She realised how many times a day she, 'checked' her phone.
I think if you are one of the majority of folks who have a smartphone you might recognise this. Or you might not, or you might have an idea but maybe your not aware of quit how often you do it.
Most of us now have; email, text, whatsapp, Facebook and many more apps on our phone. Most of us have an alert to tell us when we get 'events' from these apps, a ping, a vibration or maybe both. But most of us will be in the habit of checking the phone to see if we have received any communication.
As Sandi Toksvig said; it's like having a working doorbell but repeatedly going to the front door 'just in case'.
You can make an argument that we are here becourse our ancestors were vigilant. They avoided danger long enough to breed. Vigilance seems to be a learned part of our make up. And if you have ever driven a car or walked late at night through a dodge area you know it's still often needed.
But think about how you feel during these times. After a long drive one is normally shattered. The same after that really important meeting etc.
It's to do with the difference between the sympathetic and para-sympathetic nervous systems, but I'll go into that in another post.
Being constantly vigilant is really damaging to our health.
Our lives are full of situations that make us vigilant or stressed, a lot of them we may not be able to easily avoid. But maybe how we relate to our smartphones and computers is a good place to start.
When you become aware of the itch to look at your phone, maybe take a good moment, a deep breath in and out and see if you really need to. Try it for a week or two and see how you feel. Can you turn down the vigilance dial a bit. You might find you; sleep better, feel better, talk to loved ones more, digest your food better, see that tree in blossom.........
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