Digital Detox Weekends

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer) Kashmir has reached a point where burnout feels normal, almost expected, and it has little to do with the old struggles people once talked about. Today, the exhaustion comes from a different place.

The daily distress now stems from the small glowing screen that stays within reach from morning till night. Phones light up before sunrise and remain active long after bedtime. Laptops stay open well past office hours, and screens silently take over the moments that once belonged to rest and retreat.

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What once felt like simple lifestyle advice now feels essential, especially in a place already heavy with emotion.

This exhaustion began growing after the pandemic, when daily life shifted indoors and online almost overnight. Work moved to screens, classrooms entered bedrooms, and meetings settled into living rooms.

What first felt efficient and flexible gradually turned into constant exposure. Screens stopped respecting time boundaries and began filling every hour of the day.

Even in periods of pause and ponder, the mind refuses to slow down. The body moves through routines on autopilot while thoughts keep racing. Many people wake up feeling drained despite sleeping through the night, and irritation appears without any clear reason.

Doctors and mental health professionals across Kashmir now report rising cases of disturbed sleep, anxiety patterns, attention fatigue, and emotional imbalance. Global research supports what they see daily.

Studies from institutions such as Harvard Medical School and the World Health Organization link long screen hours to hormonal imbalance, delayed sleep cycles, weaker focus, and rising stress levels, especially when screen use stretches late into the night and spills across weekends without breaks.

Teenagers show some of the clearest signs of this shift. Endless scrolling continues deep into the night, sleep schedules collapse, and mornings begin with heavy fatigue. Teachers speak about shrinking attention spans and restless classrooms, while parents notice mood swings, withdrawal, and sudden emotional changes at home.

Screens have also altered family spaces. Candid chats that once filled living rooms now fade into silence broken only by tapping fingers and background videos. Meals happen with phones close by, and shared time silently turns into parallel screen time.

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Earlier, weekends offered a natural release. Structured workdays gave way to walks, visits, travel, sports, prayer, or long talks over tea. That routine helped life stay balanced.

Today, the same device handles office work, school assignments, news, and entertainment, making weekends feel no different from weekdays. The body senses no shift, and the mind receives no signal to slow down.

Digital detox weekends offer a practical way forward. Detox here does not mean rejecting technology but creating deliberate distance from screens for a day or two.

Phones remain limited to essential use, work apps rest, social feeds pause, and time returns to physical space. Families talk longer, children move more freely, sleep improves, and thoughts begin to settle instead of constantly jumping.

Health experts note that even short breaks from screens can lower stress hormones and improve emotional balance within weeks.

This approach fits naturally into Kashmir's social fabric, which values talking, walking, shared meals, prayer, and storytelling. These habits support emotional grounding, but screen saturation often pushes them aside.

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