I just finished the end of my social media break last week and I wanted to do follow up on it. I have never taken a break before for various reasons, but I am so glad I did!!

First of all, I was happy to find that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I’m not joking, I was pretty much expecting to have withdrawals. That may sound dramatic, and maybe it is, but it’s the truth.

The first day was probably the hardest. I realized that the draw to my phone is more of a bad habit than a need for it. I’m so glad I took the apps off my phone because my thumb automatically opened the folder and clicked where the little blue Facebook icon always is. When I realized what I was doing I quickly put my phone back down.

While I didn’t feel a need for it, I did have to think about what else I wanted to do instead. Let’s just say my house stayed pretty tidy throughout the week!

Here’s the discovery I’m ashamed about the most – how much I ran from the stress and frustration at work. I’ve never paid attention before to how early I would gravitate towards Facebook and Instagram on a work day. My excuse was always “it’s just for a couple seconds”. Even though that’s the case, I didn’t realize how much it was breaking up my focus. I found that I did just fine without it. In fact, I found that I was better off without it at work. While you might be thinking “duh”, I honestly thought it was helping me.

Here’s what I discovered during my break

• My house stayed more clean and tidy…for the most part (I do have a 2 year old after all ;) )
• My mind was less cluttered
• I had more conversations with others
• I was more focused
• I didn’t find myself to be as stressed and frustrated while at work
• I didn’t hit the afternoon slump at 3:00 every day (this was probably the most surprising)
• I still needed to be intentional with my time and set boundaries with my phone
• Life still went on

After logging back on to Facebook for the first time after a week, it turns out I did miss some things. There were 2 baby announcements, a few friends had their wedding anniversary, and a friend’s dog passed away. Since only a week had past I was able to easily catch up on everything and it was perfectly acceptable to still comment and react to posts.

I’ve been back to using Facebook and Instagram for a week now and it’s amazing how easy it is to slip back back into some of my old habits. I’m trying to set up boundaries, such as not checking social media first thing in the morning, and limiting my time throughout the day and evening, but I’m finding that to be difficult. It’s all about being intentional.

I definitely plan on taking more breaks. My goal is the first weekend of every month, if not more often than that.

If you have never taken a break from social media, I highly urge you. It felt like a breath of fresh air!