to school, one day I may have walked the whole way without stepping on the lines or the cracks in the pavement, another day I may have walked pulling the leaves off the hedges and making smiley faces in them.  The next I might’ve counted all the cars that passed or given myself 10 points if a silver car passed. 

What was I doing? I was alleviating my short but relatively boring walk to school. 

When I went onto secondary school, I sometimes caught the bus.  What did I do once I’d sat on the bus?  I looked out the window.  I noticed the trees as they changed colour in autumn, lay bare in winter and sprouted green shoots at the beginning of spring.  

I watched as the same people got on the bus at the same stops, and even wondered where someone was if they regularly got on at a stop and they didn’t turn up.  I thought, “Are they late?”, “Have they slept in?” “Are they sick?”, “I hope they are ok” and then smiled inwardly when they were standing at the bus stop the next day. 

I looked at hairstyles, shoes, school bags.  I blushed when a boy I liked may have glanced in my direction. I slumped a bit lower in my seat when someone I wasn’t as fond of jumped on board in the hope that they wouldn’t see me. 

I didn’t have a mobile phone, I had real life face to face social media.

I sometimes worry about the generations growing up.  Screen time is integrated from as young as 2 years maybe younger in some cases and the quick fix the children get from “innocent” games or TV shows.  

They don’t get a break.

There is no downtime.  

I’m not a scientist or biologist but I’m sure the rush of dopamine or endorphins (The happy hormones) people get from achieving 5 clicks of a button to receive a virtual star or well done message, or the next programme automatically starting with the happy, clappy song that boosts their feelings of happiness could also be achieved by playing outside, looking for insects and watching in awe as some fly slowly and loudly past you. Children could scream in delight at finishing a drawing or finding a fat juicy worm wiggling in the garden. 

When do you or your children look out the window where you stare into space and daydream? 

When do they jump over the cracks in the pavement? 

When do they get the feeling of bored so they can invent their own games?

What happens to the children (and increasingly the adults) when they have a spare minute to do nothing? 

Children may cry because they are unsettled, they don’t know this feeling, it is strange.  They look up to see their parent on a mobile.  The child follows the gaze of the adult and associates calm time with screen time. 

The constant quick fix of achieving a well done message or virtual star keeps our fight or flight adrenaline flowing through our body.  Our body is constantly on high alert for the next level, the next blue thumb like, the next share or comment. 

When do we allow Serotonin in our body to have its moment and let our body fully relax? 

Serotonin is important in stabilizing our mood, our feelings of well being and happiness.  It enables brain cells and other nervous system cells to communicate with each other and helps with sleeping, eating and digestion. 

If we are constantly on screens, or feeling the need to be busy we must stop or at the very least slow down. 

Start off slow.  Remove devices from meal times & enjoy a richer experience of your food. Then remove them from view – put them in another room an hour and a half before bed. 

Limit screen time for children.  Put a timer on and let them know that once the timer goes that means stop.  Do the same for you. 

We are living in a world where we want everything now. We have little or no patience for anything. We need the information straight away. We need to move onto the next level, the next game, the next post on social media. 

We are putting our health at risk by being constantly busy, constantly checking our devices, constantly planning the next hour, day, week. 

If you do anything today, at the very least begin to be conscious of your own routine.  Check in on yourself when you are mindlessly scrolling through social media.  Check in on yourself when you feel a little impatient.  Look at people when you talk to them.  

I’ve given a few suggestions below & you don’t have to do them all at once but try to gradually incorporate them into your life.

Remove the devices for a few hours a day. 

Sit in stillness for a few minutes and gradually build this up to half an hour or an hour over the next week or two. Even pop on a 10 minute meditation to give you focus and guidance on your breathing.

Be mindful. You can start easily with this one & you can make it fun for everyone. Buy some fruit flavoured jelly beans or sweets. Close your eyes, pick a sweet and begin to eat. 

By not seeing the colour your senses need to work.  Eat it slowly.  Enjoy the taste.  Guess the taste.  For a few brief moments you are being mindful.  You want to know what you are eating and you will have your full concentration on thinking of the flavour. 

Take a walk in nature without headphones or screens.  Look at the nature around you, listen to the birds, listen to the sound of the wind through the leaves on the trees or the trickling of a stream, the rushing thunderous noise of a waterfall.  Wherever you walk take notice of the sights, sounds, smells.  The feeling of the ground underfoot.  Is it soft leaves or pine needles?  Is it rocky stones at a beach? 

Take notice.  

The world is an amazing place.

You are an amazing person and once we begin to notice what is all around we wont have time for screens and social media.

We wont ever be bored again.