Mental Fitness Exercise 2: Tune out the noise.

Welcome to part 2 of our 5 part series that will help you boost and maintain your mental fitness. A Talk Mental Exclusive.

We live in an age of digital distraction, being constantly interrupted by text messages, emails, notifications, social media and alerts. If left unchecked, this can pull us (and our minds) away from what’s really important.

While many of us rely on this digital world for work and a large part of our social interaction, it is important to realise that our brains can become conditioned by these frequencies and become less aware of stimulation from the real world that actually makes us feel good.

Spending some “tech free time” every day is a great way to start reintroducing yourself to the pleasures that exist in and around you.

Here is a simple way for you to enjoy daily ‘tech free time’ without changing your routine at all:

Embrace waiting times.

Reaching for the computer in your pocket is all too easy the second you become still… there is 6 minutes until your bus arrives, what do you do? The customer in front of you at the supermarket is going to take at least 2 more minutes to checkout, what do you do?

Next time you find yourself with a few minutes to spare, try not reaching for your phone. Embrace those precious moments of having to do nothing! Just relax and stare off into the distance then enjoy the feeling of relaxation, or look at the ground and re-live a great moment you experienced recently. Allow your mind to drift and daydream of things you like and make a plan to make them happen.

Down time is precious, and you can enjoy it every day without even having to make extra time for it, you just need to know when to embrace it.

Ready to level up?

Create an hour a day of tech free time.

Putting your phone aside for a period of time each day takes discipline and will power, however when you do this you are free yourself to observe and appreciate the moments, places and people that are truly important to you.

To avoid confusion, we are not downplaying the importance of meaningful digital interactions! Zooming your family, emailing business proposals, texting kindness to friends and keeping updated on current affairs are all blessings that the digital age has given us! We are just talking about the mindless scrolling through videos and memes that an algorithm knows will engage you.

Committing to an hour a day away from your device is hard, but it means you are making the effort to prioritise real world, soul feeling emotions over shallow instant gratification from a constant stream of distraction.

We challenge you to give it a go for just an hour one day, and please let us know how you get on in the comments!