The waiting game
Week 1: Let's get distance from screens
Dear community,
Happy new year, and a big welcome to anyone who’s new here — we are thrilled to have you here. As always, if you have any questions for me to investigate or ideas for ways to co-build this space, please reply to this email to reach our team directly.
This year, on top of our regular columns, here are some new things to look out for:
You’ll get this newsletter on (hump day) Wednesdays, with the occasional external podcast appearance or op-ed published on other days; this will allow us to try on the week’s well-being nudge during the week and upcoming weekend
In tandem with each week’s behavioral nudge, we’ll rely on community-only chats (closed to the public) for real-time support and to trouble-shoot challenges on our well-being journeys — you can join the conversations here
Season 2 of Spread the light with Dr Devika B will expand on the individual well-being lessons we featured in Season 1 by spotlighting systemic approaches
There’s a new way to take part in this community called a Founding Membership: join at this tier to avail of a 1:1 hourlong coaching or mentorship session with me
Our unhurried presence is the best gift we can give others and ourselves. And for many of us, screens can steal this presence in ways that are insidious and sometimes outside our conscious grasp.
We don’t even have to engage with our screens directly for this to happen: Just having a phone nearby can siphon off attention, working memory, and other valuable cognitive resources. In one experiment, having a phone visible on the table, even when switched off, led to lower attention and speed on a test.
For our screen-free prompts, we’ll channel and resurrect our inner 90s beings — when we rocked to mixed tapes, indulged imaginative play, and had hours-long in-person conversations — and were much better at living in the moment. Ready to get started?
Here’s this week’s challenge:
Keep your phone out of view when you stand in line to wait for anything and leave it behind when you head to the bathroom.
Use those precious minutes instead to be present — noticing what’s happening around you or inside you. What can you discover that may otherwise have eluded you?
This sounds simple. But I promise you, for us habitual phone dwellers, our fingers and brains will itch to engage our screens during these ‘in between’ moments. And this prompt will feel challenging.
As we practice this, I encourage you to reflect on the following questions, and to share your journey with us in the comments and community chat:
How hard was this for you?
When you were successful, what helped?
What did this open up for you? Did it nudge you to feel more present and connected?
Wishing you light and more screen-free presence,
Dr Devika Bhushan
This is my New Year’s resolution - to lower screen time. I have found that lowering the brightness on my phone seems to reduce my overall screen time. Seems to dampen the experience and reinforcement