7 Ways to Reset Your Well-Being After the Holiday Screen Binge

By Beth Rush

Some years, the holidays recharge you. Other years, you come out of them with a smartphone hangover. I knew I had exceeded my screen-time record when my eyes felt gritty before New Year’s even winked at me.

I wasn’t exhausted from messaging or video-calling friends or even from making exotic travel plans. I was utterly spent from mindless binging and scrolling, so I needed to learn how to do a digital detox. The nonstop messages, binge watching and the “just one more scroll” spiral had somehow lasted two solid weeks.

Maybe you’ve felt the after-effects too. The headaches that creep in by midafternoon, or muscle jitters from too much stimulation and not enough movement. The mental fog settles in for days after consuming everyone else’s online noise while ignoring your own needs. Screen fatigue has a way of sneaking up until you realize that what you thought would relax you is the very thing draining you.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. And you don’t need judgment or know-it-all sergeant-major-style detox plans. Just a few, realistic resets can fit your life, especially if you’re balancing work, family, friendships and your own sense of worth.

Notice the Signs Your Body Has Had Enough

If you’re still thinking you don’t need a reset, that your personal battery is fine and that your scrolling is under control, perhaps you should do a life check for these three signs:

• Eye strain or headaches: Your eyes are designed to shift between near and far vision and blink frequently to lubricate those lovely orbs, but when you read or watch on screen, your blink rate drops to 11 to 15 times per minute from the usual 20.
• A “blocked” feeling: When you don’t move because you’re on a 5-hour Netflix binge, your circulation starts slowing down and you begin to feel bloated. You already sit for 60% of your day at work, and adding a digital marathon is likely to worsen blood and lymphatic circulation.
• Body aches: When your body feels sore during that social media sinkhole, it’s likely because you are experiencing neural inflammation from being sedentary and developing hyperstimulation from screen exposure. “As sitting goes on for long periods of time, muscle contractions are reduced and the contractions are normally what helps to regulate blood sugar, so your insulin sensitivity begins to drop,” says Meera Watts, the Owner and Founder of Siddhi Yoga.

7 Screen Binge Reset Methods That Work

Now that you know what’s causing your health spirals, you can choose something better for yourself — and I promise, it’s not Facebook or Disney+.

1. Give Your Eyes a Different View

If you live in the Carolinas, you have an in-built antidote to screen fatigue. Simply feast your lashes on blue skies or go stargazing at the national parks, such as Hanging Rock State Park, where you can indulge in celestial viewing. Shifting your focus and gazing at the dark skies can help reset your vision and wonder, while reacquainting your ocular muscles with a world that’s not pixelated.

2. Alternate Instead of Cold Turkeying

Vision experts like Dr. David Nelson, an eye doctor, encourage people to use the age-old recipe of 20/20/20, where you look away after 20 minutes, focus on something 20 feet away for 20 seconds and then repeat.

If this is something you’re likely to forget, you can set a 20-minute timer with some darts next to you. Throwing darts at a target 20 feet away is an ideal way to relax and reset. After all, you want to preserve your near and far vision for as long as possible, and reducing eyestrain is vital to healthy eyesight.

Vladimir Novkov, Sport Psychologist, ISSA Certified Elite Trainer and founder of Sport Personalities echoes this. “For every hour of passive scrolling, commit to 10 minutes of ‘active vision’—look at things in the distance or engage in a task that requires depth perception, like tossing a ball,” he recommends. “This shifts the brain from a narrow, dopamine-seeking focus back into a state of environmental awareness, naturally lowering cortisol and making the transition to sleep much smoother.”

3. Practice a Messy Hobby

You can’t dive for your phone if your hands are covered in paint, clay or dirt. Enforce a screen-free period by engaging in a hobby that gets your hands dirty, such as gardening, pottery or painting. This gives your eye muscles a break and redirects your attention toward something wholesome.

4. Create Phone-Free Moments

Dr. Emma Lin, a board-certified Pulmonologist, Sleep Medicine Specialist and Co-Founder and CEO of Aimvein, says, “Screens keep the brain up, causing sleep to be fragmented, for example, lighter sleep that is less refreshing.”

I have a few small acts daily that help me carve time away from screens, and you can try them too:

• I charge my phone away from the bedroom so my morning starts without digital drama.
• My family room and dining table are screen-free zones, unless it’s a birthday and we’re taking photos. It’s given my partner and me time with the kids to relax and catch up.
• I have a weekly rest day, during which I schedule fun activities that naturally limit my time on-screen. I cook with my kids, we go for a walk and we play fetch with the family dog at the park.

5. Use Your Other Senses

Phones and online media primarily stimulate your sight and hearing. How about giving some love to the other three senses? I switch my phone off and shop at a local fabric mart where I can run my hands over the different materials, or I slow down and visit spice shops where I savor the fragrances and in-season produce that inspire Indian, Thai and fusion cooking.

Even online recipes and “how-tos” can’t share that level of authenticity. Permitting your senses to branch out is a fantastic way to recenter and get off the fast lane that scrolling represents as you learn to live more slowly and intentionally.

6. Filter Your Feed

I’m not saying you should become a monk and throw your phone away. My social feed is still quite active, but I now filter it more intentionally than I do my morning brew. A detox is about tone as much as it is about time.

While you scroll, ask yourself if the content is positive, enriching, true and supportive of the life you want. Unfollow accounts that drain you. Delete apps that lure you into unwanted spending and waste hours on meaningless gossip. Nobody wishes they spent more hours scrolling or reading gossip.

Adjust the screen brightness and color saturation to reduce the “high” you get from seeing bright hues and high contrasts. There’s a reason the casino’s slot machines are all bright, loud and busy, and your phone’s the same, so break the Alice-in-slot-land addiction.

7. Try a Gentle 5-Step Reset

If you love structure, here’s a simple cycle I have used extensively when I feel overwhelmed by Pinterest and pixels.

Step to Take	What to Do
Track your habits for a day.	Don’t judge yourself. Just be honest.
Take a short detox.	Try for an hour or two of screen-free time to see how you feel.
What helped or held you back?	Were you lonely, bored or understimulated during the mini-retreat?
Set yourself up for success.	Prepare with a book on the nightstand, a hobby within reach or silenced notifications.
Envision what healthy screen habits look like.	Forget perfection. Think about what could work for you and let this vision guide you.

Return to Yourself

If you worry the holidays will turn into another screen-time binge, it’s time you learn how to do a digital detox and reclaim your device-free life. Freedom begins with small choices stacked throughout your day.

So, dip your hands in paint, plant, bake and indulge your senses. Ignore the urge to take photos and share on social media. Live in the moment, thrive in your diversity and enjoy real connection instead of consuming mindless scrolling.