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

Illustration: Antoine Cossé

Kristin 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.

In 2019 there’s an understanding that society’s obsequious relationship to technology is creating health problems. Attention is frayed, burnout is rampant, the number of teens who say they are depressed is on the rise. The digital world is both Henry and Hal — a delightful, informative space that enriches users as well as drags them into baseless diversion. Striking a balance is becoming increasingly important for people who want to embrace the realities of modern living while still remaining healthy and burnout-free.

“Technology has done nothing but enhance my life. But how you decide to carve out time for yourself is important,” says Nicole Loher, a 26-year-old marketing consultant for Microsoft. “There was a time when I did transition into being that obsessive with the phone and it didn’t feel that great.”

Loher is also a slow-morning devotee and she started her routine a decade ago, frequently waking at 4:30 and spending the hours up to 9 a.m. as “strictly me time.” She trains for…