Social Media Or Stressful Media?

Wellness

oi-Amrisha

By Amrisha Sharma

Thursday, May 10, 2012, 15:00

We all know the advantages of Social Media networking. It started out as a platform for people all over the world to debate, discuss and interact; all from the comfort of your own home at your own time. Any social individual finds social media as the answer to staying connected with close and dear ones. Whole day and night, users are stuck to their systems for connecting with friends and staying updated. This addiction can affect the body to a greater extent.

With a whirlwind of networking sites opening up, people are showing signs of varying levels of stress. From initial stages, the social stress levels increase to chronic stress. Gabriel Conde, an Entrepreneur felt that she would be able to lead a stress free life by starting her own business and promoting it online. At first, she was excited by the response her company got, but then she was addicted. She was unable to spend a family vacation without logging into all her accounts to see the number of “likes” and “comments” she had got.

What happens in social media stress? Some of the common stress related symptoms are addiction, fatigue, sleep disorders, lack of concentration, low self esteem, and disorientation.

We give you five steps to avoid falling a prey to the stress through social media.

Allot some time to yourself: Disconnect from social applications and Go Out! You might have 700 friends on Facebook, 400 followers on Twitter, but remember these are virtual people. We need to physically interact with people on a daily basis. So go out, grab a cup of coffee with a pal, or just go shopping at a mall.

Incorporate a Fun/Fitness lifestyle: You could join a theater group, a dance workshop or a pilates/yoga class. You not only get to meet new people but also stay fit at the same time! After all, a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

Learn to walk around in the midst of a session: If your business requires you to maintain an active social presence, there is not much you can do about it, except to take out few minutes for yourself during a session. So, instead of staying online on chat whole day, take a break from it. This is one effective step to avoid getting social media stress of any level.

Eat Healthy: People who tend to get hooked on to social media, always tend to binge on junk food, anything that is easily available and within their reach. Look up from your laptop or computer screen. Follow a healthy diet. Always make it a point to surround yourself with fresh fruits and nuts as your healthy snacks.

Visit the optician for Anti Glare glasses: To avoid getting stress from the social media, you have to give rest to your eyes also. Even if you don't have an eye defect, it is recommended that you put on your anti glares to prevent giving stress to the eyes.

It might sound ironical but, there is an app that automatically makes updates for you on your social accounts. Kit Kat with JWT jointly created a social media app named Social Break App. After installing the Social Break app, you do not need to sit whole day bothering about what is the status of your friend or what is the latest twitter trend. This app reduces social media stress to a greater extent and also saves time. This prevents you from harming the work productivity that was hampered by logging into social networking sites. How do you avoid social media stress?