Making it through a screen-free week

As part of NextGen MilSpouse’s Make 2016 Your Bitch Challenge week nine was having a week of no screen evenings. Full disclosure: I wrote the article and took it on as a personal challenge since I may have a problem with FOMO and screen addiction. So James and I started our no screen week and here’s what we did…

I participated in the NextGen MilSpouse weekly podcast to talk about going screen-free. Let's just say this: the struggle was real. Listen now: http://bit.ly/1LLY5Kr
I participated in the NextGen MilSpouse weekly podcast to talk about going screen-free. Let’s just say this: the struggle was real. Listen now: http://bit.ly/1LLY5Kr

Day 1: We started a bit late because we had run a few errands and got home later than planned. We spent the evening sitting on the couch reading our respective books, one of us (not me) may have fallen asleep. Then we went to bed early. It was really relaxing.

Day 2: We spent the first 30-45 minutes hanging up pictures and art throughout our new home. We didn’t get to everything but we got a lot up which is making it feel more like our space. Then we made Shamrock Shakes at home, aka Milk Chocolate Chip Milkshakes, and played a few rounds of Scattergories before heading to bed. It was super fun! And we were able to talk more than I would say we do on a normal night.

Day 3: I started off the night opening up my coloring book for the first time in months. Then I baked brownies (because yes) and read some more of the book I’ve been reading the last few weeks. My husband spent the night playing the guitar, helping me make the brownies, and reading. All in all we had a relaxing evening.

Day 4: We had an event for the Fort Hood Spouses Club – their Wild West Night – which was a blast! We did take our phones out a few times to take photos, but overall, we unplugged and talked to friends and hung out. We also got caught up on some podcasts while driving to and from the event!

Day 5: This was effectively our last day (it was Saturday). We went out to dinner with friends at this awesome seafood restaurant near us. And when I say seafood, I mean a relaxed cajun/asian inspired place where we ordered 2 pounds of crawfish, friend shrimp and catfish, and oysters by the dozen. Sure there was a bit of screen time here and there but mostly we were catching up with our friends and eating more than we should have in seafood. I ended the night with a relaxing bath and my book.

Overall, we enjoyed going screen free. No we didn’t really start on time at the beginning of the week because I spaced and we had to do a few things on our screens on Monday night, but 5 days without screens seemed like a full week to me. We missed watching movies or TV shows at the end of the night. More than once we wanted to turn something on (and put our phones far, far away) but we resisted. I think we’ll be incorporating more screen free nights into our schedule, probably not entire weeks but nights here and there. We were able to fall asleep more easily and really relaxed at the end of the night. And without the urge to keep hitting “play next episode” on Netflix or HBOGo, bedtime was actually when we should be going to bed, not hours later.

Did you go screen free this week? What did you do? Will you be going screen-free more often? 

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