The smartphone is an integral part of many people's lives. Most of us cannot go a few minutes without staring at their phone's screen.
We cannot imagine a life without it, and wonder how we ever got to live without this wonderful gadget. However, it is a habit that has become commonplace everywhere and many can attest to the fact that we meet people on the street constantly glaring into their phones.
Maintaining a healthy phone habit is beneficial to you and your health. It begins with the eyes. We strain our eyes all the time staring at miniature text on screens that the phone companies have gladly agreed to make bigger with each passing model.
Please remember to blink. When looking at a screen, we subconsciously blink less. This leads to dry and red eyes, with the end result being more blurred vision.
Doctors recommend that we remember to blink, and to employ a fairly simple eye exercise to reduce eye strain. While engaged in heavy phone use, remember every 20 minutes to look away from your phone, and focus on a spot about 7 or 8 meters away for about one minute, to help the eyes cope.
We also forget to move. The smartphone can be engaging, and we often become so engrossed with it whether on social media, the web or playing games that we hunch over and forget to move.
This is unhealthy. As you exercise your eyes, exercise your body as well. Take a break half hour and walk around, be it in a room or outside, just to stretch muscles and to get the blood flowing.
People also forget that phone use is addictive. Psychologists caution against obsessive monitoring which involves constantly checking for updates to social media accounts and emails and texts.
A great way to check whether you have a problem is to see whether you can last a single day without your phone. If you use your phone for business it is understandable, although it would be beneficial to reduce the time spent on the phone.
If you cannot spend time without your phone, it may be time to seek professional help.