Rebalance Your Relationship with Tech for World Mental Health Day

We all know that the way we use technology can and does have a negative impact on our mental health. With World Mental Health Day this Saturday (10th October), there has never been a better time to focus on our relationship with technology. Whether you came to this conclusion through watching an eye-opening show such as ‘The Social Dilemma‘, seeing how others use tech, or a slow realisation of your own dysfunction relationship during your tech-tethered lockdown, we all feel it. Yet few of us have the resources to deal with the impact. So, we have put together a list of resources to help you log off and mindfully connect this World Mental Health Day.

Articles

We have written many times about the impacts that the digital sphere, tech addiction and social media can have on our mental health. From the discussion on how parents can help their teenagers through this difficult time online, to advice for those teens themselves we have a huge library of articles on our website on how to prioritise your mental health. Some of our best would be:

5 ways a digital detox will benefit your mental health

Think our technology addition isn’t bad for our mental health? The evidence is overwhelming.

If those haven’t convinced you maybe our review of Mimi on a Mission: Digital Detox, will persuade you of the positive mental health benefits logging off can have- or you could watch the show!

Podcast

Our Podcast is another great place to go to this World Mental Health to gain tips for logging off and get inspired by people from all walks of life, from celebs to academics. Here are some particularly mental health-relevant episodes:

Memes and Mental Health– In this episode, the man behind the meme account @NickCaveAndTheBadMemes sat down with our founder Tanya Goodin to discuss how he uses memes and his platform to support his own mental health and that of his audience too. We reviewed this one if you want a quick overview of what was discussed, but we would recommend you give it a proper listen- it’s worth it!

And an episode about the power of technology to benefit our mental health, and in this case to create real-world connection is the interview of Yes Theory’s Thomas Brag.

A few others which touch on the subject of mental health and our relationship with the digital world include ‘Ending online abuse with Seyi Akiwowo‘, ‘Olympian Pete Reed OBE on Resilience‘, ‘Clicktivism with Athena Kugblenu‘ and ‘Making better connections with Professor Juliana Schroeder‘.

Books

Perhaps our most comprehensive resources to help you rebalance your relationship with technology are our two books: Off and Stop Staring at Screens.

Both offer practical tips to help you log off and methods of enforcing a new digital detox friendly routine. That way you can maintain your new lifestyle well beyond World Mental Health Day!

Course

Finally, our most complete resource has to be our digital wellbeing course. It launched only last month and is full of up-to-date stats, advice and tools to help you log off and improve your mental health. It includes six weeks of video, reading lists and quizzes to help you understand the reasons behind your dependence. It also includes exclusive course resources to help you on your journey, a quiz to measure your progress and much more. The course finishes with a guided two-week digital detox which you can personalise to fit your life. If you find yourself scrolling endlessly through your phone with no real purpose, anxious about logging off from work, yearning for a proper break but unable to achieve it or stressed out about other’s perfect Insta-lives this course is for you.

Whichever you choose, we hope that these resources will help you, even a little, to log off and improve your mental health and digital wellbeing this World Mental Health Day.