Your Smartphone May Be Boosting Your Stress And Reducing Your Immunity

With the rapid and alarming spread of the new coronavirus, now known as Covid-19, it’s no wonder so many of us are glued to our phone screens. Anxious, fearful and frustrated, we’re constantly bombarded with news updates and scrolling our feeds for information on the health crisis. Countries around the globe have entered a state of lockdown; schools are closed or shifting to online-learning; sports and music events are being cancelled; work from home policies are in place; and people are now in panic-buying mode. These are unprecedented times. 

These times have added to our dependency on smartphones. This is especially worrying because our dependency on smartphones can trigger or exacerbate anxiety. Anxiety reduces our immune system’s innate abilities to combat sickness. Anxiety leads us to reach for our phones again. And so, the cycle continues. 

Of course, smartphone addiction is nothing new. Studies published before the Covid-19 pandemic indicate the average American spends around three and a half hours a day on their smartphone, checking them over 150 times a day. An alarming 2 out of 3 Americans have nomophobia (the fear of being without a mobile phone).

Yesterday, when I went for a run, I noticed something you wouldn’t normally see on a typical weekday: I saw families walking together, enjoying nature and more importantly, engaging with each other in real life (or in text talk, IRL). I didn’t see traffic. I didn’t see people rushing to work or rushing their kids to school. I didn’t see the usual frenzy in our frenetic lives. Despite the obstacles, we have an opportunity to step back from our mobile devices, focus on completing important tasks, and step into meaningful connections to bring some humanity to this world. 

Here are five tried-and-tested tips to reduce smartphone dependency and increase mental and emotional resilience:

1.     Remove certain apps from your smartphone. I removed Facebook, Twitter and other social media apps from my phone to avoid checking them every five minutes.  This automatically stopped the flood of notifications that came through my phone. I’ll occasionally log on from my laptop to take a browse through these sites if necessary.

2.     Turn off notifications from most sites. Subscribe to one trusted news channel to provide you with urgent breaking news and turn off notifications for all other sites. This has helped me to stay informed however I’m no longer bombarded with news and updates from different channels. 

3.     Go into Do Not Disturb mode when you need to focus. During meetings or times of focus, I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ to avoid the distractions that keep me from completing a certain task.

4.     Put away your phone. Put your phone out-of-reach – perhaps in another room or in your desk drawer. Do some exercise or spend quality time with your family distraction-free.

5.     Sleep digital-free. Before you go to bed, put your phone on silent. If possible, don’t bring your phone into the bedroom – this will help you resist the urge to look at your phone before you sleep or during the night. Sleep is incredibly important to build resilience levels – much-needed in testing times.  

I hope you find these tips useful. And I hope - in the midst of the mayhem - we can all find ways to pause, slow down and show compassion toward each other.