How one day with no smartphone changed my life

I had grown used to pulling my phone out on the church lawn while my daughters played, telling myself I was being efficient. The reasons came quickly: check the grocery order, reply to a text, see the weather. Cutting the device out of my life for 24 hours revealed those justifications as deceptions, and after the experiment I could no longer recognize the person who believed constant connectivity served her best interests.

I began with a 12-hour fast, moving my phone to the kitchen overnight with my husband’s agreement and following advice to put it on do-not-disturb while leaving the ringer on for a favorite contact. Without the usual bedtime meditation on my phone, I drifted off and woke feeling lighter and more refreshed.

Buoyed by that, I extended the break to a full day, tucking phones into a zippered pouch and stepping out without habitual checks. The urge to consult the phone came often at first, so I carried a notebook as a guard against the checking reflex. Each time, the task I imagined turned out not to be urgent.

smartphone, digital detox, phone fast, screen time, do-not-disturb, checking reflex, mindfulness, sleep quality, notebook, parenting