Every now and then you need a break from technology

Even before you are properly awake in the mornings, you start feeling around for your phone and quickly start catching up on information that you have maybe missed during the night.

What did we ever do with ourselves before internet and smartphones?

I (like a lot of you) did not grow up with internet or cellphones, it was only in my 20's and 30's that it came along. It is weird to imagine your life without it now, but we could not miss something that we did not have, so being able to receive a phone call only when you were home or writing and posting a letter and waiting a week or more for a reply, was nothing strange to us. That was life. O how things have changed...

It has been proven that spending too much time on the internet and the fast pace of our lives, can cause stress, lowered immune reactions, hormone imbalances, depression and a feeling of being burned out.

Digital media has rewired our brain and it is said that it also shortens our attention span in such a way that we are getting worse than a gold fish (no joke)

image source

This is what Microsoft discovered in a survey they did. In 2000 in the beginning of the mobile revolution, the average attention span of a person were 12 seconds and in 2015 it went down to 8 seconds.... the goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds (I am not even going to argue with this, because I know I am a scatter brain)

So this weekend we went to the bushveld for the weekend.

Close to nature and far away from technology - the signal was on and off, so nobody really bothered to try and use their phone. You could maybe make an emergency call but no way you would be able to spend time on the internet.

At first it felt strange, but soon we realised nothing will happen to us, just sit back and relax and enjoy nature, unwind and forget about the husle and bustle of daily life.

We made sure that we enjoyed everything, from the trip there (singing and having a beverage or two)- _we had a driver, _to the evenings, sitting around the fire, talking to one another, spending some quality time with life long time friends and watching the stars and forgetting about any problems or work or stress waiting for us when we get back to reality.

We were close to nature and had some visitors every morning and evening

photos taken by me

We really appreciated the time away and taking in the wonder of nature and relaxing the best we could.

Now it is home sweet home, back to reality.

What is the first thing we do after unpacking?? We grab our phones and laptops and catch up on everything we might have missed....I guess there is no getting away from it.

Technology sure makes a lot of things easier, but sometimes we just have to leave it behind and just get in touch with ourselves and the people and nature around us.

Every now and then take a break from all the things that we have to process every day and just relax.

Have a look at all the benefits there are and why it is important to 'unplug' every now and then