One of the simplest ways to improve your well being in 2022 may simply be to stop using social media, if a new study is to be believed.

Researchers from the University of Bath discovered that social media users can sometimes spend up to nine hours on their favorite platforms in a single week.

Previous studies have disputed the negative effects of social media, including the claim that they are addictive for children.

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Social media and well-being

To investigate the effects of detoxing from social media, study authors gathered 154 people between the ages of 18 and 72 who all use social media daily. These people spent around eight hours of their week browsing various social platforms, on average.

After one week of normal use, the team randomly split the participants into one of two groups. The first used social media as normal and the other tried to avoid any social media use for one week.

But while researchers asked the second group to stay off social media, this turned out to be a difficult task for most of the participants. Although the no-social media group did reduce their use significantly, they still spent an average of 21 minutes online or three minutes a day. The other group spend an average of seven hours online across the week.

In comparison to mental health scores gathered at the start of the study, results show that avoiding social media for a full week led to dramatic improvements in each participant’s well-being, regardless of age. The group that avoided social media also showed noticeable reductions in anxiety and depression.

The researchers are now hoping to go further and see how detoxing from social media for a longer period of time impacts long-term mental health.

Sleep more if you want to lose weight, new study

sleep


According to new research out of Denmark, poor sleep patterns may be to blame if you can’t achieve your weight-loss goals.

The researchers also found that vigorous exercise helps you sleep better.

“It was surprising to see how losing weight in adults with obesity improved sleep duration and quality in such a short time, and how exercising while attempting to keep the weight off preserved improvements in sleep quality,” says lead author Adrian Bogh in a media release.

Studies have already shown that poor sleep can increase the risk of high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries. Sleep deprivation also contributes to obesity, diabetes, and inflammation — all of which can speed the progress of cardiovascular disease, the world’s number one cause of death.

Click here to read more about this study and the importance of sleep

“Scrolling social media is so ubiquitous that many of us do it almost without thinking from the moment we wake up to when we close our eyes at night,” explains lead researcher Dr. Jeff Lambert in a university release.

“We know that social media usage is huge and that there are increasing concerns about its mental health effects, so with this study, we wanted to see whether simply asking people to take a week’s break could yield mental health benefits.”

“Many of our participants reported positive effects from being off social media with improved mood and less anxiety overall. This suggests that even just a small break can have an impact.”

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