By Matthew Colegrove:

At least once I will put down my phone and read a book instead.

Here we are again it is Monday morning and you are tired from the weekend. You could be tired for a multitude of reasons but I think I have a challenge here that can help at least a little. Put your phone/screens down an hour before you go to bed every night this week. I know this might sound a little out there but it is so worth it in the long run and look, it is only a couple of days. If you think you are totally unable to do this don’t worry, I do have something you can try, but allow me first to explain why it is so important to give this challenge a real shot.

Let’s review what the issue is here. Have you ever been up late at night on your phone and just couldn’t get to sleep or couldn’t get to sleep so you went to your phone? Either way you are trying to get to sleep but end up stay up later then you want. This is because the light from your phone or whatever screen you might be looking at is telling your brain not to release melatonin (which is the drug that helps us get to sleep). So basically the screen is telling your brain to stay up, which is the exact opposite of what you want late at night.

Watch this short video explains what I just tried to explain 10x better. 

Okay so now we know that looking at screens late at night keep you awake. But so what, sometimes you want to stay up late. There are tons of benefits to having a good night’s sleep: weight loss, stress relief, brain function, and helps with how old you look. We could write books about this and guess what, there are books written about this subject. But I am more concerned about the baby steps towards porn like staying up late and being on a screen. When I was addicted to porn staying up late on the screen was basically asking for porn to appear. Not the wisest thing I ever did in my life. But I do not need to beat a dead horse here.

Let us just take a minute and think about this challenge. It is not just about putting down a screen and reading a book. It is about: getting a good night’s sleep, not looking at porn late at night, not being tired the next day (so that you are less likely to turn to porn), improving yourself. But just think if you did read instead of looking at your phone/screen, how many books could you read in a year. Three, ten, or maybe fifty? One thing is for sure you will read more books then you read looking at Facebook.

Okay here it is I promised something to help if you are totally unable to put down the screen before bed because of a job or something of the like. At https://justgetflux.com they have a program for free that changes the color of your screen in order to counteract the effects of looking at the bright light. This allows your body to release melatonin and then you will feel tired earlier. My main goal is to help you to stop looking at porn and whether you read or not, going to bed at a regular time will help. Reading is great as well and can be helpful to not looking at porn as well.

I know you can do it. Put down that screen and pick up a book and go to bed on time.

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