Did you know that the average person spends 20 years of their life scrolling mindlessly
on social media or I just didn't say on their phone?
And this statistic just blew my mind and encouraged me to change my ways, so to speak, and
that's what today's podcast is all about.
So if you're someone who spends quite a bit of time on your phone or even with any type
of media that feels a little bit like it's overtaking your life, I don't know, that's
what I felt like.
Then this episode is for you.
I'm going to share with you exactly what I'm doing to kind of kick the habit and to
replace it with better things that serve my health.
Okay, let's get into it.
We're listening to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host Tina Stinson and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout
that shook my world.
Now I'm laying it all out.
The deep-level self-care practices and mind-set shifts that I needed that kept me healthy,
balanced, and thriving.
Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and a soul's journey to
alignment.
This is where real conversations about deep-level self-care happen.
Let's get into it.
Hey guys, welcome back to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
I am your host Tina Stinson and today we are talking about the surprising habit that's
stealing 20 years from your life and sabotaging your health.
But before I get into that, I just want to let you know.
Next week, starting on Monday, I have a 5-day, Salt Aligned Self-Care Reset.
I'm doing it over on my Patreon page.
So if you're already a paying member on the Patreon, you don't have to do anything.
It's just going to be there starting Monday.
But if you're not, you could go over there and take advantage right now.
We have the free 7-Day trial and you could join me for this reset.
This reset is for people who just work way too hard, okay?
So it's going to be a very gentle kind of self-care reset.
We're going to learn how to pause, reclaim our energy, restore energy, realign with
ourselves, and then reflect on the whole experience.
So I'm really looking forward to this experience.
So what we're going to do is every day, I'm going to do probably going to be like a short
video and then I'm going to share with you the practice for the day.
And then there's going to be a journal prompt and action step for you to move forward.
So pretty quick, simple, like the videos aren't going to be long.
I would love to have you join me.
I will put the link in the show notes for the Patreon.
All you got to do is go over there and sign up, take advantage of the 7-Day trial and
we start on Monday.
I believe Monday is, what is Monday?
Monday is the 11th, yes.
Okay, so I'll see you guys on the 11th.
Now let's get into today's episode.
Before I get started, I just want to let you know I'm recovering from a nasty signs infection.
So if I have to pause for a moment and cough my brains out, I apologize ahead of time.
I don't think that's going to happen.
I do realize that I forgot to bring a glass of water over here, so hopefully I'll be able
to get through without hacking all over you.
So this past weekend, I was really taking it easy because I had been sick for like a week,
right?
And it was just a really, it was a long haul.
And I had one coaching call last week where I actually in the middle of the call, I went
into like what I call a cough attack.
And then afterwards I lost my voice completely.
I couldn't even talk to her.
I felt very embarrassed and I felt very bad.
And so I canceled the rest of my appointments for the week.
I luckily had a guest episode that I could put out for the podcast and then I just took
it easy.
And it was really hard for me to do because I was off the week before, well, kind of off.
I'm like using little quotation marks with my finger, but I pulled the garlic the week
before with my son.
So I have a small garlic farm.
So it's a lot of work.
And I think that's probably why I got sick.
I was exposed to something and then I just worked my butt off for a couple of days and it
just knocked me out.
So I was recovering.
And I knew I had to rest, you know, this way I could get back to work and have a good week
this week.
But another reason I knew I needed to rest and be by myself was to let my voice recover.
I realized that everything I do involves my voice.
I never realized it before, but it really does.
The coaching, the recording, the meditations, the podcast, everything is my voice.
If I'm not using my voice, then I'm not working, right?
So and I'm still kind of losing it a little bit like I'm on the edge right now.
So I realized that I really had to take it easy.
And I'm not in the lie, I get so antsy when I try to do nothing.
This is just like totally a form of like people pleasing and kind of like a trauma response
that I've been stuck in my whole life.
And I'm aware of it, which is really the first step to getting out of it.
And sometimes I'm really good at taking it easy, but sometimes I just get so antsy.
I'm not really used to sitting still for so long.
And this is something, as I said, I'm actively working on when it comes to my self-care.
Sometimes when I'm doing nothing, I just allow myself to be, but sometimes I just feel so guilty.
Can anyone relate to this?
I feel like there's a lot of people here that are listening right now that can really relate
to this type of guilt.
So I spend so much of my life working hard, taking care of everyone else that it's really
hard for me to do this.
It's a struggle, but like I'll be sitting there and my mind will start to race.
It says things like, oh, you should be reading and not just reading for fun, but reading to
learn or doing some course work on like a course that you're taking.
I'm always taking some kind of a course.
I really enjoy learning, but it is also work.
Or I should be writing a meditation maybe or doing my nails or, you know, dot, dot,
dot.
And I remind myself that, yeah, there are some people that just sit there and rest.
And I know I'm wrong when I say no, no one just sits there because I actually know people
who do this easily, like easily my kids can do this.
So yeah, resting is a work in progress.
And this weekend I did a pretty good job.
I'm not going to lie.
And while I was doing my version of nothing, I listened to the Mel Robbins podcast.
See, I'm always doing something.
But I haven't listened to her podcast in a long time and she's one of my favorites.
So she's the reason I also own way too many books because she interviews a lot of authors.
And usually by the time the episode ends or even sometimes before the episode ends, I have
purchased the book almost always.
And in this latest episode, I really got hooked.
So what she did, I thought was so interesting.
She went back through all her transcripts from her episodes where she interviewed the top
health experts, which she does quite often.
She has some of the best people on.
And what they said about health habits and the goal that she had was to find the top three
things that we could do to have the biggest impact on our health.
And I was in because I'm always looking for better ways to take care of myself.
And she was promising that it's simple.
It's not something that's really hard.
It's easy to do.
It's free, right?
So it was all of these things that I could implement like today and I love stuff like that.
So if you're intrigued, you can listen to the episode.
I will put the link in the show notes.
But today, what I really want to talk about is just one of those three things, like I talked
about in the title, because it shocked me and it's scrolling.
Stay off your screens so much.
And I know that this is bad for you.
And I've definitely tried to stop before.
I'm definitely an addict, fully admitted addict of the scroll.
But I never realized it was in the top three.
That's what surprised me.
Can you believe it?
I just can't believe it.
So if you're curious about the other two, definitely go listen to the full episode.
They're very simple.
These are all simple things, but not always easy to do and easy to implement.
So the screen time thing though, it floored me because she said a couple of things that
stopped me in my tracks.
She said, "No one is going to get to the end of their life and say, 'I wish I scrolled
more.'
Totally, absolutely 100% valid, right?
Totally true."
But then she said something even more shocking to me.
And she said, "The average person will waste 20 years of their life scrolling, mindlessly
like that."
And I was like, "What?
20 years?
Oh my God.
I just couldn't believe that statistic.
I was like, that's crazy."
Now, I know not everyone is like me, but I know the majority of people are because I see
it.
And it's not just the young people.
It's older people too.
I see plenty of women in my age doing this and I am totally addicted to the scroll and completely
admit it.
Now, I don't do this one with people.
I'm not really rude.
Like, I want to be with the other person.
So I kind of just shut my phone off when I'm with people.
But at night, like, after dinner when I'm tired and I just want to like check out, oh my
God, it's so bad.
So this was a serious wake up call for me.
I consider myself a self-care expert and this is my zone of genius, my grooves.
I really love learning about new ways to care myself.
And here I am doing something that's bad for my physical, my mental, and my brain health
that I'm doing a lot of it.
I don't know how much.
Maybe at some point I'll look at my phone and I'll share it with you.
But immediately I stopped.
So I stopped on, I think it was Monday, Sunday.
Yeah, I stopped on Sunday because that's when I listened to the podcast episode immediately
stopped.
And I know it's not going to be easy because I am totally addicted and it is a dictating,
like a, a dictating, like a TikTok and Instagram and even scrolling through your email constantly
looking for like that dopamine hit that, oh, I got a new email, oh, I got a new comment,
oh, I got this, oh, whatever, you know, whatever you're looking for.
But it's definitely like a dopamine thing.
But that 20 year stat just hit me hard and I, you know, who wants to waste their life scrolling?
Not to mention most of us are always saying, oh, I don't have time, I don't have time.
Well, there you go.
You want to get 20 years return to you instantaneously.
Poof.
Stop scrolling, right?
So the hardest time for me is at night.
That's when I do it.
That's when I'm tired.
I really want to do some other things.
But what I did was I made a list of all the things that I could do instead and I decided
that if I'm really tapped out, I'll watch TV as a less resort, but I'm going to try to avoid
that too.
I don't want to just like completely switch over to watching TV.
I don't think TV is necessarily the best thing either.
So some of the things I put on my list, I'm going to share with you, are reading, you guys
know I'm a big reader.
I'm always reading at like 10 books at once, depending on what my mood is, what I'm going
to switch to.
I could do some yoga, could do some yoga, needra, meditation, art, drawing, right down some
blog ideas.
I love doing that.
Doing my hundred list and for those of you who have worked with me before, I do this with
most of my clients and inside of my programs.
And it's basically a list of just things that you want to do, a hundred things that you
want to do in your life and bring into your life.
And it's a really cool way to like get unstuck and inspired and excited again.
And it's like an ongoing list.
It's very, very, very hard to get to a hundred things.
I don't think I've ever reached a hundred things.
I think I'm in the 70s.
So working on my hundred list is fun.
And then you look through some of the old stuff you wrote and see what you did and you cross
it out and you had new ones and stuff like that.
I could journal.
I could go through my cookbooks.
I love looking through my cookbooks.
I could brush my dog, Millie, because she's a golden doodle.
And as everybody knows who has a doodle, they need to be brushed just constantly.
I could do my nails.
I could do like a spa night, take a bath, do a body scrub, face mask, all that kind of
stuff.
There's so many other things I could do.
I could also kind of lean into like connection and community, family, you know, that kind
of stuff.
So there's so many other things that I think having a list is one of the first steps that
you should take when you're trying to stop so that you could add in things that are fun,
right?
And in things that are going to kind of give you that dopamine head, it may not be so instantaneous,
but it's going to make you feel good, you know?
So add in things that you really enjoy doing.
Add in a bunch of chores, right?
So that's my list.
Another thing I'm committing to because I do go on social media for business.
So I'm going to be posting on Instagram.
It's not like my favorite thing to do, but I do like to maintain an account there because
I feel like people kind of expect you to be over there.
And so I do maintain an account there.
I too like looking at some of the pictures on Instagram, but I'm not going to spend time
doing that.
I also like communicating with my kids on Instagram.
So setting a timer is a great way not to get stuck in the scroll that mindless, you know,
where you're like, oh, it's been five minutes, but it's been two hours, that kind of like
mentality.
So setting the timer.
So I'm making the list of things that you could do instead, right?
So that you have someplace to go, something to do.
Having that stuff or those things or those opportunities readily available.
Like so if I'm going to do art, I always have my art stuff on my counter.
It looks messy, but I don't care because I could just like dive into it at any time and I love
that.
So have things readily available so that you could have fun in a moment's notice.
You can also go for a walk, right?
Depending on how you feel about walking at night, I will not go for a walk once it's dark
because there's all kinds of animals up here.
Coyotes, bears, there's, you know, there's stuff up here and I'm a security cat.
So I'm not going to be.
I know I'm not going to do that.
I could say that it sounds nice saying it out loud, but I know I'm not going to do it.
So, okay.
So it begins.
I just started and I'm not doing this for like a set number of days or a set number of months.
I'm doing this for life.
This is a lifestyle change whenever I decide to do something for my health.
It's not usually temporary.
It's usually a lifestyle change.
And if you look at it that way from the beginning, it's not like temporary.
It's going to be a lasting change that's going to have such a positive effect on my health.
So it's a lifestyle change and I'm accepting that as that's how it is.
And it's a really good way to mentally accept that this is the change you're going to make.
And I feel like when I do that to myself, I feel like I'm way more likely to succeed.
So let's talk about what happens when you give up the scroll, okay?
So what's the science behind reducing screen time and why is it worth it?
So it affects your brain and cognitive function, your health, right?
So long-term screen use fragments attention span, okay?
It weakens impulse control and reduces executive function like planning and decision making.
Now executive function is something that I see a lot of people have a problem with, okay?
Like a serious problem.
Like they can't seem to like get their laundry done or do the dishes or any of those little things.
And I have to say I never struggled laundry.
I like laundry, but I hate doing the dishes.
So I don't know if I have executive dysfunction or anything, but I hate doing the dishes.
Another thing, in kids and teens, heavy screen use like seven plus hours a day doubles the
risk of anxiety and depression.
That's crazy.
Doubles, right?
That's not take that lightly.
And let's face it, our kids learn from us, not by what we tell them to do, but what we're
actually doing in our own life.
So setting a good example is really, really important.
Now reducing screen time to under two hours a day improves your mood, your sleep, your
stress, and your focus in just three weeks.
That's it.
And that's under two hours a day.
So you're still getting two hours of screen time.
And I just feel like that's life changing.
Now it also affects your mental and emotional health.
So less screen time reduces cortisol.
Now I don't know about you, but that is one of the things I struggle with, like anxiety
and stress.
So my cortisol is usually high.
So reducing cortisol, that is like huge for me.
It eases anxiety and it lifts depressive symptoms.
It's strengthens real life connection, emotional intelligence, and empathy.
Think of all of these things and how they affect a very large portion of the population.
It's crazy to think how we're all being affected by this.
Okay.
So it's strengthens real life connection.
So if you're somebody who's having trouble making friends or connecting with other people,
this is something that you can improve just by scrolling on your phone left.
It seems so simple like it wouldn't really happen, but it's absolutely true.
Now it also affects your physical health and your sleep.
So cutting screens before bed helps melatonin production and improves REM sleep.
It improves your memory and it improves emotional regulation.
Okay.
So as a menopausal woman, anything I could do to improve my sleep, my memory, and my emotional
regulation is huge.
We all know this, right?
So less sedatory time, less time just sitting there scrolling.
It lowers the risk of obesity, right?
Not the scrolling, less time doing that.
Low is the risk of obesity, heart disease, and technic.
Nobody wants technic, right?
So why this matters?
Okay.
It matters because we have more focus, less reactivity.
Because high jack are dopamine loops and scatter your attention, reducing it restores clarity
in presence.
Okay.
Cognitive reboot without over stimulation.
And let's face it.
Like if you're scrolling on TikTok or like Facebook or Instagram, that's over stimulation.
Okay.
Without over stimulation, the brain rebuilds deep thinking pathways and better emotional
regulation.
Okay.
These are all things that I want.
I don't know about you.
Also, you could have some real rest.
Your sleep improves, your brain repair happens.
I don't know if you know this, but when you're sleeping, that's when your brain repair happens.
So your brain repair actually happens and you actually heal.
Okay.
So my plan, and maybe you want to make this your plan too, I'm taking it even further.
So I'm not going to be off Instagram completely like I said.
I use it for business and keeping in touch with my kids and, but I'm going to be limited
it just to that.
I'll set a timer because sometimes like how many times this happens to me so many times,
do you go on Instagram to do something very specific like I'm going to post something and
you get like sidetracked and then you end up scrolling for 30 minutes.
I swear to God, it happens all the time.
So I'm going to set a timer for like how long I think it's going to take me to do what
I want to do.
I'm going to do a post seriously five, 10 minutes, strictly business, no mindless scroll.
You know, I'm committing to a reducing screen time, but it's not about like untethering
from your phone.
Okay.
It's about rewiring your brain.
It's about creating space for yourself.
It's about, you know, focusing on real connection, focus and energy.
Okay.
So it's not that I'm just going to leave my phone at home all the time.
I'm just not going to be mindlessly scrolling scrolling on it all the time.
You know those moments where you're standing in line or you're waiting at a doctor's appointment.
You go right for your phone.
What can you do instead?
Can you read a book?
Can you have a little like, you know, a sketch journal with you where you could sketch a
little bit?
What can you do?
So if you've been craving like clarity, deep presence, better sleep, this might be your
most powerful reset.
Yeah, this might be what does it for you?
This will be, I think, a very interesting experiment for myself.
I'm going to be sharing more about it over on my Patreon.
I'm going to be doing like little snippets of sound bites about how it's affecting me
and some of the challenges that I have.
And I'm going to share my first challenge with you in a second.
But you can go over to my Patreon that the link will be in the show notes.
Obviously if you want to join me for the reset, definitely hop over there.
It's like, my Patreon is kind of like a self-care central.
It's like where you go when you want to start practicing self-care and you want to make
it like a regular practice.
It's a great place.
It's got a wealth of valuable tools on there that you could use instantaneously as soon
as you sign up to help yourself reduce stress and anxiety.
And just start to regain that connection with yourself.
Slow down a little bit.
So one of the challenges that I ran into was last night.
Okay, so I stopped on Sunday, so I didn't do it Sunday.
I didn't do Monday.
And so last night was Monday night.
Okay, so I was like, I really wanted to go and take talk.
I love TikTok, okay?
And that is something I do before I go to bed.
I know how bad it is.
Like I know screen time is bad.
Like I literally will sit in bed and scroll.
And I do fall asleep.
I swear to God, I do fall asleep.
And actually when I have trouble sleeping, when I scroll, I usually fall asleep.
It's kind of like people that say when they watch TV, they fall asleep.
We know it's not good for us, but it actually does help fall asleep.
So last night, yesterday I had a little too much caffeine during the day.
I was running a little tired and I had an extra cup in the afternoon.
And then last night I couldn't sleep.
That's like three o'clock in the morning.
And I was like, oh my God.
So at night, what I've been doing is I've been listening to like yoga, knee
drug meditations.
I'm taking a certification right now for yoga knee drug.
And part of that is, you know, making yoga knee drug your regular practice.
And usually I do it after my yoga practice, but I haven't been doing my yoga because I
haven't been feeling well.
So I've been doing it at night before bed.
And so that's what I did.
I listened to like three yoga knee drugs.
I listened to an astral projection meditation.
I mean, I was like deep into it.
I just couldn't fall asleep, but I'm so proud of myself because I did not scroll.
What I ended up doing is getting up.
I made a cup of decaffeinated coffee at three o'clock in the morning.
I was like kind of mimicking my morning routine because sometimes when I do this, it automatically
makes me tired and then I go to sleep.
So like when I have trouble sleeping, I just get up.
I have like some decaffe coffee.
I'll begin my morning.
I'll start like doing my reading and bed, my journaling and stuff like that.
I usually like pull cards in the morning too from like a tarot deck.
And so I started my routine.
And then I got really tired and I fell asleep, right?
So that was my first like challenging moment.
Now I do get bored sometimes like after dinner.
I'll be like really, really tired.
So I don't feel like going for a walk.
I don't feel like reading.
I don't feel like doing much because I'm so tired.
So like I said at the beginning of the podcast, if I run into this, then you know, then
I'll fall back on the TV, you know, because it's like that thing where you just want to
like sit there and zone out.
But maybe I'll watch just like a feel good movie.
And let me tell you something.
If you guys know of any feel good movies, let me know in the comments or actually there's
no comments on my podcast.
I don't know if you can comment.
But if not, you could message me on my Instagram or whatever.
If you have some good movies to recommend that are just good, feel good movies, happy ending
movies, not rom coms, just like happy movies, there's just not a lot of them.
Something seems to be a disaster movie or like some kind of like, you know, true crime thing.
And I just, I don't want to do that.
That doesn't, that doesn't help with my anxiety.
So anyway, I'm taking on recommendations from you.
So that is this week's podcast.
And as I said, how interesting is that?
Like I feel like I've been giving a gift.
I have got 20 years back from my life.
Please stop me before, you know, I was 20 years older and spent all that time scrolling.
Somebody, Mel Robbins did it for me.
So thank you, Mel Robbins.
So I hope that the 20 year statistic inspires you as much as it inspired me.
So let's get our time back, our peace back, our presence and our physical and mental health
back.
And let's be honest, who doesn't want better sleep?
Okay.
So until next week.
I love you guys and remember the reset over on the Patreon.
The link will be in the show notes.
I would love to have you join me.
It's going to be a very gentle, not time consuming, easy going reset.
And I'm looking forward to it.
Okay, guys, love you.
