The Last Hack You’ll Ever Need To Stop Wasting Time On Social Media (So You Can Finally Get A Good Night’s Sleep).

Are you addicted to social media channels or online games? I was. Here’s how I got to “have my cake” and eat it too!

Most people who know me would say that I don’t have an addictive personality.

Don’t smoke, drink to excess or gamble…

But I do have one insidious vice that used to steal my most precious possession —

MY SLEEP.

It doesn’t matter what your social media or gaming vice is — the usual suspects don’t need naming.

But the ever present thorn in my side is that cute little game — Candy Crush. Do you know it?

How could I ever be a productive, happy, and WELL-RESTED person if I spent most of the night, sometimes until 3AM playing this hypnotically engaging game?

WHAT COULD I DO?

I didn’t want to stop playing the game, because it’s cute, fun and honestly I love solving the problems on each level.

Sleeping in mornings is not an option either, because I’ve got responsibilities and having an early breakfast with the rest of the household is a mandatory start to my day.

Luckily I stumbled on the solution quite by accident and I’m going to share it here with you…

But only if you promise to give it a try, with your own insidious, sleep-depriving technology and let me know in the comments how you went.

Deal?

OK, great.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but a lot of the social channels and online games don’t display what the current time is, or if they do, it’s tiny and in a hard to see place.

This is a key ingredient to sucking you into the zombie-like state of doom-scrolling or playing endless levels in your favourite online game.

HERE’S THE HACK I’VE TESTED AND SUCCESSFULLY USED

Incorporate your sleep-stealing vice into your nightly hygiene routine.

Yes, you read that right –

YOU CAN STILL PLAY

But, you GET HELP to stop at a reasonable hour…

OK, I can sense that you’re feeling a little confused…

Let me explain in more detail by walking through what I do each evening.

MY NORMAL NIGHTLY ROUTINE IN ORDER IS:

09:00 PM

• Walk the dog

09:10 PM — 09:30 PM

• Last tidy of the living room and kitchen.
• Say goodnight to everyone.
• Bathroom activities.
• Get into bed.
• Write out list of things to do tomorrow, and review today’s progress.
• Write in my Gratitude Journal.
• Set timer on my phone for 30 minutes.
• Label the alarm — TURN OFF CANDY CRUSH AND DO WORD SEARCH NOW.
• Play Candy Crush until the alarm goes off, or until I run out of lives. (Quite often the latter!)
• When the alarm sounds and displays on the screen, I shut down my phone, get out a word search book and do a puzzle or two. Crazily it’s not as hard to do as you might think. The alarm really presses the pause button in my brain, giving me enough time to change direction.

10:30 PM

• By now I’ve wound down enough to be yawning and ready to fall peacefully asleep.

Of course, you can substitute your social media channel or game where I have Candy Crush and also substitute your preferred quiet activity (perhaps reading a book — not on a screen of course, doing sudoku, or meditating) for word search.

What do you think about that?

Do you think it’s worth trying? Or have you found an even better way?

I’d love for us to keep talking and compare notes, so that in the future, we might come up with an easy to use, repeatable solution for everyone.

Imagine if all 7 or 8 billion of us got up every morning, well-rested and ready to do the best we can for the day…

What a world that would be!!

Talk to you soon.

Helen

[Article originally published on Medium.com May 2024]

PLEASE NOTE: I’m not affiliated in any way with the online game Candy Crush. I am referring to it as my real-life example.