Social Media Blackout: Well-Being Practice

Take a Break From Social Media This Week

Simple Instructions:

1. Every day this week — one day at a time — stay off of your personal social media.
2. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and any other app that you know connects you impersonally and/or anonymously to the lives and opinions of the people around you.
3. If your professional work includes managing social media, you may still continue to do that without penalty, but you’ll need to be able to draw a clear line between business and personal activity.

Watch this video for an explanation of this Well-Being Practice from Whole Life Challenge co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck.

Why Is This Practice Important?

We call it “social,” but have you ever stopped to examine whether your time online is an actual benefit to your social life? Or life in general, even?

This week’s Lifestyle Practice is not going to be an easy one for many of us. You may use social media to connect with friends, family, and other people whose opinions and experiences you value. But social media can also become a wormhole where we lose time and energy.

Consider this week’s practice to be a temporary test. Use it as an experiment to determine if social media is a positive input (or outlet) in your life. You may discover by day three that you feel a sense of relief or are generally less pressed for time. You may feel less anxious because you’re no longer reading some of the negative or stressful stories that get shared.

Or, you may indeed find you’re missing certain connections in your life. But by taking a break you’ll become more aware of the positive and negative influences of social media and decide for yourself how you want to spend your time online and how much of your time you want to spend online. Consider this week a “detox” and then decide the elements you want to reintroduce into your life in a healthy way.

And remember, as with all the 7 Daily Habits — you can choose to give up a point. So if you absolutely have to post something, post away! You’ll be doing so empowered by your new intentions and awareness, and that’s what this whole journey is about.

Michael Stanwyck

Michael Stanwyck is the co-founder of The Whole Life Challenge, an idea that developed during his seven years as a coach and gym manager at CrossFit Los Angeles.

He graduated from UCLA with a BA in philosophy as well as a degree from the Southern California School of Culinary Arts, and feels food is one of the most important parts of a life - it can nourish, heal, and bring people together.

Michael believes health and well-being are as much a state of mind as they are a state of the body, and when it comes to fitness, food, and life in general, he thinks slow is much better than fast (most of the time). Stopping regularly to examine things is the surest way to put down roots and grow.

He knows he will never be done with his own work, and believes the best thing you can do for your well-being starts with loving and working from what you’ve got right now.