20 Self Care Tips for Warriors of the Resistance
Shut off social media before bed
Another cure for social media exacerbated and induced anxieties in this climate – shut it off at least an hour before bed. Whether you shut down the whole phone or just turn off notifications, let yourself unwind. More often than not lately, I’ve fallen prey to laying in bed, obsessively scrolling through my frantic Twitter feed and reading article after article – and before I know it, it’s 3 a.m. (and I first crawled into bed at 10 p.m.). It makes it much harder to fall asleep and stay asleep peacefully when you’re staring at a lit up screen reading about stripped human rights and possible upcoming executive orders that are almost certainly unconstitutional.
Again, while staying aware is important – so is a healthy sleep regimen.
Studies in the past few years have proven the negative effect of social media on our sleeping patterns – such as this Medical Daily report.
"Levenson found “frequency of social media visits is a better predictor of sleep difficulty than overall time spent on social media.” Participants who visited social media throughout the week were three times more likely to have troubled sleep than those who checked their feeds less frequently. Meanwhile, those who spent the most time each day on social media were twice as likely to have problems sleeping than those who spent less time online."
We can only imagine that this political climate lately has exacerbated the stress factor – so it’s more important than ever to limit ourselves, at least for bed time. Can’t fight evil if we don’t catch those z’s, am I right?