New Year’s Resolution #2: Less screen time

I know I’ve said this many times before, but I watch too much television. Besides the fact that I have amassed way too many shows that I DVR every week, I really just like having the TV on in general when I’m at home. I like the noise and the entertainment, but I am fully aware that I should cut back. So this year I decided to finally start making some progress on that front. The first thing I did was give my eyes a break at bedtime. I used to watch TV on my iPad while getting ready for bed every night and then leave the Time Warner app running as I fell asleep. Usually I just found some channel or another that was showing old sitcom reruns which acted like a white noise machine as I drifted off to dreamland. But beginning on New Year’s Day I stopped that completely. Now I listen to either podcasts (Nerdist or Fresh Air) or the radio (via the iHeartRadio app) when I’m getting ready for bed, and then turn it off when I’m ready to go to sleep. And it’s been quite nice, actually. Considerable reduction of eye strain and elimination of potentially sleep ruining blue light from my electronics! However, I do read on my iPad Mini after I get into bed, but since mid-December I’ve had a blue light filter on it. I don’t want to discourage nightly reading (especially since one of my resolutions last year was to read every night before bed), but I also want to improve the quality of my sleep. And I think the blue light filters on my iPads have been working so far. I actually bought one for my laptop as well, but it was defective so I had to ask the company to send me a replacement. There were a few small creases on the screen that made application without air bubble completely impossible (and incredibly frustrating). But that’s beside the point right now. What I wanted to report today is that I’ve started making strides to cut back on my TV viewing. Hopefully I’ll have a lot more progress to share throughout the year. I’ll keep you posted!