The Power of Now
This article first published in the Scotsman Newspaper as ‘Switch off Your Anxiety and live IRL,
Thursday 2 January 2025.
Full text below…
Happy 2025! As we hurtle headlong into a new year, are you planning what you’ll do differently? If so, many of us think about what we’re going to add in to our lives – adding in exercise, healthy eating or simply getting more done.
First published 2 January 2025, Scotsman newspaper
What about if we considered what we’d like to take out instead? Sometimes we can feel stressed just trying to keep up with social media and endless news cycles. There’s information everywhere, especially online. There’s a never-endling list of articles, blog posts, products and hacks that promise to help us live better. Trying to absorb all this advice can lead to overload. To overwhelm. To not taking any action as we feel so swamped with good intentions. Or that there’s so much going wrong in the world that it’s difficult to know where to start.
As a Personal Trainer, I train a lot of new clients who want to get back into fitness but don’t know where to start. When I first started my business twenty years ago, we were blissfully free of social media and clickbait. My job was simply to teach people how to use their bodies to be fit and healthy. My job hasn’t changed. Our bodies haven’t changed. What has changed is our environment.
Switch off your phone.
Switch off your laptop.
Switch off your TV.
Switch off your tablet.
Step off the hedonic treadmill.
Switch off your anxiety and live IRL. Living in real life is an ultimate act of self-care. Defying clickbait, newsfeeds, incessant posting. Stop looking for new stuff, new posts, new profiles, new arguments. Revel in the ordinary. For everyday life is where we can find true happiness and good health.
It was a Saturday morning in late autumn when I realised I had a whole pile of domestic tasks I hadn’t even started. Dispirited by my ‘to do’ list, I started scrolling on my phone. Half an hour disappeared. Then and there I decided to switch off my phone regularly, to get more stuff done. It wasn’t a big moment, just a quiet decision that I have (generally) stuck with. And without the option of online procrastination, everything gets done.
In the Griffen Fitness studio, we switch off our phones. We do not do photos, little social media posting and instead focus on our bodies, which are tangible and real. If you are mindlessly scrolling, it is unlikely that you’re thinking about your posture, your form, what makes you human. We must look after our bodies, rather than being sucked into a black hole of an online artificial world. What could you do in a weekend without screens?
Look up from your phone and notice the skyline
Cook. Make your favourite food, unhurried.
Eat. With no screens and no distractions you can taste the flavours, enjoy the textures of food and savour the moment. Have a conversation with your nearest and dearest, and remember we all need good nutrition.
Sleep when you are tired. Without the stimulation of a blue screen, you might find yourself having numerous daytime naps. That is what a Scottish winter is all about. A two-nap day can be good, try a three-nap day for recovering from a lurgy.
Meet a friend: Arrange to meet in a café or outdoors and have a proper catch up, phones deposited in bags or pockets. According to Dr Hans Anders in his excellent book ‘The Attention Fix: How to Focus in a World That Wants to Distract You’ our smartphones are making us dumb. Really. We think less when we use a smartphone. There’s a reason why both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates restricted internet access for their young families. You can be smarter just by switching off your phone. If you don’t believe me, read the book and make your own mind up. Yes, think about it.
Exercise: to begin with it can be ‘boring’ to live less with a flashy screen that demands your attention. Switch it off and go for a walk, headphone free. You don’t need to do it all of the time but sometimes leave your phone at home. Move your body and stretch your shoulders.
Plug into Nature: technology-free, you might find yourself walking up a hill. Most trees are bare, there’s few flowers, but there is a beauty in a place resting. It will spring into life in a few short months.
Not all online content is bad. The Headspace app (and other mindfulness apps) is a great start point to try meditation. It guides you through exactly what to do. Doing nothing deliberately can be harder than you think, especially when we’re used to continually thinking and scrolling. Additionally, destressing can lower your cortisol levels. Cortisol is your stress hormone, and it’s been proven to increase your body fat around your middle. Why? Because traditionally, if we’ve been in a stressful or dangerous situation, we’d need the fuel readily available to scarper from the situation. ‘Why Zebras Don‘t Get Ulcers’ by Robert M Sapowsky is an excellent book on the effect of stress on the body.
Action for Happiness is a charity that offer online webinars on how to be happier and feel more satisfied. You don’t need to be ‘your best self - what is that even? It’s not like our selves are quantifiable. Just be your own self, without comparison.
So how do you live less online? Start by checking how much time you’re spending on your device. There should be a Digital Wellbeing option in your settings where you can see how much time you’re spending online each day. Obviously, we need to spend some time online, for banking, emails and household admin. But how long are you spending on social media and browsing the internet? Could you cut it down by half an hour each day?
Choose a time to switch off your phone, and let anyone know who needs to know. I find it useful to hide my phone out of sight, so I’m not tempted to pick it up. See if you can get your household to agree a set time without technology each weekend, even an hour to start. It can be done! Get real face time, rather than virtual.
Switching off unnecessary notifications will stop you from picking up your phone so often. No need to know whether you’ve got an email or an Instagram like. Use notifications for messages that matter, and phone calls. In addition, I use different notification sounds for different contacts and WhatsApp groups. That way you can chose when to pick up your phone.
Smartphones have a Sleep mode that you can set to come on automatically. I’ve set mine to go to greyscale after 9pm, which makes Instagram and online shopping impossible. It also tells me that it’s time to switch off technology for the day and perhaps do some floor stretches to prepare for sleep.
Be the boss of your technology, don’t let it be the boss of you. If you want to be master or mistress of your own destiny in 2025, you need to get your tools sorted. Create some time for yourself, then do something awesome.
Personal Trainer Tracy Griffen runs a private fitness studio just off Leith Walk in Edinburgh. She’s the author of two books, ‘Get Fit and Enjoy it’ and the ‘Healthy Living Yearbook.’ Find her sometimes on bluesky @tracygriffen and Instagram @griffenfitness or www.griffenfitness.com If you’d prefer, you can call / text on 07743 741088.
