Screen Time Zombies: Why We're Afraid of Silence

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When was the last time you truly experienced silence? Not just the absence of conversation, but a complete break from podcasts, music, videos, and scrolling? In this thought-provoking episode, we explore how our society has normalized the overconsumption of media and the profound impact it's having on our mental wellbeing.

The constant barrage of stimulation—listening to podcasts while walking, scrolling through social media in the bathroom, playing music while cooking, watching shows during meals—leaves no breathing space for our minds. This perpetual input correlates with increasing reports of grogginess, demotivation, and disconnection. I share my personal experience staying largely off social media and the internal debate this creates: gaining peace of mind while potentially missing out on being "in the loop."

We also dive into the rarely discussed reality of perimenopause that many women in their early 40s experience. From unpredictable cycles and extreme mood swings to strategies for hormone balancing, this candid conversation acknowledges the challenges while emphasizing you're not alone. The unfiltered sharing of personal experiences creates a space where women can feel understood and validated in their hormonal journeys.

The episode concludes with a gentle challenge: find moments in your day to disconnect completely. Whether it's taking a walk without headphones, eating a meal without watching something, or sitting in silence for five minutes, these small acts of disconnection paradoxically help us reconnect with ourselves and the world around us. Your relationship with silence might feel uncomfortable at first, but it could be the very thing your overtaxed mind is craving.

Ready to transform your relationship with media consumption? Listen now, then take a moment of silence to let it sink in. Share your experience with disconnecting—what challenges did you face, and what benefits did you notice?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone.
This is Still Roses podcast.
This podcast was created forwomen, by women, to elevate
women's voices.
Happy Monday, everybody.
You might be able to hear it inmy voice that I'm a little
tired.
I took last week offunintentionally, but then it
just happened.

(00:22):
From podcasting I had half theweek off from my daytime job to
celebrate my husband's birthdayand it was really really great.
Much needed time off to reset,but just really busy.
I like to, you know, make surethat everyone feels really loved

(00:44):
and appreciated like at alltimes, and this is, you know,
was sure that everyone feelsreally loved and appreciated
like at all times.
And this is, you know, was abig birthday, and so it was just
a lot of running around, but itwas well worth it and a really
really wonderful, wonderfulweekend with, uh, with my family
, with my kids, with all allfive of them, all the grandkids,
um.
So it was really, really lovely.
But I'm just tired now, um, somuch so that I almost talked
myself out of recording, but Iwanted to get back in the swing

(01:07):
of things.
I'm super, super pumped for theupcoming episodes that are
going to be live streaming,these guests that are going to
be coming onto the show.
Now, some of them had reachedout to me months ago and were
gracious enough to accept that Ikind of went off the grid for a
little while.
I was figuring things out formyself and for the podcast, and

(01:29):
so they're coming, coming aroundand you know, I have some
guests lining up in the nextcouple of weeks, so I'm really
excited about that.
I do want to remind everyonethat the upcoming episodes I'm
going to post a schedule, um onsocial, just so everyone can see
when the lives are happeningand who's going to be speaking.

(01:50):
Um, so you can you know, knowwhen to join Um.
So I'm like really lookingforward to this.
It's it's going to be reallygood and the, the, the energy on
some of these women is electric.
I really there is no other wayto say it.
So just a couple thoughtstarters for everybody.
Well, one anyone in their early40s likely you're already here

(02:16):
along with me experiencingperimenopause.
Benefit pro right, your cyclesget shorter.
That's the only benefit.
Right, mine is at like threedays at this point.
Benefit great, it's awesome,but it's also like unpredictable
in some ways, like I don'tthink it's over and it's done,
and then all of a sudden it'llpop back up and be like I'm not

(02:38):
done.
I'm still here, which is reallyannoying.
Outside of that, you guys haveheard me talk about the fatigue
before.
You've heard me talk about theemotional ups and downs.
Um, saturday was like my daytwo and I went from like enraged
lunatic to like sobbing withinlike 30 seconds a few times.
I hate it.

(02:59):
I hate not being able tocontrol that as much as I want
to.
But on that same token, youknow that we're not able to
control everything.
Right, it's not in us.
It's not really meant to bethat way.
We're not supposed to becontrolling everything.
Sometimes you have to lean intoI can't control this, it's just
happening.
I'm doing everything I can, youknow, eating wise and health

(03:23):
wise, to like maintain myhormone levels, but things
happen right.
So the only way that I've beenable to like really survive and
kind of make it um, make it.
I apologize for the god.
I already admitted I'm tired.
I, um, I try to make it, makelight of it, but also call

(03:44):
attention to it because I don'twant my family to think I'm nuts
, um, and I just openly admit itand I tell them I'm like it's
like crazy.
I I don't know what to dobecause I go one minute my kids
were using my cell phone and itdied and we were leaving the
house and it was a dead phoneand I was really upset about
that and I was felt the ragelike bubbling up in my throat

(04:05):
and I'm not even kidding Withinfive minutes I went from enraged
to like ready to cry, likeburst into tears.
It was just one of thoseweekends where I'm like my
hormones are all over the place,something I did to try to help,
something I always do in mycycles.
Now I make carrot juice andcarrots are supposed to be
really hormone balancing, so Ilike load up on carrots now all

(04:28):
the time because I'm like let'ssee how far we can go.
I will let you know, I willreport back a if it helps and be
if my skin turns orange,because I have heard that.
In any case, I have a couple ofthought starters.
I just want to share theperimenopause stuff because
we're all going through it.
I just have to say it and it'simportant to acknowledge it and

(04:49):
do what you can to research, dowhat you can to help yourself.
But if you're not feeling great, guess what?
Like that's?
That's all of us, and you'renot alone in this, and you could
find refuge in another woman,another person to talk to you
about it, but also do somethingto advocate for yourself.
You don't have to feel crappyall the time.
I don't have to feel crappy allthe time, like let's try to do

(05:10):
something to help ourselves, butyou just have days, right, it
is what it is.
You kind of just roll with thepunches.
So I'm here and you can alwaysmessage me.
I'm always up for venting aboutthis kind of stuff, because
it's miserable and I hate it andI'm sure you will hate it too.
Okay, on to the thoughtstarters.

(05:32):
So the first one I'm going toread over to you is something
that I've talked about quite abit in relation to, like, how I
do things and, you know, thingsthat have enlightened me over
the past couple of years.
One thing that I think I havetalked about before is that I am
not on social media personally.
I'm just not.
In the beginning that reallywasn't something that, like, I

(05:54):
was making conscious choice todo.
I just shied away from it.
I was focusing on myrelationship.
Then I had kids and I waswhatever, like I just never.
I didn't go all the way backinto it as much as I did when I
was young and before I gotmarried, and everything you know
flash forward several years.
I'm still not engaged in itreally outside of LinkedIn.

(06:14):
Like LinkedIn is my platform,you'll see it.
You can look across all mysocials and LinkedIn you can
tell is that is the one that Ifavor.
And outside of LinkedIn, theother ones are just my podcast
socials and I just do thatreally to keep people updated on
episode, on the podcast episode.
So there is no like mescrolling through social all the
time.
Pinterest is a place where youwill hear me talk about it quite

(06:36):
a bit, that I get my thoughtstarters from there, but that's
it.
That's the only one that Ireally look at.
That's when I'm being vegetable.
At the end of the night it'sPinterest.
That's scroll through Pinterest.
It soothes me, it's mindless, Ikind of like it.
And then, on the flip, I'llread books, sometimes at night,

(06:58):
like romance novels, that kindof thing.
Sometimes in my head I have aninternal debate on is this good
or is this bad?
Is it good that I'm not onsocial media in the sense that I
have a peace of mind that Idon't think a lot of people have
at this point.
But is it bad?

(07:18):
Because I'm not on social mediaand thus I'm not in the loop?
But then do I want to be in theloop Like this is the
conversation that I have in myhead consistently.
So I saw this post.
This post is in relation to theamount of not just social media
but the amount of mediaconsumption we have on any given

(07:41):
day.
So the post reads we havenormalized overconsumption.
Listening to a podcast while wewalk, scrolling reels in the
toilet, listening to music whilewe cook, watching a show on
Netflix while we eat.
It's as if there is nobreathing space for your mind.
You're constantly trying tofill the void, the stillness,
and yet here you're complainingabout feeling groggy and

(08:03):
demotivated.
I've talked quite a bit aboutmeditating and how that's
impacted my life and how that'sreally benefited me as a human,
as a human being.
It's benefited me like 10 timesover, and part of that is being
silent with yourself.
A lot of people can't do it alot, and by can't mean like

(08:25):
they're scared to do it.
There's a lot of people and Ithink my husband even like to
just be still, just sit and bestill when I'm sitting still
when I'm meditating, I canactually I can tell everyone I'm
meditating.
They're like, oh, she'smeditating, she's doing
something.
But if I'm just sitting still,it actually I can tell it makes

(08:47):
my family uncomfortable, likethey don't know what to do, and
they're like, well, you knowwhat are you doing?
Like, oh, and they try, theywill try to start throwing stuff
at me and I'm like we're justsitting, like I'm taking a
minute here, like let me just be.
Um, this overconsumption ofconstant, like flood of
everything all day long iscreating this really massive

(09:10):
disruption in our energy fieldsand I think it's really
interesting to really look atthe history and the trajectory
of how things have declined somuch as a society, while the
consumption of media hasincreased so much as a society.
And that would be a veryinteresting thing to track and

(09:32):
gauge.
And I'm sure someone is doing astudy right in this moment
trying to figure that out,because I there is a massive
imbalance in our world todaywith many, many people.
And when you are sucked intoyour phone, I bet you, if you
look at the screen time, likedata on your phone, and you'll

(09:53):
see, like how much time you'respending on each app, how much
screen time you get a week or aday or whatever.
Like I feel like that's nottaken as seriously.
I mean, there are legitimatestudies that show the effects of
social media on children'sdevelopment and brains and how
detrimental it is to them somuch so that it's recommended

(10:14):
that they don't use VR, socialmedia, anything, screen time
anything before, like X age.
Now I can't say that I did that.
My kids absolutely use tabletsand things like that.
They're not on social media,but they will watch YouTube.
They'll watch their littleshows and stuff.
Yes, 100%.
I can't say that I'm not doingthat.
I am doing that.
We do force breaks, we do limitthe time.

(10:38):
We do what we can in our power,but I am not the mom that has
not done screen time Like Iabsolutely do it.
The downfall there is I canactually see what it does to
them and because of that is whyI will make sure like I'm
disengaging them from there andI'm teaching them like games
that I grew up with and stuff.

(10:59):
So there is an impact therethat's bad.
And you've heard me talk so muchabout disconnecting and you've
heard me talk a lot aboutmeditating and being silent and
listening and reconnecting withthe universe.
This is all massively important.

(11:20):
It's so important and if youcan't get yourself disconnected,
there is a bigger problem atplay here.
So I just want to encourageeveryone listening to this
episode.
It's a brief episode.
I appreciate you all listening,but I also really want to
encourage you guys.
You know, when you're walking orwhen you're doing something,

(11:43):
it's okay to be silent and stillit's okay to take a walk and
just listen to the world aroundyou.
It's okay to just take fiveminutes and sit in silence
somewhere, just take a couple ofbreaths and be with yourself.
I mean, I'm sure that there'ssomeone listening now that could
probably look back on theirlast month and think to

(12:06):
themselves like I haven't beensilent at all, like there's been
constant.
There's music playing whileyou're in the bathroom.
There's, you know, videosplaying while you cook.
There's like and I'm apodcaster Clearly like there's
podcasts playing in thebackground, like it is what it
is.
You have to take a moment todisconnect.
I don't even care if it's likemy show.

(12:26):
You're disconnecting fromDisconnect.
It's gonna help you, like it'sgoing to do something for you,
if you take some time out ofyour day every day to sit
silently.
So I'm gonna leave you withthat thought there, finding time
in your day.
School's starting soon, guys,and if it hasn't already started
in your area, that right thereis going to give you some some
silence.
Especially if you work fromhome, like me, you'll have a

(12:52):
little bit of a little bit of asilence there.
So I just want to leave you withthat thought.
I really want you guys to thinkabout this overconsumption,
this, this life that now we alllive, and how much it has
shifted for you and what yourlife it looks like right now.
And is this the life that youwant to be living?
What can you do now?
And I can guarantee youmeditating is going to be part
of that answer.
Please feel free to reach outto me with any questions.

(13:13):
Please feel free to reach outto me with like feedback.
I love it.
I think I talked a couple timesabout some feedback that I had
received and I actually took itand ran with it.
So I really really appreciateyou guys messaging me and
letting me know your thoughts.
Thank you so much for listeningand I will catch you on the
next one.
Take care.