Houston, I cannot sleep!
One of my mentees struggled with the amount of time spent on his mobile phone. According to him, those moments were the only way to distract his brain from thinking after long journeys of work.
Curiously I often hear from the people I walk that is becoming increasingly difficult to fall asleep. I usually ask, what do you do to make it easier to protect your rest?
The replies vary from doing nothing to extremely ingenious answers, such as I watch movies in bed or play games to switch off my brain. Well, good luck with that!
Our thoughts are like water. Transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless. The substances dissolved inside or the reflections from the ambient around impact directly the coloring and the flavor.
If you prefer, what you think you become!
Now, follow me for a while. Would it make any sense to “feed” your brain with positive “nutrients” to relax and ultimately guarantee pleasant dreams? Sounds easy, right?
When the thematic of your rest and sleep arises, I usually ask the same basic questions.
How long can you be without touching by default on your mobile phone?
How many hours can you go without checking your e-mail or social media?
Are you aware of where your precious and unrepeatable life is being spent?
When was the last time you checked your screen time?
Back to my mentee, his first reaction was almost violent, even without saying a word. Then he exclaimed with difficulty – well, maybe a few hours a week, that’s it –
So I asked him how many hours to be more precise?
He stopped for a moment and inquire if he should answer right away or after thinking it trough? I replied to him that he should always answer honestly. It was a revealing moment for both. After a short silence, he shared with me his screen time.
In the last seven days, he spent 21 hours playing a game, 3 hours on facebook, 3 hours on WhatsApp, 2 hours on WordPress, 1,30 hours on Chrome, and the same on Instagram. Roughly speaking, this young man spent almost 35 hours inside his mobile phone.
I could not resist and I congratulate him on the new job he found for himself, unfortunately, without payment and a minimal contribution to help him solve the sleeping problem.
During the remaining of our session, he was quiet, I believe dealing with his thoughts and thinking about ways to change something in his life.
It is what it is, our modern civilization spends the majority of time online, that’s a fact! So you may think that anything that goes in the opposite direction must be hard or impossible to achieve. It is! You are absolutely right! To achieve a healthy life in its different dimensions requires a considerable amount of commitment, autonomy, and responsibility. Habits become the cornerstone of your life.
Why is that?
Because habits are deeply wired, by constant repetition, into our brains, making them hard to break. And when you add pleasure to them — as you have with drugs or sports, for example — the pleasure centers of the midbrain get fired up as well. It is up to you to decide what kind of habits you want to keep inside your days.
If you don’t take regular time off to revise your current moment in life it is pretty easy to drift away and end up feeling lost. If you think it can be useful for you don’t miss our next article in the 0,00Km blog. We will talk in more detail about replacing bad habits with good habits. And obviously, I will tell you how this story ended.
In the meantime, you can visit our website and discover more about our mentoring programs in 2020. Enrolment is already open, and the dates are filling in at a good pace.
The Purpose Review program will be held in three different locations this year – Via de la Plata, Via Francigena, and Costa Vicentina, apart from the individual sessions available online.
The Midlife, Parents & Kids, and Spiritual route, all programs in Co-Mentoring, also have dates and locations available.
Finally, this year, we will have a new program named Offline. During four days and three nights, you will have the opportunity to reset your counter and have a proper noise detox from everything that is limiting your progression and rest. Until then,
Keep walking with me
Joao Perre Viana
Founder of Walking Mentorship
Click on the image to check the 2020 programs