It’s time to take a digital detox

Sponsor

This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Organifi.

Organifi is a line of organic superfood blends that offers plant based nutrition made with high quality ingredients. Each Organifi blend is science backed to craft the most effective doses with ingredients that are organic, free of fillers and contain less than 3g of sugar per serving. They won’t take you out of ketosis, if that’s your way of eating.

Your body is an amazing organic machine. The food we eat and drink is information for that machine. This includes adaptagens. These are compounds that balance hormones and help you deal with stress in a healthier way. If you’re feeling tired, these compounds give you a boost of energy. If you’re stressed, they help you return to a natural state of calm. They literally help you adapt to the stress of life.

This is why I’m a big fan of Organifi Green juice with essential superfoods and a clinical dose of Ashwaganda. It helps reduce stress and support healthy cortisol levels. It mixes well with water or your beverage of choice and it tastes awesome! This has become a part of my morning ritual.

Organifi offers the best tasting, high quality superfood beverages without breaking the bank. Each serving costs less than $3 per day. Easy, convenient, and cost effective.

Go to www.organifi.com/40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off your order. That's O R G A N I F I dot com forward slash 40plus and use code 40plus  for 20% off any item.

Sponsor

This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Unidragon.

As the holidays approach, you might be looking for a unique gift that will entertain and delight. Unidragon has you covered. They make high-quality wooden puzzles. But these aren’t like regular puzzles with the standard style pieces. Their unique design is something I’ve never seen before. They’re works of art.

We all know that as we age, we risk a loss of cognitive strength. But with neuroplasticity, we can train our brain and slow decline. Puzzles do just that. Plus these beautiful puzzles are something you can do with the whole family, be it your significant other or your grandchildren.

Each month, Unidragon comes out with a new design. And most of them have multiple levels of depth and difficulty. These make great gifts, but you might just enjoy buying them for yourself.

I received the medium-sized Playful Parrots puzzle. It came a beautiful wooden box. You should have seen my wife’s eyes light up when she saw it. I fully expect to buy more of the Unidragon puzzles for ourselves and our guests.

You have to check them out at unidragon.com and use the promo code 40plus to get 10% off your order. Gift-giving problem solved. That’s U N I D R A G O N dot COM and 4 0 P L U S for 10% off.

Say Hello

[00:03:54.880] – Allan

Hey, Ras. Welcome back!

[00:03:56.810] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. Yeah. Thanks.

[00:03:58.340] – Allan

It's been two whole weeks.

[00:04:00.230] – Rachel

It has. I've just had the most wonderful vacation. I feel so relaxed. I feel so refreshed. And really, my heart is just full. I really enjoyed spending so much time with my friends back where we used to live. It was just the most perfect vacation.

[00:04:14.770] – Allan

Good. We've been here. Tammy was diagnosed with dengue fever

[00:04:23.850] – Rachel

Oh, no.

[00:04:23.850] – Allan

So, she got sick. Got sick just as we were really starting to open up the bed and breakfast and got sick. Really sick, like high fevers and all kinds of weird symptoms. Went to the doctor. He said there are three types of dengue that you test for. There might be more than that, but she had two of them, so she's an overachiever when it comes to those types of things. But she went through it and she's recovered.

[00:04:50.650] – Allan

Other people we're hearing around here haven't been that lucky. They're sick for weeks and months. So she's doing okay. She's still a little fatigued, but it was just touch and go there with her fever and getting her tested. It was not Covid. She went in for the Covid test and wasn't Covid. And then she went in to the doctor a week or so later, and it was dengue fever, but she's doing better now. And so that's the good thing. But just kind of weird times you're living in a tropical paradise and then dengue fever because there's mosquitoes,there are everywhere.

[00:05:27.590] – Allan

But, yeah, that's kind of been my week. Plus, we launched the Crush the Holidays Challenge, and that's been huge fun with the daily videos and all that kind of stuff. So that's going on right now, and I'm just having a blast. I haven't really done a whole lot of new coaching with new clients or anything like that. And even though this isn't what I would call a full coaching program, it's really just sort of a group thing as we go through together. It's been fun to get back into it after taking kind of a break with my vacation and then trying to get Lulu's open.

[00:06:03.120] – Rachel

Wow. Wonderful. I'm glad to hear that the Crush the holidays is going well. It sounds like a lot of fun.

[00:06:08.520] – Allan

Yeah, it will be. It has been. We have the Panamanian holidays at the beginning of November, and then you have the American holidays, Thanksgiving and whatnot at the end of November. So there's a lot going on everywhere. But this is just a good reminder if you're falling off your track sometimes having accountability, having people around you can be a really good thing.

[00:06:32.750] – Rachel

Oh, absolutely. This is the season to get all your buddies together and make some really good health and fitness goals that you can stick to, at least through these next few months.

[00:06:42.510] – Allan

Absolutely. So, are you ready to talk about digital life? The toxic digital life?

[00:06:49.160] – Rachel

Yes. Let's do this

Episode

The other day, I got into an argument on Twitter and, well, I guess you know how that went. The thing about these things is that you never really get them to understand or believe what you believe and they'll never get you to understand or believe what they believe. Very seldom do we change anybody's mind. So show of hands who spends too much time on their phone or computer? Well, my hands raised, and maybe yours is, too for me, it's on the computer. I don't like being on my phone all that much, actually, most of the time, my phone is still plugged in at my nightstand for most of the day.

Unless I go somewhere. The only reason I have a phone at this point is for WhatsApp? It's the application we use down here to communicate and message. And really, that's the only reason I have it is I can't use WhatsApp without having a smartphone. So I have that phone and I use it for that and very seldom. And I'll use it for my sleep and things like that, which we'll talk about in a minute. But I spend very little time on the phone. I spend a great deal of time on the computer now.

Part of that, obviously, is because I work on the computer. My clients are on the computer. My podcast is on the computer. I am recording this on a computer. And so the question that you have to ask yourself is with all the digital time I have for work and the things that I need, am I spending time on there for things I don't really need? And what is that doing to my health and fitness? And maybe just maybe you could do well with a digital detox.

So first, let's talk about why this is a problem. Why what's going on on our computers can be a big problem for us. The first thing I want to talk about is our brain. Now our brain was designed to look for movement. It was designed to look for things that are out of line. And so if you look at the way most of what's going on with social media, you scroll down the page, you see images, you see videos, things that are drawing your attention, and all of that is on purpose.

If we were out in the wherever forest or in the Woods or in a jungle, movement meant that there was something going on. It meant that there was an animal. And we need to know is this animal a predator or food. And so immediately we're drawn, our attention is drawn to it, and we're focused on it, and we're looking at it now. If it's a person, we have to decide, is this a friend or a foe? Because in tribal environments, sometimes people you don't know, the others, they're dangerous.

And so we need to know if there's movement, exactly what's causing that movement. So our brain is naturally drawn to these things, video and audio and all the different things that are going on. So it's very easy to draw our attention to these things. And one thing that happens in the brain that's responsible for making that happen is a dopamine response. So we see something that's interesting. There's a dopamine response. And so getting on Facebook saying, those likes, seeing those shares, seeing everything that's going on, that interaction, that movement, that stuff is all a dopamine hit, and it's easy to get addicted to that dopamine hit and want it more and more.

Which is why people are spending so much more time on social media and social media is getting so much better at getting us in and keeping us. In fact, they want you on their platform every waking hour if they can make that happen. And I kind of think that's what meta is all about for Facebook, but I'll get into that in a minute. The second reason that this is important is it's about distraction and things are happening that really shouldn't be happening, like texting and driving, because again, those dopamine hits are coming from those dings, they're coming from those likes, they're coming from those responses, the comments many people find it very hard to set their phone down and focus on any one task.

So this can be very distracting, which takes away not just from performance, like if you're doing things with work or trying to do homework or things like that, it's quite literally taking your attention away from things that could be problematic, like driving. And then there's the problem of this distraction being basically a time suck. And what I mean by that is, I guess a good example would be I was having a conversation with a friend and she asked me if I was on Treehouse, which is an audio platform where people can get together.

There can be a forum. There can be basically kind of a group person or one person talking at a time. They can bring on guests. And so it's kind of for lack of a better word, an audio chat room. And what I found was that when I got on Treehouse, it was just a time suck. I would sit there listening to various conversations, and they could be interesting. But in reality, they weren't as valuable as I needed them to be. And they were taking me away from things that I needed to be doing.

Facebook has an algorithm that is built to keep you engaged. It's built to keep you on their site, keep you on the platform. And I think the meta thing he's working on, that Zuckerberg is working on over there at Facebook. I think it's going to be just as addictive. It reminds me a lot of Second Life, which was kind of a multiplayer game type of environment that had a lot of promise that's actually still around, but not used nearly as much as it was when it first came out.

I think he's going to basically try to marry those two things together so that the interface is a lot more inclusive, a lot more in. You're going to feel more like you're on in Another World, an automated and augmented world, and it's going to have a lot of the features that Facebook has. And I really think that's going to be kind of a scary, scary thing for a lot of people, particularly if they get sucked in and don't want to come out. So a little dystopian, but it is what it is.

It's a distraction.

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Organifi.

Organifi is a line of organic superfood blends that offers plant-based nutrition made with high-quality ingredients. Each Organifi blend is science-backed to craft the most effective doses with ingredients that are organic, free of fillers and contain less than 3g of sugar per serving.

In our 24/7 always on world, going without sleep seems to carry a badge of honor. But that’s not how your body sees it. Sleep is when all the wonderful things happen inside your body. Hormones reset, and healing and restoration happens. You know how much better you feel after a good night’s sleep. Getting good quality sleep is a priority for me

This is why I’m a big fan of Organifi Gold juice with ingredients like Tumeric, Reishi Mushroom, and ginger, it’s designed to support rest, relaxation, recovery, and repair. It’s a delicious and nutritious warm, golden tea. I use water, but you can also use milk or a milk alternative. This has become a part of my evening wind-down.

Organifi offers the best tasting, high-quality superfood beverages without breaking the bank. Each serving costs less than $3 per day. Easy, convenient, and cost-effective.

Go to www.organifi.com/40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off your order. That's O R G A N I F I dot com forward slash 40plus and use code 40plus  for 20% off any item.

Next is sleep, your computer, your phone. They all put off light and we know that blue light reduces melatonin production and melatonin is the hormone. We need to start feeling sleepy and just go to sleep. And so if you're doing anything that's limiting your melatonin production, you're not going to sleep as well.

And so getting on your computer getting on your phone is going to be a problem. And even if you're using the blue blocker glasses or using the features that now come on computers and phones to change the lighting on your computer. It's still basically going to have some you're not getting back to candlelight and sunsets and all the things that our body was used to. So there's going to be an effect. And then the other side, as we talked about the dopamine hit. But oftentimes if you get onto these platforms and you're dealing with an issue that's political or medical or this or that it's very likely.

And that's how they keep you on the platform, that there's going to be an adrenaline spike. Someone's going to post something. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, got on a Twitter site, and then immediately you realize, okay, I'm angry. I'm frustrated. My heart is racing, my head is racing. I'm no way ready to go to sleep. And so these things can be very disruptive to your sleep. And if you're having issues with sleep, the less time you spend on your phone, probably the better.

Finally, is stress. Social media strives on tribalism right now. We've just recently gone through some court cases and very strong polls by political parties on both sides of this thing. And it was just back and forth, back and forth. And you could just see if you followed enough people and you paid enough attention, the disparity, the gap in this tribalism, and what was going on around that and how stressful that was for a lot of people. And the thing about social media is because you're not sitting in a room, having a conversation with someone, it's very easy to dehumanize someone.

So when someone is discussing something with you on Facebook, unless you know them personally, very likely, they have dehumanized you and don't even think of you in the light of the way they would if they were sitting face to face with you. And that's really changed the way people communicate on social media, which can be very stressful because they're going to be amplified considerably amplified. The other thing that happens on social media is that it's seldom based on real life. People will say things, do things, post things that just aren't them.

They're living a life or they're presenting a life that's not real. So we have these filters, and I'm sure you're aware of those where you can make yourself look a little prettier, cut out some lines, do this and that I see some of them. They don't even look human anymore. But they put them out there. And so you see someone and you think, wow, they look so great. What they're doing, look at their skin. They look so great. It might not even be real. Okay. And so stressing yourself out about that can be a problem.

And then the other side is everybody feels like they're an expert. Someone will sit there and post a post. I fell off a ladder. What should I do? And everybody's trying to be their doctor put ice on it. This is bad. It's like go to a doctor, go to go to the emergency room if you need to do not try to self medicate, falling off of the ladder. But people believe they're experts. This is what they did. And that's how it's going to work. And the reality is they're not experts.

And everybody's going to chime in and you're going to hear some people say one thing and some people say another, and some of it is just quite frankly, scary and dangerous. So don't fall for that. Don't be a part of that. If you get on these things and someone's asking for help, you can tell them what your experience was. But first and foremost, get the medical attention that you need. And then there's just the trolls and the bots and the data miners. And so it's just this constant trove of people trying to egg you on, trying to cause issues, trying to get you going and also trying to steal information from you so they can steal money from you.

I just realized that social media could be a great thing, but for the most part, there is a lot more bad out there than there is good. I'm sorry, but it's just how it is. And then the final thing I want to talk about why digital detox is important is because it affects your posture. If you see people who are on their phones a lot, you'll notice, particularly while they're on their phone, their chest is collapsed, their shoulders are rounded forward and their head is craned forward.

So they're in this kind of rounded upper body thing, and most of them because they're spending so much time in that way, they're sticking. They're becoming more like that. They're having some issues with their posture. So here's a test I want you to try either. If you have a flat bench available, it works, or you can do this on the floor. But lay on a flat bench. Just lay on the flat bench and your head and your shoulders and your upper back and your lower back should your butt and your legs should all touch the bench.

There should be a slight curvature to your lower back, but everything else should naturally follow an alignment. And a lot of people you'll notice if you lay down your head doesn't necessarily want to touch that bench. That's an issue where you've been on your computer or on your phone too much. If you don't have a bench, you can do it on the floor. If you're familiar with what a snow angel is, where you lay on your back and you'd raise your arms over your head and you basically move your legs and your arms, making a circle with your arms and making kind of a triangle with your legs.

That's a snow angel. Try that on a flat floor and see how that feels. And for a lot of people, it's a little uncomfortable because your head again doesn't want to touch the floor or your feet don't want to touch the floor. And so you just see that there's some general misalignment of your body when you're trying to lay there flat. We've gotten comfortable with couches and beds and things like that to kind of remedy some of the stuff. But the reality of it is if we just spent less time on our phone, we would have better posture, we'd be taller and we'd feel better and look better.

Okay, so now the disclaimer. It is really cool to have all of the world's information at your fingertips. If you have a question how to do something, you can look it up on Google or YouTube. It saved people probably millions of dollars over time, billions of dollars over time because they're able to do things that they wouldn't otherwise know how to do, because they can look it up and they find a YouTube channel and they figure it out and then they do it themselves and they didn't have to pay somebody to do it.

It's cool to have that information at your fingertips and then being able to watch a movie or a documentary or a TV show when you want to. That's really cool. Some distractions are worth it. And so if you want to watch a good movie, watch a good movie if it's available to you 24/7, and then having access to your favorite music and podcasts, this one included, hopefully, is just one of those great things about having access to digital environments that you wouldn't normally have. If I had to mail you a CD of this episode every week.

It would be problematic for you to be a listener because we'd have to pay for the CD. We'd have to pay for the shipping and all the burning and all of it. Whereas I can post it very cost-effectively, and you have it available on your podcast or your iphone, your Android device, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's there almost immediately. And that's really cool. And then the ability to connect with people as we're getting into the holidays, you may not be able to visit everybody.

I know last year with Covett, everything was going on. A lot of people weren't visiting or able to visit family members. So we got on Zoom and we spent time with family members doing Zoom calls. And so the ability to send an email, send a text, get on a Zoom call or Facebook FaceTime. All of those are really cool technologies that we should enjoy. And so I'm not saying that you should not have a phone, you should not use it. I'm just saying we should be a little bit more careful about how we're using it and understanding when we're in a toxic usage stage and when we're using it appropriately.

Okay, so now I want to get into a little bit about how we can now make this progress. How can we get away from the toxic aspects of this and get more into the value usage of the phone and the computer and make sure we're finding the right balance for our health and fitness. Okay, the first thing is the self-awareness. So ask yourself this question. How do you feel about your phone if you're disconnected from your phone for 30 minutes? Is that a problem? If you're disconnected from your phone for ten minutes?

Is that a problem? If you feel very uncomfortable about being more than arms, reach away from your phone. Something's going on. If you find yourself on Facebook or checking your email or your text messages 10, 20, 30 times a day, you might want to consider that there's something going on there. Okay, you can do a screen time report on your phone again. When I run them. It shows me using my phone, probably somewhere between six to ten minutes per day, and most of the time that's just for me to set my alarm and turn it back off.

Maybe check out WhatsApp here and there if I'm walking around. But I spend very little time on my phone, I spend an exceptional amount of time on my computer. So doing a screen time report will give you an idea and a measurement criteria to know if you're starting your cutback and doing it right. And then think about the things that you do on Facebook and ask yourself if time was money or health or fitness. Is it worth the investment? Is it worth the time I'm trading the health benefits I could get or the fitness benefits I could get for the time I'm spending on Facebook?

An argument on Twitter is not. So just recognize that there's value to distraction. There's value to the things we're doing. But at the point, we need to do that kind of cost benefit analysis to think of where we're spending the time, because that's going to help you understand what to cut and how to cut.

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Unidragon.

As the holidays approach, you might be looking for a unique gift that will entertain and delight. Unidragon has you covered. They make high-quality wooden puzzles. But these aren’t like regular puzzles with the standard style pieces. Their unique design is something I’ve never seen before. They’re works of art.

We all know that as we age, we risk a loss of cognitive strength. But with neuroplasticity, we can train our brain and slow decline. Puzzles do just that. Plus these beautiful puzzles are something you can do with the whole family, be it your significant other or your grandchildren.

Each month, Unidragon comes out with a new design. And most of them have multiple levels of depth and difficulty. These make great gifts, but you might just enjoy buying them for yourself.

I received the medium-sized Playful Parrots puzzle. It came a beautiful wooden box. You should have seen my wife’s eyes light up when she saw it. I fully expect to buy more of the Unidragon puzzles for ourselves and our guests.

You have to check them out at unidragon.com and use the promo code 40plus to get 10% off your order. Gift-giving problem solved. That’s U N I D R A G O N dot COM and 4 0 P L U S for 10% off.

The next stage of this is to set achievable boundaries. Okay, one easy boundary that absolutely everybody should do unless there's an emergency reason or reason you need to have your phone on at night is to put your phone on airplane mode after 09:00 p.m.. That will help you sleep. You can read a book, a paper book, but make sure it's fiction, so it's not going to get you all engaged. And again, pushing up those dopamine levels and getting your brain moving. An enjoyable fiction book reading that in the evening versus being on your phone.

And if your phone's on airplane mode, the dings, the whistles, the pops, those aren't happening. So that Pavlovian Paul to get you back onto Facebook, isn't there? So consider that another easy achievable boundary is to say, I'm not going to have my phone at the table during family meals or at parties. So many times when I leave to go out with my wife, I don't even take my phone. I just leave it because she's got her phone. So if we need to call somebody, we can.

There's nowhere on this Island I can't walk. We're going to be with friends on the island, so it's not like there's anybody else that I need to have a conversation with at that point. So I just don't even take the phone. So sometimes going to dinner, sometimes going out with friends, I just leave my phone at home. I know that's a big step, but taking the step of at least not having your phone at the table during family dinners can go a long way towards having you a lot more present in the moment and a lot less distracted.

And back on Facebook, remember years and years ago when I first started seeing this was going to be a problem. I'm driving down the road and I see this truck with four guys in it and all four of them, including the driver, are looking at their phones. They're texting. And I was like, what's going on and the reality of it is we're not present most of the time. We're not here where we are, most of the time, we're spending a lot of time being somewhere else, and we need to fix that.

So set some boundaries, set some little tricks and things like that where times you're not going to use your phone and start trying to stick to that. And then from there, set a stretch goal. What I mean by that is if I say I'm going to leave my phone on airplane mode from nine on. Then I leave my phone on airplane mode, and then maybe I say as a stretch goal. I know when I get up in the morning I'm going to check emails, but then I'm going to go for my workout, my walk, maybe not taking my phone with me.

Now, I like having a music playing. I like having a podcast, but if I just said once per week or twice per week, I don't take my phone with me, and therefore I listen to everything else. I'm paying attention, I'm doing something else. And so helping to set those little time windows tighten those windows gives me more time off the platform. Now, is that going to detract from my ability to respond to important emails? No. Am I going to do it when I'm expecting an important email?

Probably not, but for the times where I know that it's not critical for me to have my phone for a personal reason or a business reason. But just because I have it, that's a good time to consider putting it on airplane mode and moving on again. We talked about the time suck things. What are the things that you're doing that really aren't adding value to your life and paying attention to those? Because there's this videos button. If you're on Facebook on the browser, there's a button for videos and everyone see it's a red light, and that's just the effect you click on that red button to basically turn it off and it opens up the videos.

And sure enough, here's highlight plays from football games or some crazy street chase or something like that. And before I know it, I've spent 1015 minutes watching that stuff. It just drew me in. Watching an incredible football play to me is really exciting. And so I'm sitting there watching these football plays again, not doing the things I should be doing because they got pulled in so kind of setting some boundaries and some stretch goals about not pushing that button. So I'm not finding myself watching those videos is another great way to have less screen time and get more done.

The next thing is to get back to nature. One of the concepts that I'm really trying to push myself on when I do my walks out is to realize I'm not going to see a sloth. If I'm looking at my phone, they're up in the trees. And so if I'm paying attention to the world around me, I'm likely to see a lot of cool things if I've got my headphones on and I'm listening to a podcast or an audiobook. I'm probably not going to hear the bird song around me, and I might miss something really cool if I'm looking at my phone, I may not see the sloth in the tree that I'm walking past.

So just recognize that if you're out and get yourself out in nature, there's going to be plenty of things to be looking for, the natural things that we usually did look for when we were in nature, living in nature. So just recognize that getting back to nature is going to help. And then one of the cool things is when you can find a place that doesn't have service. We lose service about 5 miles out from town. And since we hit that gravel road, I know I'm about to lose service.

So when we go out to dinner out there, it's like totally cool because nobody has cell phone service. So we're all hanging out talking. So it's a really cool situation. And I think I told you a few weeks ago about doing a camping trip and we were way out of cell phone signal for everybody. So people we talked, we spent more time together as together versus looking at our phones and talking about things. One downside of me not even taking my phone there because I knew that was going to be the case was I didn't get to take some pictures I would have liked to take, but a lot of my friends took some pictures, and that's cool.

But you kind of get the idea. Get out someplace where having your cell phone is less important. And I think you're going to enjoy it a lot more. And then we talked about posture. And so I want to finish up a little bit with that on the houses. If you notice that you have some posture issues. And I kind of gave you that test of laying on a bench, flying on a bench and seeing how that feels, you can also look in the mirror and see if your shoulders are slouched, your chest is collapsed or how your head aligns with your spine.

If you've got some issues there, then go get some work done, go get a massage, go see a physical therapist, and maybe even get a chiropractor to adjust you to start fixing that posture. Now, once you get your posture fixed, then you have to use that and realize, okay, I paid this person money to fix something that I broke. And do I want to go break it again? And the short answer should be no. But hopefully you're not creating a cycle of on the phone all day.

Go to a massage therapist or a chiropractor once a week. Probably not going to work out for you in the long run, financially much cheaper for you to just decide. Okay, I'm not going to spend as much time on my phone, and I'm going to do a lot more to make sure that my posture is better. And so doing the strength training exercises, particularly the physical therapist, would give you or that I could give you will help you make sure you're maintaining good posture and therefore not having those problems that come with being on your phone and on your computer too much.

So in summary, most of us are spending too much time on digital technology. We're not prioritizing our time. And so it's not really aligning with our health and fitness goals. If you're missing workouts, you're saying you don't have time, but you look on your screen time on your phone and you're spending an extra 4 hours per day on your phone. Guess what? You had time. You just prioritized differently, being on Facebook or playing words with friends or whatever the thing is, today was more important to you than your workout.

But was it so I really want you thinking about your best interest and aligning your priorities with that interest. And I don't think social media in the long run is going to be one of those priorities. And then you're looking at it. You see it if it's your posture, if it's your stress levels, if it's your sleep, you know that this is adversely affecting your health and fitness. So it's time for you to start doing something about it. Now. I had Dr. Dela Toro McNeil on not long ago, and he talked about change.

And so to do change to change this because getting away from the toxic digital stuff, you have to want it, you have to believe you can do it. And then you have to make the change. So I talked about that self awareness and putting achievable boundaries in place. And then setting stretch goals. You have to push. You have to make this change because Facebook and all the others, their job, their whole way of life is to keep you on their platform. So it's a battle. It's a battle for your time.

It's a battle for you. And so for you to win the battle, you have to be in charge of you. You have to be the boss of you. So go set good goals and make it happen.

Post Show/Recap

[00:36:53.250] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:36:54.790] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. Boy, did you open a can of worms with the digital world we all get sucked into?

[00:37:02.040] – Allan

We do. Even I do. I raised my hand. I'm just as guilty, I think, as most others, but it's one of those things. And you'll have this conversation with someone. I'll say, okay, how about you go ahead and start doing a little bit of training or you do this. And, like, there's no way they're like, I have these half hour moments in my life that I just scarf down lunch and dinner. But other than that, from six in the morning until twelve at midnight, I'm just go, go, I can never get things done.

[00:37:32.640] – Allan

And I'm like, okay, well, look at your screen time on your phone and how much time did you spend on Facebook and that kind of pause. And it's like, okay, what's your Netflix or Amazon Prime video binging like. And they're like, oh, I only do that on the weekends. I'm like, really? And they're like, okay, I might watch a couple of episodes during the week on a week night. I'm like, okay, how many week nights? Three or four. You're kind of like, okay. So the reality of it is you're spending 5 hours per week per day doing this digital stuff and you don't have time to work out.

[00:38:09.450] – Allan

So that's just a prioritization problem. I don't have time problem.

[00:38:14.790] – Rachel

Yeah. It's amazing how once you open up those apps on your phone, that time just seems to get away. You're scrolling and scrolling and you think you're just looking at it a few minutes here, a few minutes there. But that all adds up really fast. And to be honest, I haven't looked at my screen time. I think I'll have to look at that on my phone once I figure that out. But yeah, it's just so easy to get sucked into that. But you mentioned that the key is to be self aware, to be aware of how much time you're spending online.

[00:38:48.950] – Rachel

Totally important. But also, I think to be aware of what you're using social media for. And every time I hear people bashing it, I kind of just cling to it a little bit because really, social media is the only way I interact with my family. My personal Facebook page, for example, is all about family. I don't have a whole ton of friends on Facebook. I do certainly have a lot of running friends, but really, it's the easiest way for me to see my family on a regular basis because we're all spread out across the United States.

[00:39:20.960] – Rachel

So to spend less time on that part of it, I don't know.

[00:39:26.460] – Allan

Well, there are apps. There are apps that you can set. They're originally probably intended for children because you wouldn't place your child and say, okay, you can be on your phone for 2 hours or 1 hour, and then it lets them have the time the 1 hour. And if you sit down and you put it on your to do list and you know, okay, in the evening after dinner, we finished dinner by 730 from 730 to 830. Okay, I can do the Facebook. I can do those things, and then your phone will turn it off.

[00:39:58.930] – Allan

Now you can obviously go into the settings and delete that app and go back in if you needed to. But there's another app that I use that I think is wonderful. And it's called Social Fixer. And the one I have actually is like an add on extension for Chrome because I do everything on my computer. I don't really do it on the phone. And what it does is it takes your feed and it'll put it in chronological order because Facebook is going to show you everything and keep showing you everything.

[00:40:31.450] – Allan

Every time someone goes to comment on it, every time somebody does something. What this does is it puts every post in chronological order, meaning that if you posted something yesterday, I wouldn't see it unless I scroll down far enough to get through all the posts that happened today. The reason that's valuable is if you're only following people that add value to your life, you're not seeing the same post over and over and over again. And now the new comments and people what people have said and all that stuff if that's not interesting to you.

[00:41:01.880] – Allan

And there's different settings on this thing, like scrolling it. So after it Scrolls like, after 75 posts, it just stops the feed. So it's not an infinite feed. I get down to 75 posts. I realize I've already been on here way too long because I've worked through 75 posts on Facebook. And at that point, I'm like, Is it really worth me going any further to see any more?

[00:41:27.510] – Allan

And it also lets you eliminate certain posts that you don't want to see so you can click on and say you don't want to see any political posts. It does a fairly good job of going through and saying, if someone says something uses like, I hate to say it, but I put the word Biden. I put word Trump in there. If someone puts that in one of their posts, I don't even see it.

[00:41:47.400] – Rachel

Oh, I like that.

[00:41:51.310] – Allan

I can eliminate most of that stuff. And now what I'm seeing is exactly what you said. It's my friends and family, clients, people I care about it's, what they're posting out there. And I'll get out there in the morning, spend a little bit of time. But every day my wife is like, “did you see this post?” No. Sure didn't. I haven't been out there. And I think that's part of it is once you start cutting into that addictive algorithm thing that's going on, then suddenly you just realize it's like, okay, I've seen the post from my mom posted, the ‘rescue the cat' posts, or most of what she does on Facebook.

[00:42:27.610] – Allan

I've seen what my sister posted, and those can go from very good to psychotic. And then I see what my wife posted, and after my daughters and our sons. And after that, I'm kind of like, okay, what's this next layer of time I'm going to invest in doing this. And once you start doing that, it's like, you want to spend less and less time out there.

[00:42:49.230] – Rachel

Absolutely.

[00:42:49.790] – Allan

And then what I found is that I can get the messenger app on my computer. And if I want to do, then I just focus on messengers. If I want to see what's going on with my daughter, I message her, “hey, what's going on?” My mom, “what's going on?” I don't have to get on Facebook. It's just like a separate little app, and it's on my desktop. So I'm not even on Facebook. If I need to message and talk to somebody.

[00:43:10.010] – Rachel

Oh, absolutely.

[00:43:11.130] – Allan

If you want to get in touch with me, messenger is probably the best way to do it if you're not on WhatsApp? But those are the two messaging apps that I have open all the time, so I don't have to be on Facebook to do what I do.

[00:43:23.400] – Rachel

That's nice. That's really nice. I think it's important for everybody to take a minute and determine what they want to get out of social media. And like you had mentioned, set a priority as to how much time you want to spend there? And is it really taking into account whether or not it's really worth that time? Are you getting out of it as much as you are thinking you are? Or is it all those constant dopamine hits like you had mentioned the likes and the follows and the shares and all that nonsense.

[00:43:52.210] – Rachel

I think like you had mentioned asking yourself if the digital world is somehow better than the real world and to really determine whether it is or not.

[00:44:07.590] – Allan

Yeah. And unequivocally, it is not.

[00:44:15.470] – Rachel

No.

[00:44:15.470] – Allan

There's no decision there, no real decision. To say you'd rather spend time chatting with people on Facebook than actually sit down with them in person.

[00:44:23.370] – Rachel

Right.

[00:44:25.550] – Allan

I get it. You can't be in your pajamas or in your boxers or wearing your comfy clothes if you're going to go out and spend time with your friends and your family, but at the same time, it's not better. It's in no way better.

[00:44:38.740] – Rachel

Well, you mentioned taking a walk and getting back into nature, and I spend a lot of time outside running, and Mike and I do a lot of races outside with our friends, and we don't always get pictures of what we're doing. We don't always post every training run or what's going on, but we do get a lot of value of just being outside. And in fact, on this vacation, I rarely took my phone out.

[00:45:03.390] – Rachel

I just wanted to make sure everything was safe at home with the kids. But other than that, we spent a lot of time out and about, and I didn't even bother looking at my phone, and it was really relaxing. It was just a peaceful, relaxing vacation, and I'm sure that's part of it.

[00:45:19.920] – Allan

Good. All right. Well, I guess, Rachel, that's it for today. I'll talk to you next week.

[00:45:25.890] – Rachel

All right. Take care.

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