Do you often find yourself spending hours doom scrolling on social media? Only to come off feeling inadequate, overwhelmed and ‘not enough’? Well…me too.

I realised a few years back that excessive social media use very negatively impacts on my mental health, and my continued recovery journey. I say ‘continued’ because with mental health issues you aren’t suddenly ‘fixed’ then you don’t have to worry about it again are you?

It’s a continual arduous journey of recognising triggers and being able to find coping mechanisms that help you to feel more balanced and in control every day. It’s a hard slog and a constant journey, but that is a whole topic in itself for another day. 

At the start of my maternal mental health recovery almost 3 years ago now, I soon became abundantly aware of the impact social media use was having on my mood. I often lost large pockets of time scrolling through the lives of other people, and triggered anxiety over worrying who could see what was going on in my life through social media, not that my life is terribly exciting.

When my anxiety is at its worst I feel like I am living in a goldfish bowl. It feels like everyone is watching me, talking about me and judging me from passers by in the street, to those people who appear inactive on social media that we all know just watch from afar and gossip.

Of course this is mostly in my mind, but I realised that I didn’t want to feel this way anymore and social media was definitely adding to extreme episodes of overwhelm, anxiety and paranoia. There are plenty of things in life to be anxious and overwhelmed by than what someone has posted on the internet!

 Growing up in a small town I do feel contributes to this a little. Everyone is in everyone’s business, and my anxiety comes from the fear of not wanting to be a topic of someone else’s negative conversation about others.

We’ve all been there haven’t we? Whether we have been the subject, been present when someone else has been the subject, or even been a contributing part of that gossip ourselves. I for one have absolutely been guilty of this in the past, it’s so easy to get caught up in it when your surrounded by it.

Of course there is also a sense of community and there are people who of course do have good intentions. That said, as a relatively private person I find this to be quite intrusive at times. While I write here about some of my life experiences and challenges with my mental health, there is plenty more that I keep very private.

I have generally never posted lots of things online, but when I have I started to become conscious of the fact that I would repeatedly go back on to see who had ‘liked’ or commented on what I had posted. I started to ask myself why? Why was I so bothered by who ‘liked’ whatever I had posted?

Honestly… I realised that this comes from spending a very long time feeling desperate to be liked by others. Quite sad really isn’t it. 

I have always cared far too much what other people think of me, but slowly over time I am getting better at being more concerned about what I think of me instead. Making better choices at where to spend my energy, so that my family get the best version of me.

Social media was becoming another place for me to seek recognition, validation and approval from others. Whether it be something I achieved, a big life event or just one of my kids looking really cute. 

Last year I came off social media for around 7 months, and I can’t tell you how much better I felt. I wasn’t wasting time scrolling when I had a free minute, I was living more mindfully and doing the work internally identifying what I really wanted for me, not because of what might look good or what other people might think. I felt so much more present and lighter for it. 

Then my brother passed away earlier this year, and I went back on as I wanted to see some of the pictures that people would post, especially if there were ones that I perhaps hadn’t seen before.

Before I knew it, I was back down the same rabbit hole as before. Spending hours reading comments, obsessing over what people had written and who hadn’t commented and why.

I found myself feeling so angry, overwhelmed and anxious on top of dealing with baby hormones and grief. It was time for something to change.

While I do find social media challenging, of course it also has its place. When it comes to building a business or connecting with other like minded people there is no better place and I have personally found it to be very useful and have connected with people that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Just like you guys reading this now.

So, I decided that instead of eradicating it from my life, I just needed to set clear boundaries like lots of things in my life. I wanted to share with you all, 3 things that have shifted my mindset when it comes to social media and the difference I have felt in my mental health by implicating these 3 simple things. 

Knock notifications off. I have notifications knocked off not only on social media, but any other apps that I find to be distracting and lead to me spending unnecessary amounts of time looking at my phone. Feeling that I am present in the here and now is really important for me, and helps me to take better charge of my mental fitness.

Set time limits. Most phones now have setting options to limit the amount of time that you spend on certain apps. As an Apple user you will find this in settings>screen time> app limits.

I have limits set for no more than 1 hour a day for social media apps, then it locks me out. I also find the downtime feature very useful, and this knocks all notifications off between certain times of the day to stop me spending too much time looking at things on my phone.

I use this time if the kids are asleep for example to read instead, or do something productive for myself. I always feel so much better for doing this, and as an introvert I often crave disconnection which allows me the space to do that a bit less drastically.

Create not consume. If you are someone who uses social media to promote a business or build a community, then this is the most helpful thing anyone has ever said to me and it has really stuck in my mind ever since.

I use social media to build a like minded audience of people for my writing and courses, so when I need to post something I remind myself of this every time.

I am using social media to create, not consume. Along with that my writing social media is full of like minded writers, authors and other people in a similar industry so it makes this feel like a more positive place to be as I am reminded of what I am trying to create. 

I have noticed such a big difference in mental health as a result of having these boundaries in place.  I am so much more focused on myself and my goals, and so much less concerned about what other people are doing.

Having those boundaries in place has helped me so much, and I hope you find them helpful too. Of course some of you might also have some other tips and boundaries that work well for you, and I would love to hear those too so please do leave them in the comments. 

Happy Mums provides peer support groups for mums and Mums-to-be to share how they really feel without judgement.