I look up from my phone and the world is blurry. Trying to focus my vision, I know I’ve spent a little too long on my phone and need to readjust my eyes. That is when it is time for me to take a break and breathe in some fresh air compared to the synthetic digitized air that I have been inhaling from my phone. Not that my phone actually produces synthetic air, but that is how it feels: suffocating, artificial, and overwhelming. I have been staring for too long and now everything feels fake. What is on my phone feels real.
When it is time for me to take a break, I go ahead and throw my phone across the room and grab my journal. Nothing gets done or my feelings don’t reset until I journal or brain dump all of my thoughts out on paper. Everything gets journaled out because of how grounding it is to be reminded of what it is like to be human. Write about how your toes feel in your socks, or how your hands might need some lotion given the sensation of dry skin on paper. Now that everything has been journaled, a nice refreshing shower to stimulate the senses really helps. I try to find activities like showering to help ground myself back to reality when I need that screen break. After completing this, I wonder why I have this need to be grounded.
I force myself to feel and be present in my body when I need to unplug. There have been discussions online about how we are always craving dopamine and how we have easy access to it. Since we have easy access to it, it is harder for us to enjoy the little things in life. We don’t have the patience that we used to have.
I am taking the time to enjoy the little things by first journaling and taking a shower. Then once that reset has happened, we move on to little tasks like drawing, coloring, or reading. My best advice when it comes to unplugging is discipline and taking your time. Unplugging takes discipline, but it’s also a gift we give ourselves. It is a chance to slow down, feel deeply, and remember what it means to be human.
Sarah Delia Perez 
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