What Happened When I Took a Social Media Break?

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collage with image of Gretchen McIntire, candles and nature

By Gretchen McIntire
Photo of Gretchen by GhoZt Studioz Photography

I decided to try something bold this past month. I decided that for a couple of weeks I would delete my Instagram and Facebook (and messenger) and I would focus on a course that Yale offers (via Coursera) called “The Science of Well-Being”. The professor is Laurie Santos and she’s incredibly inspiring. I wanted to see if making small changes would improve my happiness. It worked!

While I plan to resume using social media, I’ll be using it a lot less.

I found myself so down on my body because of comparisons my brain would make without even realizing it. That course actually discusses the impact of social media at length.

So what did I do in the meantime?

I filled it with assignments from the course that are meant to boost happiness! I focused on meditating every single night for about ten minutes. That definitely decreased my anxiety and without any apps to scroll endlessly through I also found myself sleeping more and more deeply.

I focused heavily on gratitude and acts of kindness which are all part of the course. I definitely recommend that course to anyone looking for ways to boost their daily feeling of happiness. I found myself mixing lessons from other courses and dancing alone to get my body moving more often. I found myself reading more and making more mindful eating choices (although I still have a way to go on that).

“I honestly found this experience healing in a way because I only had my own experiences to compare things to.”

I only had my own reflection to reflect on when it came to my body and I realized that while I’m definitely a work in progress I’m pretty hard on myself with self judgement. One of the things the course talks about is discovering our signature strengths and doing that really helped me see that I have things to offer the community I hadn’t considered before.

I find it really amazing to see how just a couple of weeks of being “unplugged” can ground me.

Have you ever tried this before? What was your experience? What are ways you unwind at the end of your day? What are small things you can do to make your nighttime routine more calming?