Live Life Team
With the rise of on demand TV and online streaming, TV addicts across the world have found themselves facing a strange new phenomenon: binge watching. ‘Binge watching’ is defined as the practice of watching multiple episodes of a TV programme in quick succession, often at the expense of sleeping, eating, exercise, and even personal hygiene. This type of marathon viewing becomes a particularly overbearing risk when a new series of a popular TV show is released, and viewers stay glued to the couch unable to tear themselves away from the screen until all episodes are finished. According to a recent survey conducted by Netflix, 61% of users regularly watch up to 6 episodes of a given TV show in one sitting, with most Netflix users choosing to watch seasons in one sitting rather than spread over time. Binge watching sessions are usually accompanied by symptoms such as extreme lethargy, feelings of powerlessness, and intense feelings of guilt and self-loathing.
Screen time and app limits
Most mobile devices and laptops come with in-built software solutions that can help you prevent another Netflix binge. By setting time-limits for certain apps, you can set your device to block certain content once you’ve hit your daily limit. This is a quick and easy way to effectively decrease the risk of getting sucked into another binge.
Watching with a friend
If you are really struggling with a binge watching habit, you can find help in your close friends. By resolving to only watch cable TV online with a friend or loved one you can both resolve to not let each other get sucked into a marathon Netflix binge. Keeping each other accountable like this also has the added benefit of allowing you to spend quality time with each other.
Only watching at the gym
Another way of avoiding binge watching your favourite shows is by resolving to only watch video content when you are at the gym. Watching TV shows whilst doing cardio on the bike or elliptical is a great way to both make your time in the gym go quicker and to find a way of fitting in your favourite TV shows without eating into your daily schedule. As it relates to binge watching, limiting your video watching to the gym means you simply won’t have the time to watch more than one or two episodes of your favourite show unless you plan on staying at the gym all afternoon!
Set movement alerts
For those of us with access to a smart watch or fitness tracker, a great way of avoiding getting sucked into binge watching cable TV online is to set a movement reminder. Most smart watches and fitness trackers have built in movement alerts that can be set to notify you when you have been sedentary for too long. To stop the alarm, you must get up and walk around for a few minutes with the reminder being reset when you become sedentary. These are a great tool you can use to remind you to get up and move around which could work to break you out of a slow decline into a binge watching session!
