With the advent of box sets, ‘just one more’ is a familiar catch phrase. It is often the reason for lack of sleep due to staying up late watching box sets.
Constant Scrolling through a Facebook feed or checking work email ‘just one more’ time before bedtime is the norm.
I am getting ready for holidays and ‘just one more’ applies to buying books. I have significantly more than I can read in 2 weeks but there always another ‘just one more’ that catches my eye. Technology advances mean that I can buy books in my PJ’s and have them instantly available on my kindle.
We are lucky to live in times of such abundance, not to mention the technology advances that allow this.
Ten years ago, I would not buy so many books because I could not or would not physically carry them. In fact, most books I took on holidays would be swapped with someone else’s book. Nowadays I set a budget for book spending and do not go over it, well not by much!
Ten years ago, TV was drip fed on a weekly basis. Thursday night was always Friends, ER and a glass of wine. It was an occasion. Nowadays it’s on demand to suit you. Which means it up to you to decide how much TV is enough. Some box sets are so well written that there is always a cliff hanger at the end which leaves you wanting to know more. If you stay up to watch the next episode, you will always want to stay up for the next one and so on. It’s about taking a long view of enjoying the box set for as long as possible rather than cramming it into a short a timeframe as you can.
Ten years ago, if you wanted to know what your friends and family were up to you called them. You (mostly) left your work at the office when you left for the day.
Joseph Pilates founder of Pilates, wrote his ‘Return to life with contrology’ in 1945 about how modern living makes people unhealthy. Advances in technology are just going to keep coming and it is up to you to decide how you choose to use it.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!
Boundaries for good health
Your menopausal years can be a constant state of hormonal changes and it can be challenging to keep symptoms to a minimum. The way you chose to life you life can have both a positive and negative impact. Creating boundaries or anchor points can be helpful for everyday healthy choices.
Sleep
Sleep is the ultimate in hormonal representing. It is one of my anchor points not only health but to ensure I do not feel like a zombie the next day. It is not exotic and it usually takes more discipline than you think to get to bed early. I aim to be sleeping by 10pm, and that is a decision I made years ago and not much deviates me from that. Moreover, it influences a number of everyday choices such as when the TV goes off and what time I eat dinner.
Flight mode
Flight mode is a setting created for flying, which switches off all connections to internet. However, you can use it throughout the day when you want to disconnect from the news and social media. It is a deliberate decision, so if you habitually check your phone you will not be able to connect to the internet, unless you switch flight mode off. You make the decision of when you want to be connected or not. The are many apps for your PC which can help limit access to certain websites too.
FOMO
Fear of missing out (FOMO) can send us endlessly scrolling through social media. Setting an intention when you go in that you will see what you need to see is a helpful way of releasing this fear and allows you to briefly pop in and out again.
Technology can work for us and make it healthy. However, it is new and we need to keep that in mind, and set good working practices in place. When email first arrived, most people had alerts set up to notify them when a new email arrived. Nowadays notifications are switch off and most people check just a few times a day. This is after over a decade of use, that we are now applying good boundaries to email practices. Most of us could use this discernment for other technology practices too.
In your menopausal years you can become more sensitive to stress which means you may not be able to tolerate habits such as late nights compared to your younger years.
Is technology improving your wellbeing or moving you away from it? My Fitbit is something that moves me towards wellbeing; you can read my latest review here.
Do you have any technology hacks or boundaries to that improve your health? I would love to hear from you.
Samantha Valand is the author of “The Menopause Diaries: A practical guide to healthy eating and exercising in your menopausal years”. You can find out more about her book here.
