What a Week of Phoneless Nights Looks Like

I'm an incessant phone-checker.
Any time of day, if I have a spare moment, not sure what to do, it's to the phone I go. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, e-mail, the news, the weather, you name it, I check it.
All. The. Time.
Which, I admit, isn't the best habit to have.
But add to that the fact that I use my phone as an alarm clock, it is a recipe for disaster. I "can't fall asleep", so let's scroll through Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook or whatever...which just keeps me up longer.
And then, come morning, turning off the alarm and instantly checking all the notifications that came through in the night - the e-mails, the Facebook posts, the Instagram likes or comments, the Twitter favorites or follows.
It just got to be too much.

So, an experiment.

I left my phone at my desk every night for a week.
Granted, I'm in a position to not need an alarm, so I didn't need to have my phone handy - I know a ton of people that use their phone for an alarm, and I'm glad I am not in that position right now, to have been able to try this.

Because it was magical. 

No, really, it was.
A week, with no phone to "worry" about from the time I went to bed to the time I came out of the bedroom in the morning. And it will continue to be something I do, I can promise you that. For so many reasons.

First, no alarm. I had alarms set to go off at 6 am, 7 am, and 8 am, and I would hopefully get up with one of those - and preferably the first, though lately had been more so the third or some time after that. I would wake up with them, turn them off, and just roll over and go back to sleep until who-knows-when. Luckily, when I started this, I was on the start of a regular schedule, of going to lay down by about 10 pm - so the latest I got up for the week was 8 am or so. But, that means my body was able to wake up when and only when it needed to - except for the Mister's alarms, which start going off at about 7 am, but I can sleep through those the majority of the time. Waking up naturally is an amazing thing!

Second, no temptation to scroll - and in turn keep myself up longer. Since the phone isn't there, no checking anything - no Pinterest, no Facebook, no Instagram. Nothin'. And it was fabulous. Granted, I have cartoons on when I go to bed, so there was that to entertain me if I so chose, but it was that, or the pillow. Nothing to actually engage with - cartoons are something, for me, that I can use as white noise, and help in getting me to sleep. With the phone, I would think "oh, I can't sleep, let's look at Pinterest" and be up for another hour or two. With the cartoons, I don't even get to the "can't sleep" part, unless it's too hot in the room!

Third, no notifications to rush to check first thing in the morning. Granted, I would see them when I was up and back to my desk, but that was after I had awoken and actually gotten out of bed. But it was no longer a process of wake up and immediately check e-mail or something. I had to be at least somewhat awake to do that, instead of still half asleep and in bed.

Fourth, so much less Instagram. Which is an odd thing to say. But I haven't "checked" Instagram in a few days, actually. And that just kind of happened by itself. I got "behind" from leaving my phone alone all night, and figured it was pointless to try to "catch up", and then forgot about it for a few hours...then checked it again, only to realize it was too much still to go through...so I've been leaving it alone. And I haven't missed it. I miss some of the posts and people, sure. But I do not miss the pressure of taking awesome photos and "fitting in" to the community. At all. I have been so much more, well, happy with myself this week because of this. And I am actually in the process of deciding how to move forward from here with Instagram, but I know I won't be as active as I have before, simply because it was taking a toll on my thinking and far too much of my time!

Fifth, not knowing the time when waking up is quite nice. If I have my phone with me at night, and I wake up, I check the time - be it 2 am or 6 am, I gotta know. I've heard that's a bad thing to do, but it was just something I did and couldn't really help. But for this week without the phone, I was able to wake up and just, well, look outside. Now, with it getting brighter and brighter out, earlier and earlier, I haven't gotten a hang on the time of morning versus the light (and our "Spring" weather hasn't helped that - we had fog at 8 am last week!), but if it's light out and I'm awake, that means it's time to get up. And, for the most part, that was correct - as in about 8 hours after I had went to bed.

Overall, a complete success.
I am planning on continuing with this, and only keep the phone in the bedroom for the mornings I absolutely need an alarm to wake up.

It was hard at first, honestly, though. The first morning, I almost ran into the living room to check my phone - well, as much running as a groggy person trying to climb over two dogs can manage. But I realized how silly that was, and after that it was pretty easy, honestly. There were a few nights I went to bed waiting for e-mails, and just had to tell myself that if they show up in the middle of the night, there's nothing I really needed to do with them in the middle of the night anyway, and they will be there when I wake up.

And that's the thing - the internet will still be there when you wake up. There is no sense in trying to be connected to everything all the time - that doesn't let you do what you need to, because instead you'll be trying to keep up on what everyone else is up to.
And that's an aspect I hadn't really thought of cohesively until writing this, but it's true. I would take time every two or three hours of the day to check social media. Which, is fine I guess, because I was working it into in between times, but I don't want to be tied to social media - I don't think that's healthy, is it?

~Havok