The Life Changing Magic of Leaving Your Phone Behind

It’s 2014, and you’re in the park with your friends. You’re laughing about that dumb thing your friend just did, but no one is worried about filming it for a TikTok or even an Instagram story because those don’t even exist yet. Sure, everyone has a phone, but it’s more likely zipped in your bag than attached to your hand. You’re just fully in the moment, making a memory.

But lately, it seems we’re all more preoccupied with capturing memories on our phones than experiencing them with our eyes and letting them imprint on our brains. Capturing memories is one of life’s great joys! When we capture them with our phones, we can share them, and reference them, which is a lovely thing to do. And, we can also lose them forever as we continuously offload our memories to the cloud.

In fact, you may even be preventing yourself from actually remembering the very events you’re trying to record 😳

I recently came across this photo on Pinterest and it knocked me out. At any given moment, I can just travel into my mind palace and be sitting at my grandma’s kitchen counter, eating toast and the strawberry jam she made from scratch while she does the dishes. All because I was fully present, not losing myself inside a phone??

It got me thinking about how to be more present as an adult too. And as a digital creator, I cannot tell you how much work that is to just be fully in the moment and not worried about getting the footage! It’s absurd, I know… and it’s also my reality.

During the Slow 30 experiment that I did in July, I really began to curb the habit of reaching for my phone. I assume it will always be something I contend with, but that experiment really underscored exactly how magical it can be to leave my phone behind, leave it in another room, or turn it off altogether.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to try out the life changing magic of leaving your phone behind:

🌪 It regulates your nervous system…fast

A regulated nervous system is the closest thing to a super power in our hyperstimulated world. Stress is the number one thing that dysregulates us, knocks us off our game, and makes us behave in ways that don’t feel all that great. Constant notifications, endless scrolling, and the temptation to pick up your phone every 2 minutes create a state of overstimulation, which keeps your nervous system in a perpetual state of fight, flight, and freeze. This is why you might start scrolling and feel unable to stop, or why you can’t focus for more than 12 seconds at a time. By distancing yourself from your phone (even just for a 10 minute walk around the block!), you grant your nervous system the opportunity to downshift into a calm and restorative state.

🧠 It helps your attention span

Phones are the ultimate cock-blockers to concentration, and if you have ADHD like me, oh baby —buckle up. You’re about to unlock a power you didn’t even know you had Because many people with ADHD forget about things when there’s no visual cue, amazingly, this extends to your phone. I often leave my phone in another room or even simply slide it behind my computer and after about 10 minutes, I fully forget it and suddenly find myself sinking into a flow state. So, if you’re having trouble concentrating, give this one a try.

💓 It enhances your personal relationships

The other night, I was having dinner with my 80 year old neighbor, when our conversation stumbled into the name of a Japanese director neither of us could remember. But — as you can imagine, my 80 year old friend did not have his phone anywhere in sight (and luckily neither did I) which allowed us to stay in the conversation fully. Normally, I would have looked it up, saw I had a text from someone and poof the conversation has been derailed. But this time, no one dropped out of the moment, and the quality of that conversation was much richer because phones were completely out of sight. Sometimes it’s fun to sit on the couch and send memes back and forth with your bestie, but in general, I much prefer being fully present and making memory.

🌱 Your creativity will skyrocket

My Slow 30 experiment involved a daily commitment to Sit and Stare Time, where each morning I would leave my phone in the kitchen, wander into the living room with my coffee and just bask in the nothingness the awaited me there. Without the constant, impulsive tug to pick up my phone, I got to experience boredom for 10 or 15 minutes a day, which turns out to be one of the most beautiful ways to boost your creativity and let your mind wander. When you're not filling every free moment with the infinite scroll, your brain has room to wander, and the brain rot can become compost where you can begin growing some new ideas.

If you try any (or all) of these suggestions, I’d love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments 👇