Upworthy's book GOOD PEOPLE, now available - take a look!

Shop
 Explore 

distraction

Family

A meditation teacher’s 5 tips for breaking your screen addiction once and for all.

We’re all internet addicts. Here's how we can get clean.

I first realized I was a junkie during a meditation retreat in the California desert.

It was a silent retreat, so we turned in our phones and pledged not to speak for 10 days. Every morning, we walked to the dining hall just as the sun crested the mountains, and I paused for a few minutes to enjoy the sunrise. It was one of the highlights of my day — drinking in the beauty of the desert with no sense of hurry and nowhere I needed to be.

Image via iStock.

On the final morning, the retreat leaders announced that we could pick up our phones in the dining hall. As always, we walked to the hall just as the sun was rising. I glanced at the desert sunrise, gorgeous as ever ... then thought, “%*@$ it” and speed-walked to the dining hall to reunite with my phone. I mean, I might have texts!

As I hurried along, trading the glory of the desert sky for the chance to hunch over a tiny screen, it hit me: I was a junkie. And seeing my fellow retreat-ants trot alongside me with eager looks on their faces, I realized I wasn’t the only one.

Smartphones are amazing — I barely remember life before the poop emoji — but it’s time to admit that we have a bit of a problem.

Think about the last time you had dinner with a friend, and she got up to go to the bathroom. Be honest: Did you reach for your phone? Was there something specific you needed to look at, or was it just a reflex?

Most of us are addicted to distraction.

It's as if going a single second without something to occupy our minds would be intolerable. There's a compulsion to fill the empty space with something to read, watch, listen to, eat, etc.

This is a very old human problem. Scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal nailed it back in the 17th century: "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone."

There’s no denying that the internet, especially our phones, have made the problem worse.

Photo via iStock.

We sit on the subway and play Candy Crush, which might be the biggest waste of time ever invented. We procrastinate on Facebook when our work gets a tiny bit boring. We scroll through Instagram while ignoring the friends we’re with. We leave Netflix on in the background while we try to fall asleep.

There’s a desperate quality to the way we binge on distractions, too.

We're so scared of a content-free moment that we maintain a frenzy of activity to stave it off. It's agitating and exhausting, but we've gotten so used to living this way that we barely notice.

How do we quit our addictions?

As a meditation teacher, I often teach the simple practice of non-distraction as a way to meditate: being quietly where you are, without reaching for some distraction or entertainment to fill the quiet.

This isn’t a complex technique; you just notice when the urge arises to do something and politely say, "No, thank you."

Here are five ways to practice this in your daily life:

1. The next time you take the subway, try not to pull out your phone, a book, or any other distraction from the time you board until you reach the next stop.

Instead, you might rest your attention gently on the sensation of breathing, observe the people around you, or do nothing in particular. See what it feels like to go just one stop with nothing to fill the moment.

This could be you someday, riding a packed train with joy and zen. Image via Anita Tung, used with permission.

While you're playing with this, the urge to do something might bubble up. That's OK. You can treat that as just one more interesting thing to observe.

2. When you need to walk somewhere, experiment with leaving your headphones in your pocket.

Decide not to listen to music or podcasts. Don't look at your phone. Enjoy the simplicity of walking without distractions.

3. Let's keep it real: You probably read on the toilet.

I'm not judging, but there are compelling reasons not to do this:

Hygiene
Risk of dropping phone in toilet
It's gross (see point 1)
Opportunity to practice non-distraction

So maybe try declaring your bathroom a non-reading zone...

4. Make your morning device-free.

Try staying away from your phone and computer until after you’ve washed up and eaten breakfast. You’ll start your morning in a mindful place and set a solid precedent for your day.

Pro tip: Put your phone on airplane mode the night before. That way, if you need to briefly use your phone (to check the time or the weather or something), you won’t get hit with a zillion notifications.

5. Speaking of notifications, do you really need to hear about it every time someone Snap-grams your Yik Yak? (I’m old.)

It’s hard enough to keep our noses out of our phones without them actively interrupting us to say, “Hey, look at me.” I’ve found it helpful to consider what notifications I could do without and then turn those off.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how anxious do those unread notifications make you feel? Photo via iStock.

I still get notifications for texts (of course) and for Twitter replies, but I turned off my email and Facebook notifications. It works for me.

Practicing non-distraction can be deeply rewarding, but it's not always fun.

Sometimes it feels pleasant and peaceful, so it's easy to stick with. Other times, your mind might feel twitchy, and resting in the quiet of the moment is a challenge. My suggestion: Do it anyway. The freedom you’ll discover is worth the slight effort involved.

Freedom doesn't advertise itself as strongly as distraction does, but it has far more to offer.

By letting go of distraction, we discover that a content-free moment is something to savor, not something to fear. When we drop the exhausting effort to fill every moment, we don't tumble into some hideous void.

Photo via iStock.

Instead, we might find simple contentment waiting under all the noise: a sense of being fundamentally OK.

From Your Site Articles

Where you're going doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Maybe you should just go.

Lately, I’ve been hearing from lots of friends who are struggling to make the right decisions.

“I want to write a book but I don’t know where to start.” “I’d love to quit my job, but what would I do?” “I’ve always wanted to travel but can’t find the time.”

In a way, they’re all saying the same thing: They’re scared and stuck.

All photos via iStock.

But here’s what I know: 30 years from now, you won’t remember what cereal you chose at the grocery store. On your deathbed, you won’t care which vacation cruise package you picked. You won’t recall whether you chose to see the romantic comedy or the action adventure movie (unless, of course, it’s another "Die Hard" movie — those are great).

None of these things will have mattered. What will matter is that you acted, that you made a contribution, and that you decided to do something. Or that you didn’t.

The fact is, most decisions aren’t life-changers.

The universe doesn’t care what you have for breakfast, but chances are you will eat something. Certainly, some people would say you’d be better off eating eggs than Pop-Tarts (unless, of course, we’re talking brown sugar Pop-Tarts — those things are divine). So it’s not that all decisions are equal — they aren’t — it’s that most of the time, you just need to decide to do something.

Often the decisions are just about whether to act or not. And this is the very thing most of us are afraid of doing. We waste time writing up plans and setting goals that never get done. We worry about doing the wrong thing and obsess over inconsequential details. And, sadly, we sometimes end up squandering the most important moments of our lives because we’re afraid to just do something.

For me and plenty of people I talk to, a lot of the planning is basically just stalling.

Hiding. Another way to stay stuck. So what’s the solution? What’s the answer to this paralysis we sometimes feel?

I’m not anti-planning, but sometimes you just need to start. Life is a journey, not a business plan. What would happen if you quit trying to control things? I know, it sounds sort of grand, doesn’t it? But do you want to plan your life away or live it? Let go and live the story.

Where you’re going doesn’t matter as much as you think it does, either. Just go. More often than not, you just need to move in a direction, not the direction. Stop worrying too much about which way to go and just get going.

A friend of mine calls this “the bicycle principle.”

He means that it’s easier to make changes in life once you’re moving. Just as with riding a bike, you can steer more easily the faster you’re going. And conversely, if you’re not moving and you try to steer, you’ll probably fall down.

Isn’t it interesting that failure usually happens not when we move too quickly, but too slowly? So just start pedaling and see where you end up. Where you are is nowhere near as final as it seems.

If this whole bicycle thing challenges the very fibers of your being, try any (or all) of the following:

1. Go for a jog or a bike ride to nowhere in particular.

Just start moving in hopes of leaving the familiar. Turn down every random street or path you can find until you get lost. Don’t worry about how you’ll get back. Then, see where you end up. You’ll make it back alive — I promise — and you just might be surprised where it takes you.

Remember what it feels like to wonder where you’re going. Do you recall the resistance to just get moving in the first place? Make an effort to get lost more often. It’ll make you better at overcoming that initial stall you experience every time you have to make a decision, big or small.

2. Sit outside without any technology for a full hour.

Let yourself get bored and see where the boredom takes you. Can you hear the birds chirping? The wind blowing? Yourself breathing? Pay attention to the cars or kids or sounds of insects in the background. Count the noises you recognize and imagine where they’re coming from. Bonus points for journaling about this and sharing it with someone.

Try to do this once a week, then every other day, then every day. One of the reasons we struggle to make better decisions is because we keep getting distracted with new things. Distraction is antithetical to decisiveness. Giving yourself a break from the noise will help you tune into the choices you need to make.

3. Do something that scares you.

Apply for a job. Tell someone you love them. Ask your neighbor on a date. Laugh out loud in a public place. Deliver a speech to a stranger. Climb a tree. Call someone you have a grudge against and apologize.

When you do this, pay attention to the release of fear you feel. Remember that feeling the next time you feel intimidated by a big goal or a risky situation. Remember that you didn’t die. And try to trust the process in the future.

Some of these things may seem silly, but the more you do them, the more in control you’ll feel.

The truth is that we can’t plan life, but we can participate in it. The things that seem uncontrollable are more in your grasp than you realize. Just remember:

It’s not about the destination. It’s about the direction.

If you don’t know what to do with your life — what book to write, what song to sing, what job to choose, which person to ask out — just try picking something. It’s not a fail-proof solution, but it ain’t a bad place to start. Because the truth is once you start moving, you can always change directions.