Hobbies to try, instead of scrolling on your phone

We’re university students, sometimes we have lectures from 4-6pm, and as soon as we are told to close our laptops, we want nothing more than for our heads to hit the pillow and ‘bed-rot’ for the rest of the night. Curtains closed, wrapped under the blanket, with the only source of light glaring from the screens of our phones.

Trust me, I understand the feeling of wanting nothing more than to turn our brains off after a day of being ‘locked-in’… even if it was just for one lecture. And there’s nothing wrong with the occasional aimless scroll every now and then. However, when it reaches the point of looking forward to a full night’s sleep, only to find yourself drifting off at 3am after a longer-than-planned doom scroll, it can be hard to find yourself feeling as refreshed as planned the following morning ... here are a few hobbies to try as an alternative to the dreaded ‘doom-scroll’, and hopefully a route out of that seemingly endless cycle.

For the morning:

Romanticise it: okay… I know this can seem like a task when you barely feel like getting out of bed, but if you ease your way into this, I promise, it can make the world of difference.

Instead of immediately reaching for your socials when you wake up in the morning, try giving yourself a bit more time coming to your bearings. Set your alarm a little earlier than usual to help you take the morning slower, and find a gentle morning playlist on YouTube to play dimly in the background. Personally, depending on the weather, I alternate between an autumnal jazz café ambience or a soft, morning playlist.

By giving myself this extra 5-10 minutes in the morning, I start my day feeling like a main-character in an early 2000s teen movie. I get up slowly, brush my teeth, and do my skin-care routine at my desk with my salt lamp casting a gentle golden glow.

Credit, Joelirby @ Wikimedia Commons

Journal: this is a habit I will forever standby, and something that has helped me on numerous occasions. Checking in with yourself in the morning, whether it be a journal entry, a list of things you’re grateful for/intentions for your day, or a little self reflection to understand how you are feeling, can be such a useful tool to starting the morning more positively; setting you up for a better day.

This can help to move your energy away from the usual comparisons social media scrolling can prompt, especially first thing in the morning, and lean you more towards a self-caring habit that can not only improve your own mood but, as a result, the mood of others around you too. You might find yourself feeling more inspired, excited, or motivated for the day ahead, and through incorporating this into your morning routine I can guarantee you will start to feel more energised too.

Learn a new language: if you are really struggling to keep away from your phone in the morning, turn your scrolling habit into a DuoLingo one! What language have you been wanting to learn for the last few months? What non-English-speaking country, if any, would you want to visit/live in that would require you to learn a new language?

Spending 10-15 minutes practising new phrases and improving your grammar can set you up to feeling more productive and upbeat, rather than dosed-off and groggy. Plus, you’ll be one step closer to being able to listen into other people’s conversations abroad without them knowing you can understand…

Try some morning movement: this is hands-down one of my favourites. Whether it be some yoga, a run, a bit of stretching or a morning walk, moving your body in a way that you enjoy and makes you feel good is always a good way to keep away from the screen and stay in the present moment. Just the other day, I did a bit of stretching in the garden followed by a morning bike-ride and podcast listen; so by the time I got back and was making my breakfast, I didn’t have one desire to scroll on my social media feed. Instead, I was feeling energised and in a much more upbeat mood, ready to start my day.

Credit, Larry D. Moore @ Wikimedia Commons

Get creative: try some new breakfast recipes! What better way to stay off your phone than not have enough hands to hold it in? By spending your morning testing out different morning meals, whether it be an açai bowl or french toast, you know you have less time to spend on your phone and instead focus on whipping up something delicious. P.S. an extra motivator to stay committed to this is if you buy your ingredients all at once, and know you need to use them up before they go out of date.

For the evening:

Evening reflection: similar to the morning journalling, some reflections on your day before bed can be the perfect way to wind-down and send yourself to sleep without that blue light glaring in your eyes. I like to write down things I enjoyed the most about my day, or something positive about what I did, but you can find some prompts here to use as inspiration before your head hits the pillow.

Planning: I love planning. I’m such a planner. So if anyone ever suggests an evening planning session with a series playing in the background, I’m all in. Whether it’s planning your week, tomorrow, or even outfits for Halloween, try to make it, at least, an occasional habit – you might find it bringing you that nostalgic feeling of being excited to go to sleep so you can wake up sooner the next morning.

Experiment with dinner: yep – back again with the recipes technique! But just the same as it worked for breakfast, this can work for dinner too. And again, if you need something mind-easing in the background, put on a podcast or easy-watch show; anything that’ll keep you busy and away from that tempting scroll.

Credit, EvanProdromou @ Wikimedia Commons

Movie night: a classic option to round us off nicely. Can you ever really beat a movie night? Get your friends/housemates/flatmates together, put your phones away on charge and sit altogether under the blankets with a feel-good movie playing on the big-screen. Even if you find yourself falling asleep, or just yapping away the whole time, it can be a great alternative to getting stuck in the social-media loop; giving you the perfect remedy to falling asleep after a yummy home-cooked meal.

With all that being said…

Hopefully you found these ideas helpful, and that at least one of them will turn out to work in your favour. Although please do remember that this is not to demonise the scroll… we are all human, and sometimes we just need to be completely out of touch with the world around us. So if you do start to pick up an alternative habit, but find yourself still going back every now and then, it is genuinely nothing to beat yourself up about, but a reminder to tune in with how you are feeling and be kind to yourself - just as you would with a friend.