Just what you need for Christmas – a digital detox

This is the time of year when people talk about “surviving” a season, followed by pressure from all sides to turn into some kind of virtuous superhero on January 1st. Advertisements about toys and turkeys are replaced with ones about gym membership and anti-smoking products. We’re meant to go all out, and then reign it all back in.

But if you want to actually relax at over Christmas, there’s one way to cut out a whole rake of pressures. By disconnecting digitally, you can get some breathing space and the two things that everyone really wants for Christmas: peace and quiet.

Here are some tips for what everyone should do at least for a short while this holiday season – a Christmas digital detox.

Get out of the office for real

An out of office on your email means you shouldn’t be checking them. There is no such thing as being out of the office any more, of course. Our office is in our pocket. For those lucky enough to have time off at Christmas, checking in with work voluntarily pulls your mind out of rest and right back into stress. Give yourself a real break.

Get off Facebook

Social media turns everything into a competition. Very few people will be posting photographs of their children screaming the house down because you forgot batteries, but there will be plenty of snaps of kids acting like angels while rifling through the contents underneath the Christmas tree. Don’t buy into the seasonal Facebook myths, and check out, not in.

Stop reading comments

Give yourself a break from anonymous opinions and arguments that activate your ire, and have a rant-free few days by picking up a newspaper where angry opinions don’t fill the end of every page.

Don’t trawl your Instagram feed

When it comes to Christmas, Instagram turns into a consumerist paradise with endless posts of fancy handbags, and gadgets that their wonderful boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or precious child has splurged on. Don’t feel bad when people post filtered pictures of wholesome Christmas walks on mountaintops, because you secretly know most people are face down in a tin of Cadbury’s Roses, they’re just not banging on about it online.

Don’t go on Twitter

Do you really need a feed of “overheard at the Christmas table” snippets, people giving out about dry turkey, or live tweeting their disappointment with RTE’s television schedule? Absolutely not. Christmas should be a time where you at least try to enjoy other people’s company in real life, not check into a network of strangers and acquaintances to see what they’re doing. Social media creates a series of pressures so successfully that eventually you too engage and add to the noise. It’s so successful at it, that people who are online most of the day get a niggling feeling of absence when they’re not fiddling with their phone, me included. But taking a breather clears the head.

Play real life games

Dump the addictive apps and get back to basics with board games. You never know when your last Christmas will be, so isn’t it better to spend it arguing with a family member over a game of chess than curling up by yourself with Candy Crush? Marginally.

Pick up a book

If not constantly digesting titbits of information online makes you jittery, take some time out with a decent book. One thing technology doesn’t really allow us is relaxation and contemplation. Disappearing into a literary world is far preferable as a method of meditation than flicking through snippets of information online. Being addled by technology is stressful and sometimes overwhelming. Sitting in silence reading, is quite the opposite.