If your gym closed during 2020, you’re not alone. Even if you moved part of your workout home, you may be struggling to maintain the healthiest habits possible as we come out of the pandemic. Luckily, there are many tools to help you improve your health, some of which live on your phone and many of which can easily be worn on your body.
Get Moving
Consider investing in a Fitbit or one of the many apple watch apps that simply remind you to get moving. It’s very easy, when working from home, to move from chair to chair. However, too much sitting lets the biggest muscles of your body do nothing, which can reduce your spinal health and increase your risk for obesity.
A watch app that lets you know when you’ve been stationary for too long will encourage you to get up and get moving. You can then add to the habit. For example, when your apple watch gives you a nudge, you can stand, stretch, do ten wall plank push-ups, and walk around for a bit. If you do this each time you stand, you could conceivably do 100 pushups a day.
Monitor Blood Pressure
High blood pressure and heart disease are killers. If you’re struggling with high blood pressure and need a way to track your spikes that will also notify your physician, the Omron Evolv travels with you, can be easily and accurately applied as needed, and provide you and your care team with immediate information.
Determining your blood pressure triggers could reduce your need for medication. You may need to change up your work schedule or make other changes, but this tool means that you could have up-to-date information on your blood pressure spikes and reduce the damage done by them over time.
Be Mindful
Mindfulness apps abound. You can also set them on a schedule to encourage yourself to
- stop
- breathe
- clear your mind
- take a healthy self-care action
If you’ve been working to eat better, move more, fight stress, or manage anxiety, a mindfulness app can help you customize your personal process to improve your health. For example, if you have a 3 pm break that has turned into a junk-food fest, consider swapping out your candy bar and chips for a sparkling water and meditation break. A simple 5 minute guided meditation recording could help you to reset the rest of your day.
Eat Well
Whether you’re shopping in person or getting your groceries delivered, managing what food comes into your home will reduce your exposure to unhealthy junk choices. You can also find grocery apps that let you compare available coupons to make budget-friendly, healthy food choices.
In addition to bringing in the best quality food to suit your budget, you can better protect your health by consuming more vegetables. There are many apps that feature vegetarian and vegan recipes that can help you expand your cooking habits. Using these apps, you can create your shopping list. Your particular health goals can also be tracked on these apps, as many of these apps also include nutritional data.
Go to Bed
If you use your phone for a morning alarm, be sure to set a “go to bed” reminder. In addition, your phone can provide you with tools including
- music to soothe you to sleep
- meditation apps to help you settle your mind
- calming sounds of nature
- white noise to cut out distractions
Experts recommend that you avoid using your phone in bed; this can actually expose you to excessive light that lets your brain know that it’s daytime. However, most of these apps come with a timer so the sounds will stop once you’ve fallen asleep.
Building a healthier lifestyle takes daily choices and a focus on building proper habits to suit your goals. Because we’re always building habits, for good or ill, the tools listed above offer the chance to put healthy practices in place as an automatic go-to. Use the timers on your tools as reminders to build the healthiest choices possible into your day.
As the editor of the blog, She curate insightful content that sparks curiosity and fosters learning. With a passion for storytelling and a keen eye for detail, she strive to bring diverse perspectives and engaging narratives to readers, ensuring every piece informs, inspires, and enriches.