If you have been following SLAM for a while you may have noticed a change in our social presence recently, namely, you might have seen a lot less of me.

Maybe it’s not as obvious to you as it was to me but for a very, very long time, I was addicted to Instagram. Now for someone with an obsession, I had a very ‘convenient’ set of circumstances - I have a business that uses Instagram as a tool - what that meant for me was that I could hide my obsession behind the line that I NEEDED to be on there, in order to help my business survive. Now that isn’t untrue, as I said it’s a tool that serves us very well and has helped us raise awareness and support many campaigns and individuals, some of which in ways we will never know.

BUT and it’s a big but, somewhere along the way, I lost myself. At some point, my mission to challenge diet culture and make the fitness industry a safer space for all humans got mixed up in my unrecognised (until now) need to prove myself, to feel validated, seen and basically liked…

As a follower of ours what you will have seen was absolutely content from my heart, non of it was inauthentic or misleading but what you, and even I, wouldn’t have noticed was the negative impact that showing up all day every day had begun to have on my mental health. At the point when I woke up to my obsession, I was checking Instagram every 5 minutes. I was filming every moment of my life, imagining captions, images, stories and all sorts of ways that I could link any scenario to transform it into content for our grid and stories.

I. WAS. EXHAUSTED.

Ok so maybe you read that and think “what’s the big deal? Isn’t that what Instagram is for?” YES, that’s exactly what it is designed to do, it’s designed to keep us on there for as long as possible and all of its cool little tricks and features mean that we keep going back for that dopamine hit.

Whether it’s to see who has watched our stories, who have been liking (or not liking) our posts or who is up to what - it’s pure voyeurism and it appeals to the very heart of being human - our need for connection.

In many ways, it can be brilliant and like anything, if it is used in moderation it can have a positive impact on your life, but for me, there was no moderation. What I began to notice was that I was living my life through an app.

I was questioning everything -

Why didn’t that person follow me, why did they unfollow me, what had I done?

Was that post someone just put up about me? Why would they say that? What have I done to upset them?

Why didn’t my reel have as many likes and comments as other people’s?

Why were my friends liking other people’s posts and not mine?

Why didn’t I look like that?

Why wasn’t my life fun all the time, why didn’t my kid want to do those things, was I failing as a mum?

Can you relate?

Have you ever looked through Instagram and thought any of those things? Even fleetingly?

Well for me it became so intense that I stopped even noticing I was thinking about them. Then there were the comparisons and the pressure I felt to do what everyone else was doing, to make the reels and jump on all the new trends.

And when I did and they flopped… I found myself feeling pretty pants about it.

I had wrapped a big chunk of my worth and perception of my success into that app and I was sucked in hook, line and sinker.

So what changed?

Well to say I just woke up one day and realised what I was doing would be a lie.

I knew as we do with most obsessions that I wasn’t engaging in very positive behaviours but I just kept ignoring them. It was actually a series of unexpected difficult circumstances, one after the other, that caused me to take stock and reflect on lots of things in my life.

From then it was like my eyes had been opened and I genuinely couldn’t go back, I think it must be what people who quit smoking maybe feel like when they smell smoke, I was repulsed and I knew I needed to quit.

That was in October 2021. It’s now been 7 months.

Here’s what’s changed for me since reducing my time on Social Media…

I am way less irritable and much more present at home

Not having social media to grab my attention every five minutes has left me often with nothing to do, as a result, my head is clearer and I am way more present at home. I’ve noticed a shift in my overall mood as I’m not constantly exposed to what hundreds of people are up to and so I’m able to stay in my own lane, focus on myself and put my energy into what really matters to me.

I spend more quality time with friends

Because people can no longer see what I am up to and vice versa, there is much more effort required to catch up - as a result, I am booking more quality time with my friends. We now genuinely have things to talk about and have no idea what each other has been up to - it’s like the good old days and I’m really loving it.

My business is doing better

Yup, you read that right, since I am no longer putting all of my eggs in one basket and don’t have the fatigue that doom scrolling used to bring me, I have energy and ideas to put into other things.

Also because the SLAM brand on Instagram no longer fully relies on me we, have been able to work as a team to create content that is client supportive and still appeals to our audience. Taking a step back has allowed our team to get more creative and it’s added major value to what we do and NOT taken away from it as social media culture would have you believe.

I’m truly experiencing my life and I feel mentally healthier

This is truly the biggest one for me. I didn’t realise how much my life had become like one big advert. I’m totally ashamed to say that a lot of the things I was engaging in looked better on Instagram than they were in real life and that just doesn’t sit right with me.

Since I’ve built better habits and boundaries I very rarely have my phone out and I am realising what I genuinely like and want to do with my time. I don’t see what’s trending anymore so I’m only engaging in things I feel truly called to and because I spend less time scrolling I have more time for myself, as a result, I feel genuinely happier.

I could go on with the benefits I am experiencing honestly but this blog is already way longer than it should be and Paula (our marketing guru) will be tearing her hair out trying to edit it so I am going to stop there. But, if you are reading this thinking “ I hear you and I want to know how to quit” or maybe like me you feel a bit stuck and scared about what would happen if you took a step back, then come back next week and hear about exactly how I changed my mindset, approach and boundaries with social media. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing and maybe my tips will help you find some moderation and balance that best supports your life <3

(pssst…Paula here jumping in… and I genuinely loved this blog post and was actually really enjoying it and didn’t want it to end - already looking forward to doing next weeks!)

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