"Temporarily closed for spiritual maintenance."

-Unknown

How do you feel when you scroll through social media?

Do you feel inspired or dragged down?

Do you criticize people or celebrate them?

These are essential questions to ask yourself as you use social media.

Everyone has a choice when it comes to who they're following online. You might follow people who share the same goals as you or those on a completely different track. You might not agree with their life choices.

When you use social media, you're easily influenced by whoever you are friends with or following. We think of influencers as people who influence us to buy things that they advertise via social media. This is true, but your mood might also be affected by the negative things you see online.

To make things even more complicated, a lot of us are in the habit of using social media often. Maybe you check it when you first wake up, during a break, and in the evening.

Almost everyone can agree that too much social media use can harm our mood. Maybe you can even think of a specific time this happened to you.

So, I have a couple of challenges for you.

First, I want you to go through your social media accounts. See who you're following or who you're friends with. You might be following people who always seem to post things that end up annoying you. You might be following people whose views you don't agree with, and they simply make you upset.

Is it worth it to continue following those people or to stay friends with them?

You don't have to explain yourself either. It's your personal choice to be friends with people online or not. If you are more comfortable, you can even mute individual accounts on most social media platforms, so you are still technically friends with them, but you don't see their posts.

When you go through and unfollow or unfriend people, you can replace them with uplifting users or accounts.

You might find health accounts that share easy, nutritious recipes. You might find a page that shares motivational quotes a few times per day. Maybe you’ll come across a user who shares funny or cute videos. These more positive accounts can encourage you to be more positive too.

Another challenge I’d like you to try is to limit your social media time. Maybe you only let yourself on social media for 30 minutes per day. This will also free up time for you to spend with your family or pick up a new hobby or get extra sleep!

It can be helpful to do social media detoxes too. You can take just a day off or maybe a whole weekend.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

As hard as it can be to “break up” with your friends on social media, it’s worth your happiness!

Namaste,

Shelly