Benefits of twenty-four hours unplugged

Imagine your morning routine for a moment. It probably involves getting yourself a morning cup of coffee or tea, getting dressed, and if you're like 3.3 billion other people in the world, checking your phone. We check the news, weather, email and/or social media. It has become the new normal.

Studies have been done on whether or not this is a good thing. A lot of them show that it isn’t. Our brains weren’t designed for this constant stimulation and our eyes don’t do well when focused on a screen for hours at a time.

While it isn't really realistic to give up technology in order to save our eyes, unplugging from tecnhology for a short period of time can bring a number of benefits.

One of the top benefits is stress recovery. Even fun things can cause stress buildup. Add work on top of it and a time for recovery becomes paramount. While still plugged in, work can and usually does follow us home. Taking a twenty-four hour break will benefit us and our employers.

Another benefit is sleep. Studies show that going from watching a screen to trying to sleep is counterproductive. Sleep is an important part of staying healthy, and being off all screens for a full day could improve the sleep cycle.

Lastly, interacting with others, whether it’s talking on a cell phone or social media, tends to take away our empathy towards others. While this is a short lived phenomenon, the study that discovered this aspect of the problem suspects that it is because it feels like our social obligations have been met and we therefore don’t need to do more for our fellow man.

 Unplugging for a full day isn’t going to be easy for most of us. It has become an ingrained habit and for some it is even an addiction. Preserving our sanity and improving our health is what is most important.