It is a way of not seeing oneself, because to have insight into oneself requires mental space, and all these distraction techniques are used as a way of avoiding getting close to the self.”
“People have got so used to looking for distraction that they actually cannot stand an evening with themselves. Our screens and what we use them for are all techniques of distraction, he says.
#Have a relax time how to#
The psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, believes that for many of us this deadening retreat to our screens is both a reason for and a consequence of the fact that we no longer know how to relax and enjoy ourselves. I have confused feeling brain-dead with feeling relaxed.
#Have a relax time tv#
That’s unlikely to be nourishing in any way.” Maybe that is why, after I have spent an evening staring emptily at Twitter, or dropping off in front of the TV – less Netflix and chill, more Netflix and nap – I wake up feeling as if I have eaten a load of junk food. “You can view this almost as dissociation, periods of time when your mind is so exhausted and overwhelmed it takes itself out of the situation. “Sometimes people describe not being engaged in what they’re looking at – totally zoning out, not knowing what they’ve done for the last half-hour,” she says. Kicking back in front of one screen or another does have its place, says Andrew – but it depends how you do it. The same issues come up again and again: technology, phones, work emails and social media. And it’s across the lifespan, from age 12 to 70,” she says. “I’ve noticed a rise in my practice, certainly over the last three to five years, of people finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax. The clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she sees the problem every day in her consulting room, and it is getting worse. We can’t relax with them, and we don’t know how to relax without them. We check these phones on average every 12 minutes of our waking lives, with 54% of us feeling that the devices interrupt our conversations with friends and family, and 43% of us feeling that we spend too much time online. The bottom has now dropped out of the colouring book market, with Forbes declaring it “dead” in May, and, in June last year, Headspace laid off 13 staff members.Īccording to a report by Ofcom this summer: “Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices and need a constant connection to the internet.” It found that 78% of us now own a smartphone – rising to 95% of 16- to 24-year-olds. Those of us who spent our money on these products were presumably searching for answers to some of the same questions – and many of us are still looking.
The need for some simple source of relaxation can be seen in the initial surge in popularity of the adult colouring book, as well as last year’s 13.3% increase in sales of books providing spiritual guidance on how to live in a hectic world, and the mindfulness “mega trend” seen in Headspace, the meditation app that has been downloaded more than 15m times. Elon Musk, when asked what he usually does after work, said: “Usually work more” – which does not seem to be turning out well for him. The actor Diane Keaton told More magazine: “I wouldn’t know what to do with a week off,” while the musician Gwen Stefani told Stylist that whenever she has any downtime, she feels as if she is “panicking a bit or trying to plan the next thing”.
0 kommentar(er)
