Stop Bringing Your Phone to the Bathroom
There are many reasons to keep your phone out of the bathroom, but protecting your phone from germs or possible falls into the toilet is secondary, although yes, don’t put your phone in your back pocket, it’s dangerous. But the real reason not to use your phone in the bathroom is mindfulness.
Since there were toilets, there have been things we read while sitting on them – books, crosswords, butts of shampoo bottles. Distracting yourself while you’re on the toilet is not new in this hyper-connected digital age.
But bringing your phone to the bathroom – reading, tweeting, playing Two Dots, or whatever – is different when you take your phone with you wherever you go. It’s not news that downtime is good for our brains . Just a few minutes here or where we’re not getting information or stimulation can give you an important break, a chance to see what’s going on in your own mind.
One way to develop mindfulness is through meditation, another is to take time to just let your mind wander. My meditation teacher actually told me about another Buddhist monk he knew who tried to spend several evenings a week doing nothing – he just drank a cup of tea, looked out the window and … let his mind do what it is. wanted to do. He saw this as an important counterbalance to the concentrated practice of meditation.
Even if you are not meditating, creating a place for silence can be very valuable. This is a chance to test yourself, to see how you feel when you are not focused on work, reading or listening. It’s just you. Perhaps for the first time in a day you notice that you are feeling anxious, or the silence will give you an opportunity to reflect on the problem that is bothering you and will bring you closer to a solution. This is unstructured mental time, and it is often rare and precious.
And in general, “look at my phone less” is difficult to implement on your own. Any goal that is so vague and devoid of boundaries is easy to miss. But the bathroom is the perfect understated aspect of your life to apply this practice gradually. (Of course, if you have digestive problems that keep you in the bathroom for a long time, I’m not going to deny you some distraction!) But try leaving your phone outside the bathroom and just sit with your thoughts. … See what they turn out to be.