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Goodnight Smartphone by Arianna Huffington

Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano

Photography by Photo Via Amazon

Snuggling up with our kids and a stack of books at the end of the day is a surefire way to get them to calm down and settle before bedtime. Of course, more often than not, we don’t have a steady routine like that for ourselves—especially a tech-free routine. This point is nailed home in Arianna Huffington’s new audio book (no word if it’ll be turned into a physical book), Goodnight Smartphone, which came out last week and is available for free download.

Like the supremely giftable best-seller Go The F*ck To Sleep (and it’s mealtime counterpart You Have To F*cking Eat), Goodnight Smartphone isn’t really for kids, but for adults. Mindfulness and sleep quality proponent Huffington (who also penned The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time last year) explains that in today’s over-connected world, saying ‘goodnight’ is harder than ever.

“The list of things encroaching on our night has grown dramatically since Goodnight Moon first began [in 2007],” she says in the audio intro to Goodnight Smartphone, in which she also details her own bedtime routine (which includes charging all of her devices in another room, having a candle-lit, hot bath with epsom salt, reading physical books not dedicated to work, sipping tea, and sleeping in non-workout clothes).

Updating the original for the digital age, some of Goodnight Smartphone‘s most quotable lines are as follows:

“Goodnight sleep-killing blue light from my electronic devices, which I have gently escorted out of the bedroom.”
“Goodnight kittens, goodnight emails unwritten.”
“Goodnight clocks, goodnight inbox.”
“Goodnight house, goodnight problems with spouse.”
“Goodnight laptop, which, as a repository for all of my daily worries, anxieties, and fears has been closed for the night, releasing me from thinking I need to turn them over in my head all night.”
“Goodnight worrying about weight loss, goodnight demanding boss.”
“Goodnight caffeine, which I stop drinking no later than 2:15”
“Goodnight critics, goodnight Netflix.”
“Goodnight burnouts, goodnight roadblocks to ideas that need sleep to workout.”
“Goodnight sheets, goodnight tweets.”
“Goodnight moon that I can’t see because of my blackout curtains.”

Yes, it lacks the eloquent, sing-songy lines of the original, but perhaps that’s the point. Overall, we think Goodnight Smartphone just takes one listen to effectively hammer home the point that unplugging is as imperative for adults as it is for our kids.

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