[readolog_dropcap ]I[/readolog_dropcap]n the age of the Internet and tech galore, television viewing has become something that for many people is an unhealthy habit or even an addiction. Many believe that after a long day of work, that they should just veg out in front of the TV, and while I do this at times, I always try to fill my time with other activities that are more relaxing and restorative.

The main problem with television, especially if you have young kids who watch it, or even yourself, is the cumulative effects of advertising.   You see, advertisers have long since figured out how the brain works on a subconscious level.  Have you ever noticed that commercials seem to be getting faster and more abstract?  Television commercials operate on a VISUAL and SUGGESTIVE basis now because corporate advertisers have figured out how to subliminally implant neurological connections to certain products/ideas.  Billions are spent annually on advertising techniques and companies that specialize in getting you to purchase a product in the most effective ways possible, and not all of the techniques used have your mental health in mind.

Don’t believe me? Here is a study that found that children who had seen cumulative fast food advertisements actually believed food tasted better when they thought that it was from McDonald’s compared to if it was un-packaged.

Another study suggests that 89% of the foods marketed towards children in the supermarket as “Fun food”, or foods that have fun images and colorful packaging, were found to be very unhealthy and high in processed sugar.

Studies like these are a dime a dozen and they all show us a snapshot of the dangers of over-consumption of television. The fact that people pay so much just to watch such a ridiculous amount of advertising is mind-boggling to begin with.

Ever notice how drug commercials always depict very healthy and happy people, often of every single ethnic variety possible? What better way to convince the population that we are all sick and need pharmaceuticals than by showing happy healthy people exercising!  Use this drug and you too can exercise and smile again!

Oh and if you are a woman, here are some airbrushed robot people that you are supposed to strive to look like! We have proportionally changed their entire face using a computer, forget actual beauty that resonates from the soul and focus on toxic make-up and hair products!

I am convinced that the only reason 80% of the products on the market right now that Americans happily consume regularly are made from poison is because we willingly buy them in our consumer culture due to all of the subliminal advertising we are bombarded with. If you think that you are not susceptible to advertising, you may be right, you probably can see it for what it is, however the visual images that you will be bombarded with on television will still subconsciously influence your brain.

I love nice things, and I love good products, but I do not need to be influenced by television whether or not I buy those products.

From: https://www.csun.edu

Television Statistics

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.

Influence of Television

For decades, research and studies have demonstrated that heavy television-viewing may lead to serious health consequences. Now the American medical community, which has long-voiced its concerns about the nation’s epidemic of violence, TV addiction and the passive, sedentary nature of TV-watching, is taking a more activist stance, demonstrated by its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week.

The average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders. At a meeting in Nashville, TN last July, Dr. John Nelson of the American Medical Association (an endorser of National TV-Turnoff Week) said that if 2,888 out of 3,000 studies show that TV violence is a casual factor in real-life mayhem, “it’s a public health problem.” The American Psychiatric Association addressed this problem in its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week, stating, “We have had a long-standing concern with the impact of television on behavior, especially among children.”

Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse as defined in the official psychiatric manual, according to Rutgers University psychologist and TV-Free America board member Robert Kubey. Heavy TV viewers exhibit five dependency symptoms–two more than necessary to arrive at a clinical diagnosis of substance abuse. These include: 1) using TV as a sedative; 2) indiscriminate viewing; 3) feeling loss of control while viewing; 4) feeling angry with oneself for watching too much; 5) inability to stop watching; and 6) feeling miserable when kept from watching.

Violence and addiction are not the only TV-related health problems. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released in October 1995 found 4.7 million children between the ages of 6-17 (11% of this age group) to be severely overweight, more than twice the rate during the 1960’s. The main culprits: inactivity (these same children average more than 22 hours of television-viewing a week) and a high-calorie diet. A 1991 study showed that there were an average of 200 junk food ads in four hours of children’s Saturday morning cartoons.

According to William H. Deitz, pediatrician and prominent obesity expert at Tufts University School of Medicine, “The easiest way to reduce inactivity is to turn off the TV set. Almost anything else uses more energy than watching TV.”

Children are not the only Americans suffering from weight problems; one-third of American adults are overweight. According to an American Journal of Public Health study, an adult who watches three hours of TV a day is far more likely to be obese than an adult who watches less than one hour.

Sometimes the problem is not too much weight; it’s too little. Seventy-five percent of American women believe they are too fat, an image problem that often leads to bulimia or anorexia. Sound strange? Not when one takes into account that female models and actresses are twenty-three percent thinner than the average woman and thinner than ninety-five percent of the female population.

9 YEARS of television in a 65 year old’s lifetime, thousands of ads for unhealthy and potentially addictive substances, and thousands of violent acts all embedded in our subconscious from a young age. This CANNOT be healthy.  Television seems like it is just a leisure activity, but in reality you are expending energy creating unhealthy subconscious connections to ideas and products.

Just think about how many adult alcoholics we have running around thinking that it is cool and socially acceptable to get drunk on a weekly basis. Alcohol advertisements piss me off more than nearly any other form of advertising, because everyone is always socializing, smiling, and happy.  These advertisements compound to make us believe that the only way true socialization can happen is during the consumption of alcohol, and if you observe many of your friends when they go out to the bar compared to how they act during the day you will find this to be true.

Many of the guys I know cannot even talk to a girl unless they have at least 4-5 drinks in them already, they think it is ok to get drunk on the weekends and spend the first half of their work week recovering.

People think that just because they work hard all week that they need to go out drinking and spend their time plopped in front of a television set being bombarded with negativity and being told that they need to buy things. This free time could be used for a million and one more productive things and ALSO for relaxing things.

Besides the negative subconscious influences of television, sitting and being inactive while watching TV KILLS!

Sitting has been found to increase mortality risks, and those who watch TV more than 2 hours per day were found to have an increased mortality rate of 46% for all causes, and around an 80% increased mortality rates for heart disease.   Sitting suppresses the metabolism and may increase your chances of developing diabetes due to insulin levels rising when sedentary. Being sedentary by sitting for long periods of time has also been found to cause adverse health effects that may not be able to be countered by physical exercise.

You CANNOT undo the negative effects of sitting, even if you are otherwise a healthy and active individual.  Sitting for over 2 hours a day is basically just as bad, if not worse, for your metabolism than smoking.  The way most people allow their body to slump when watching television, from my observations which have been backed up by science, is probably one of the worst positions to place the spine and promotes poor circulation.  There are much more effective ways to sit, such as adopting a full lotus position, or lying down.

Muscle imbalances and problems such as herniated discs can be the result of chronic sitting day in and day out, leading to people running around looking for surgeries and doctors to solve their problems.  Inactivity is really the root of the issue, when muscles become shortened like that for years, movement becomes impaired and injuries result.

Instead of watching TV I will often:

• Write in my journal or blog
• Do some restorative Yoga or Pilates or just intuitive stretching
• Eat mindfully and fully enjoy my food instead of staying glued to the television set.
• Socialize with my family
• Read a book
• Watch YouTube videos that have zero advertisements
• Go for a walk
• Go to sleep!
• Meditate
• Work on a project to earn me some extra income
• Clean around the house
• Get ready for tomorrow

All of these activities serve to make you more productive, become TRULY rested, and make your next day and the rest of the week easier. They are a much better alternative to television.

Here are some tips to minimize your exposure to poor television programming and commercials that I follow religiously:

• Mute all commercials and make sure you do not watch them; the visuals alone can impact you neurologically.
• Change the channel and find another program
• Only watch programs that are positive or humorous or the movie channels.
• Only watch movies that are non-violent, violent movies and horror films can cause negative reactions in the body and may actually traumatize you physically causing nervous tension and anxiety. As far as I can tell watching professional make-up artists figure out how to make killing someone look so real that I cannot tell the difference is no different than actually watching a death, at least in a visual sense.
• Watch happy and positive movies or movies by good directors. I love Martin Scorseze and I love GoodFellas, watching his movies are a treat to me and I will even go to the theatre to see his new releases, but this is because I have a TASTE for his ART, I am not just zoning out watching whatever violent movie is on TV for 10 hours a day.
• Start using Netflix and other similar programs so that you can watch commercial free programming.
• When watching regular cable TV you should basically avoid all major news networks and major broadcasts like the plague. Their programming is mostly just murders, death, and negativity. I cannot think of a better way to become a cynical human being than by regularly watching the major news networks. Get your news from informed websites on the Internet or just do not bother with it at all. If you need to find out what is going on near you, go outside and look around.

All of the examples I have shown and a bit of your own research will verify that the points that I am making are 100% true, but I would like to summarize just why I believe that this type of influence is so negative to our culture and to our lives, from an outsiders perspective, as I do not watch much TV.

Television is something that most people do during their LEISURE time at the end of their workday; they do it just so they can relax! And rightly so, most of us are hardworking and deserve to just veg out on the couch and do nothing, but this is the WORST time possible to be influenced by all of this negative programming and advertising!  Let me explain why.

When we are in a relaxed state and resting and eating, we should be with our families, facing them and expressing with our bodies and in a happy mindset. We are very receptive to new ideas and imagery when we are in a relaxed mindset because our brainwaves are slowing down at the end of the day and we are getting ready to eat and go to bed.

[readolog_blockquote]We should be filling our psyche with positive thoughts, deep meditation and self-reflection, and healthy connections with our family and loved ones, the things that really matter, not some ridiculous negative programming on television.[/readolog_blockquote]

Spend your time eating and doing restorative exercises and practices with your FAMILY. Cook together, touch each other, laugh often, eat together, and cultivate powerful love energy for your soul and for the next day.

Compare that beautiful imagery of a family in their kitchen cooking and laughing together after a short walk around the block; to a family separated in their household eating crappy food plopped in front of a TV being told to eat more unhealthy food and go drinking for the same social connection they could have had a few feet away at THAT moment.

Here is to healthier connections, more time spent together with our families cultivating love and positive beliefs and actions, and WAY less time spent plopped down with poor posture on a couch watching TV.

Honestly if I was going to be 100% honest I would advise that you just smash your TVs and throw them out.  The real world is much more fun.