At the time of writing this article, we had just had a bit of a heat wave here in the UK. It was glorious to see the sunshine, but I do struggle to function in high temperatures. So, my afternoons were spent sitting in the garden being slow and gentle.

I did notice, however, that I found switching off hard to do, and the result was my mindless social media scrolling increased massively.

Too Much Social Media Makes Me Feel Rubbish

I don’t enjoy the way I feel from getting caught in the scroll of pointless and meaningless content. You know the stuff, those stupid fake videos which seem to sap your will to live, as you watch one after the next after the next, with no apparent control.

Honestly, I think I dropped 10 IQ points during this heat wave!

Making a Conscious Effort to Consume Less

I want to make a conscious effort to consume less, but also increase the quality of what I consume, but it’s hard to do.

Social media is built to be addictive. We can see that from being trapped in the scroll of content we don’t even enjoy consuming.

Quite often, nipping on social media to check my business account results in losing time to the addictive nature of the feed.

The less social media you have in your life, the more life you have.

What’s the solution?

I’m not totally sure yet, but I’m going to try a number of things to find one, including:

• Monitoring my time on social media to work out how bad things really are.
• Blocking my time on social media to reduce the addictive nature of social media by not allowing it to be always available to me.

I think the key in the first instance is awareness followed by adjustment.

Instead of mindlessly scrolling social media, get back to creating the life you want for yourself.

Ways to Have Greater Balance Between Social Media and Life

Here are a few suggestions I’m going to try out:

• Turn off all social media for one day a week
• Turn phone onto grey scale to make social media less appealing
• Create social media free times of the day
• Consider why you scroll too much, and focus on finding solutions for the cause

Screen off. Life on!

What’s Next?

I’ve got a couple of great articles for you to check out.

Do I Need a Digital Detox? by Emma Holmes of Rebels and Rockstars

Concerned about your children and the impact of social media? The check out Computers and Mental Health by Dandelion Training and Development.

Tell Me Your Thoughts?

• How would you rate your social media activities?
• Do you need a digital detox?
• Do you already have systems in place to give yourself regular tech breaks?

Hi, I'm Sarah... 

..astrologer, artist and life improvement enthusiast

I’m a big fan of using every tool available to create our best lives. It’s not always easy to see life’s challenges as opportunities, but as we learn to tune in to our own needs, explore our behaviours and make better future decisions, it becomes possible to craft an amazing journey for ourselves and those around us. My goal is to help you explore your own life, habits and behaviours in a way that can benefit you and those around you.

If you loved this article, then you’re going to love Cosmic Cuppa, my Monday morning motivational emails, where I share a peek behind the scenes of my own life and how I use astrology, at and self-development to explore ways to show up and be better every day. I also send a digest of my weekly blog articles every Thursday.