You’ve worked on your physical health and your mental health, now it’s time to focus on your digital health too. After 18 months of dependence on tech, psychotherapist Zoë Aston guides you through how to develop a healthy, reasonable relationship with your screens
There comes a turning point in anything where what we once thought was unabashedly good or bad has to be viewed in subtler shades: technology, it seems, is the latest to face this bind. In 2020 we’ve become entirely dependent on tech, both overtly and covertly, to live any semblance of a normal life. Technology can no longer be seen as the enemy of society, but it also can’t be seen as an absolute boon. Now, after a year of maximising our screen time and reconsidering what it means to live via video call, we need to look at a more nuanced view: we need to consider our digital health.
While previously the way we talked about technology was about either using it or detoxing from it, having it on or having it off, such absolutes are not always possible (and, in many ways, never were). Just as physical health and mental health have entered mainstream conversation – and we have come to understand there is no panacea for all people all the time – the way we talk about our digital hygiene is in need of changing. Or so, at least, Zoë Aston thinks.
A psychotherapist and mental health consultant who has worked with some of the country’s top companies and gyms as a mental health expert, Aston is now working with Microsoft Windows to come up with new ways for a tech company to make sure it promotes healthy use of its product.
While we’ve previously spoken to experts about how to have a healthy relationship between social media and mental health, Aston wants us all to reconsider the good and bad things about our relationships with technology at large after the year that was and what we start doing going forward. Below are some of the steps she suggests taking to make sure you, your tech and the people contacting you via your tech all find a healthy balance.
What is digital health?
Digital health is an efficient and balanced approach to wellbeing within how we use our technology. Over the past year, technology has been the saving grace for most of our wellbeing needs. We have learned to use it for connection, we have learned to use it for exercise, we have learned to use it to get our very basic human needs met. Quite frankly, it was the saving grace for lots of people who were isolating on their own. So, knowing how to use your tech to support your mental and physical health is going to be a fundamental foundation to life going forward. We used to do digital detoxes and tried to manage it as a separate entity from mental and physical health. And, basically, that is not really an option anymore.
Ten years ago, we looked at our relationship with technology as something that was optional. It’s no longer optional; we have to be connected. We’ve never been taught how to manage our digital health before.
Make technology work for you
Like mental health, like physical health, like sleep, like nutrition, like everything we do to look after ourselves, everyone is slightly different and forcing yourself into the stencil that someone else does doesn’t work. In fact, it does our self-esteem no good because we start to tell ourselves, “This isn’t working for me. There must be something wrong with me.”
Making technology work for you means that it’s not necessarily about “on” or “off” anymore. It’s about figuring out where your middle ground is, where your balance is. I always say with health there is a large area of normal, so people might feel more comfortable at different levels. Ask yourself on a daily basis: how much energy do I have? How connected do I feel to the people that matter to me and to my work colleagues and to friends and to my family? How relaxed do I feel? And how do I want to harness that during the day? If you answer those questions on a scale of one to ten, you get a really clear answer as to where you are.
Digital boundaries
I am always talking about boundaries in terms of mental health, but we haven’t thought enough about what digital boundaries look like before now. How do you use your tech for work? How do you use it for play? How do you use it to relax? How do you use it to be productive? How do you separate those things?
One of the problems we’re having at the moment is that working from home there’s no distinction. So, the workday seems to go on forever, unless you have digital boundaries. So especially for people who are working from their living room or from their kitchen, you have to have something in place that tells you, “OK, now’s the time that you transition from work into your evening” so that your sleep hygiene is still looked after, so that your relationships are still looked after, so that your mental health stays in really good shape.
Having different desktops is a feature that you can use. You can also make sure that you are using things such as Night Light (a Microsoft Windows feature that alters colour temperature to help sleep after sitting in front of a screen), which is a really good tool to help people transition.
Keep a digital diary
Keep a diary of your digital habits like you would keep a food diary or exercise diary. This is an opportunity for people to really start to notice what their digital diet is. Humans are like computers, we have processes: sometimes they run, and we know about them and sometimes we don’t know about them. The digital diary helps people become aware of the things that they do in their digital lives and whether it’s helpful or unhelpful to them, whether it’s something that they want to change or not.
When I’m working with clients in therapy, it’s always about getting people to a place where they have choice. So, this digital diary absolutely provides that for people who use it. And I suggest that people do it for a couple of weeks to really get a handle on their daily or weekly patterns. It also allows people to understand the emotional response to how they use their tech.
Move your body
Think about your digital life and your physical life as one. What you do in one benefits the other. I’m really into exercise and I find that it really helps me process. Often there will be something that I’m stuck on, and I walk around the block or go for a run, move my body, and then I’ll come back to my work and I will have just cleared the dust out and I’m much more productive.
Creativity
One of the things that lockdown has robbed us of is inspiration. Microsoft Windows did some research that actually proves that people – young people, in particular – have been finding creative ways of using technology to bring that back into their lives. The brain is hardwired for growth and the lockdown fatigue that we were getting was all about the fact that our brains were not being fed what we needed to be feeding them.
Normally we’re out and about, we see people, we see things and we get inspiration and motivation from things and that just wasn’t available. But with tech there are lots of ways to have fun and unlock your imagination and be more creative.
Make sure other people understand your boundaries
Boundaries are a fundamental thing to looking after your mental health, so ultimately, it’s our responsibility to stick to them. When you enforce that boundary, we have to do it out of an act of self-care and self-love. If you, do it out of a fear-based place, or a place where you’re trying to create space within the connections that you’re making, that is more difficult to stick to. But if you know that you are setting that boundary because it is good for you, because it is going to harness and empower you to use your technology for good, then there is no reason why other people should be allowed to “make you” cross that boundary. But it’s all about what’s going on on the inside of the person.
When I do digital consultations with people or look at people’s digital diaries, I’m interested in what feelings this brings up. When you change that habit, when you make that transition, what is your emotional response to that? Because our digital lives are as unique as our fingerprints and when we change that we are fundamentally shifting something that we are very, very attached to. Being able to understand our attachments to our habits, being able to understand our attachments to the ideas that society gives us about how available we have to be, brings up emotions.
With boundaries – and I say this across the board with boundaries – the hardest part of setting a boundary is holding it, because that is where you have all those uncomfortable feelings. Just because we’re talking about digital health and our virtual lives doesn’t mean that the boundaries are any less real. This is what’s happening now, so the boundaries are as real as if you were saying to someone, “Please can you stay two metres away from me.”
Appreciate the good habits you’ve cultivated
The main thing for me as a therapist is that we have learned to communicate and connect with each other better. We’ve also learned the difference between communication and connection. If we’re emailing work colleagues, we’re communicating. If we are putting out an olive branch to someone who we haven’t spoken to in a while, or someone we wanted to check on because we know they might not be handling the lockdown as well as maybe we are or someone else is, then that’s more of a connection.
I also think one of the good habits that has come out of 2020 is being able to use your tech for more exciting things than work. Technology is no longer just about working; it’s about being able to actually get a bit of excitement into your life as well.
I know that lots of people have had morning routines that have transitioned them into their tech, but let’s face it, we wake up with alarms and as soon as we’re awake we are attached to our technology. So, I think being able to know what you need to do in between transition periods, whether that is moving your body, having your breakfast, looking after yourself in other ways, is also a really good habit to get into, so that you’re not just straight on to scrolling through social media or doing something that’s not particularly helpful.
Lockdown allowed us to see very clearly what our bad digital habits were, because we really felt it. It wasn’t like we could just get up and walk away and say, “This isn’t good for me.” We really felt the consequences of a negative relationship with technology, which forced lots of people to change what they were doing. And so, I think there’ll be lots of good things that come out of this year in terms of digital health.
How to practice digital health if you’re in full isolation
It varies slightly depending on age groups. The elderly need more help with their technology because they haven’t grown up quite as in sync with it. If you’ve got older people in your life, offer help, because often they’re a bit embarrassed to ask about it or they get frustrated with it very quickly. But they are also most likely to be in isolation, as are single millennials in their thirties.
Belonging is one of a human being’s basic needs. For those people who are in true isolation, that need basically gets stopped. That is where mental health declines happen and that is where we start to see symptoms of depression and anxiety, particularly in the winter. That might not necessarily mean sitting down and having a full-on Teams meeting with loads of people or having a formal conversation with someone. Have someone on your Skype while you’re cooking dinner, have someone chatting with you while you’re getting ready to read your book. You could even have someone on your computer as you do a bit of mindfulness together or do a workout together.
Don’t see the connection thing as having to give energy and sit and have conversations, but actually make it part of your company in your home. Being alone for that length of time is devastating for anyone; even the most introverted people need a little bit of connection.
How to practice digital health if you work unusual or erratic hours
Often for people who work shifts, their mental health suffers because of the randomness of their timing, as the body clock doesn’t quite know what it’s doing. So, if you can use your technology to enforce that in some way, that’s actually a really good thing for your health. It also means that, say, for example, you’ve got kids and you’re working nine-to-five one day and then two days later you’re working 11pm to 4am, you’re still going to be able to know exactly what’s going on, how to reach them. The calendar syncs, the emails sync, the text messages are synced, so that if there is a big change, a dramatic adjustment in your timings, you’re still able to stay on top of things via your phone or your Surface or your PC.
Structure is something that we really enjoy in life. With technology you can import that structure into whatever places you can. And we’re all about empowering people with their technology. Use your tech to give you the structure and the routine that you lack.
