Photo Credit: cottonbro via www.pexels.com

Modern life revolves around a series of screens. Whether we’re working in front of our office desktop, scrolling through social media on our smartphones or at home relaxing in front of the TV, screens have become omnipresent across the world in 2020.

Whilst sitting down in front of your laptop or TV is fine for a while, consuming too much screen time can cause a litany of negative side effects. Common symptoms include strained and dry eyes, blurry vision and headaches, but that’s not all. Studies have linked high volumes of screen time with increased risks of disrupted sleep patterns, weight gain and poor posture.

None of those sound great, so it’s important we make time to get away from the screen and take a few breaks now and then.  Here are a few ways of inserting these breaks into your daily routine.

Office Admin

One of the main reasons why people say that they can’t take screen breaks is that they’re “just too busy”. Whilst it’s important to make sure you’re on top of your work, there are always jobs that can be done away from the screen in which you can still feel productive.

Office admin tasks such as changing the ink cartridge in the printer or even just organising your desk will keep you away from the screen for a few minutes whilst enabling you to complete tasks which would have needed to be done at a later date anyway.

Use an app

Whilst many of us agree screen breaks are a good idea, many of us just simply let time get away from us and forget to step away regularly. Luckily technology has come to our aid yet again, with there now being several free apps available which are dedicated to reminding us to take a break from our screens.

Most of these apps have functionality which allows you to set the number of breaks you would like to take as well as the length of these breaks. A handy tool to make sure our breaks are scheduled into our daily workflow.

Now, it is slightly ironic that another smaller screen will be reminding us to take a break from a bigger screen, but if it works then we can’t really complain!

Exercise

The health benefits of stepping away from the screen have been demonstrated above, so why not combine this time with some exercise? Committing yourself to a daily half-hour of exercise will ensure that during your lunch break you’re not stuck in front of the screen for another hour but are instead getting that body moving!

Exercise has also been proven to be good for your focus and productivity at work, so it’s not only in your personal interest to do this but your employer’s interest too!

Make the tea round

Hot drinks truly are the fuel which keeps the UK workforce running. A quick and easy way to get away from the screen which will also make you popular with your colleagues is to volunteer to do the tea round!