10 Ways to Stop Binge-watching That’s Turning You Into a Zombie Every Morning


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Waking up in the morning after a night of series or movie marathons can be a really tough thing.

Firstly, you’d have to keep your eyelids open. After that, you need to muster up all the strength you have to get your back off of your bed, and then mentally instruct your legs to move.

If you’re sharing a bathroom with your brother or other half, chances of you grabbing the wrong toothbrush is very, very high.

As you leave your house and rush to the bus stop, you realize that this is not going to work anymore. You have to put in more effort into eliminating your late-night binge-watching continuum.

Here’s 10 ways you can try to stop it. You have to. You know it.

Because you’ve binge-watched till the early mornings before. Or maybe, you’ve done it last night.

Damn Netflix (but we still love you…at night).

Switch The Unhealthy Food You’re Snacking On, First!
Wait a second and hear us out. Binge-eating’s one of the triggers of binge-watching, believe it or not. A nutritionist commented that if you eat real meals like watermelon cubes and frozen grapes, you’ll stop munching non-stop. And when you’re full and satisfied you’d be like, why am I on the couch for so long anyway? Let’s sleep instead. Problem solved.

Get Active For a Change
If you’re on the move and exercising more often, you’ll be keeping your lifespan longer. Studies have, after all shown that sitting for way too long can apparently shorten your lifespan. Here’s the kicker to wake you up – 5 hours and up of binge-watching and the seated repercussions can’t be neutralized by a solid hour of high-end workouts.

Basically, exercise your ass off instead of flattening it over the sofa. It’ll do you more good than you’d care to admit. And when you’re active, staying awake in front of your laptop or phone isn’t going to be easy, even if it’s a bloody nice show.

Use the Pause Button
Pause your program and go have a glass of water and walk about a bit. Come back after five minutes and watch again. Do this on repeat. You’ll get tired of binge-watching and actually want to do something else! The trick is not to have everything you need within arm’s reach. Try it and you’ll be surprised at the results.

Use a TV
Don’t watch on your laptop, tablet or smartphone. The TV screen is further away, so your eye muscles won’t have to strain themselves to focus. Also, since you’re watching TV, you’ll remind yourself that TV shows tend to end (at least they used to), which subconsciously make you go to sleep when you see the end credits.

Don’t charge your device
Say, if you’ve only 20% on your phone, use it to watch an episode without it being connected to the charger. Once the episode is over, your device would have run out of juice as well, telling you that if you want to watch one more episode…you’ll have to lean on the wall to watch it.

I know this won’t work for everyone because we’re living in a world whereby a charger is always within reach. I’d suggest that you throw away your charger, but that’s not going to go well with many of you.

Hydrate Your Body
You drink loads of water and then you really need to go to the toilet in between. Good for your body, bad for your binge-watching habit. Remember the advice of keeping everything you need out of reach? But please, don’t bring your phone into the toilet, you disgusting freak.

Mindfulness in Binge-Watching
Plan ahead and maybe watch one or two episodes at most, and consider all the other things you need to do when you’re done. One of the best ways is to plan an event after one hour – so you’ll only have one hour to watch.


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Screen’s Dimmed Out
Re-adjust your screen’s brightness – the iPhone’s even got its own Night Shift mode. You’ll be saving your eyes from free-radical damage – sagging skin loh. And dimmed screen means the device is telling you, “Hey, it’s late. Go to bed you disgusting freak.”

Siri is a bitch, eh?

Just Go And Sleep!
Keep your timetable for sleeping rock solid, unless there’s a fire or earthquake. This is useful for anything – not just binge-watching. If your usual sleeping time is 11:00 p.m., just off your phone and tell yourself to sleep. This might sound Captain Obvious but sometimes, you need obvious cues to take action.

A Device-Free Bedroom
Read or do yoga if you have to, but keep your gadgets away! You’ll find sleep creeping up eventually, and feel so much fresher in the morning too. In other words, keep your binge-watching habit in the living room. Let whoever is living with you sound you out instead.

So, which one of these are you gonna try out today, huh?


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