Why Slow Mornings May Be the Secret to Tech-Life Balance

Daily walks, quiet rooms, and tech-free mornings. The strategies for achieving better health in the digital age are pretty basic — but hard to achieve

Andrew Zaleski
Elemental

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Illustration: Antoine Cossé

KKristin Hancock is a “slow morning” practitioner. She keeps her phone in a separate room overnight and doesn’t pick it up until she’s started her workday routine. Hanock, who runs an employee-engagement business in Winnipeg, Canada, usually wakes at 7:30 a.m. and takes coffee and breakfast on her patio. Only after breakfast does she open her laptop, check her smartphone, and jump into the day.

“When I wake up, I am stretching instead of scrolling,” says Hancock, 35. “While I’m not up at the crack of dawn, I do consciously plan my mornings to avoid the chaos of the digital world for at least the first 30 to 45 minutes.”

The slow morning movement is one strategy used among people exhausted by their tech-heavy lives to establish a sense of focus for the rest of the day. Some people exercise, while others enjoy some time alone. The point is to create a lack of technological distraction. A slow morning is supposed to be an antidote to the frenetic pace of 24/7 digital alerts.

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