Let Digital Technology Look After Your Health

Digital technology can be good for our health. Using apps and gadgets, it’s possible to monitor one’s health and make improvements. Here are just several ways in which digital technology could help you to live a healthier lifestyle.

Encourage physical exercise

Fitness gadgets have seen a huge rise in popularity this decade. Many smartphones now come with preinstalled step counter apps that can encourage you to get your 10,000 steps a day in. Wearable tech such as the FitBit meanwhile has made counting steps more accurate, whilst also measuring heart rate and blood pressure.

Other apps and gadgets can help to recommend workouts and record your training progress. Running apps for example can help you to record your time and distance (some can even recommend routes). Many of these pieces of tech are also able to also give you goals to help motivate you. Such tech can help you to lose weight and improve cardiovascular health, all in all prolonging your lifespan.

Exercise your brain

Technology can also help you to keep your brain healthy. Studies have found that puzzle apps can boost the memory of players, which could potentially ward off mental degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. There are specific brain training apps out there like Lumosity that have millions of users – downloading one of these apps could be worthwhile.

Even everyday video games are thought to be useful for exercising the brain. Almost all video games encourage problem solving – they’re better for you than simply watching TV.

Improve your sleep quality

Digital technology if often blamed for poor sleep quality. In some regards, this is true – using devices with screens such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs and TVs before going to bed can delay the production of melatonin and make it harder to get to sleep. This is because the brightness of the screen tricks our brains into thinking it’s still daytime. For this reason, it’s recommended that we don’t use devices with screens within an hour before going to bed.

Despite this, digital technology can still play an important part in improving our sleep. There are sleep monitoring apps available that can monitor your quality of sleep – when placed on your mattress they can detect sounds and movement, helping to judge when you’re in a light and deep sleep. Such apps however can often do more than this – some are able to lull you to sleep with music or ambient sounds like rain, whilst others can wake you up gently using soothing alarms that go off during your lightest period of sleep so that you wake feeling more refreshed.

There are also gadgets that can help with sleep such as wearable wristbands to monitor your sleep and alarm clocks that provide a gradual glow before going off, helping you to wake up more naturally on a dark winter morning.

Good sleep quality is important for keeping our mind and body healthy. By using such technology, you could improve your immune system and ward off heart disease caused by sleep-deprived stress.

Keep a healthy diet

There are also ways of using digital technology to improve your diet. There are an endless amount of dieting apps out there can do everything from counting calories of foods to recommending meal plans. These can be very useful for helping to lose weight and lower cholesterol.

There are also a number of gadgets that can help you with bad eating habits. These include scales for weighing food that can help with portion control and even a smart fork that can tell you if you’re eating too quickly.

Digital technology can also help those that are following strict dietary requirements. Apps like Food Maestro can help people who may have food allergies and intolerances to find safe foods. This may include where to buy certain food products, as well as locating restaurants that cater to your food allergy.

Beat depression and anxiety

When it comes to overcoming mental health problems, tech often gets a bad rep as being a cause. However, it can also help serve as a cure. There are apps on the market that can help to ask questions and provide emergency contact information for those suffering mental health problems. Other apps meanwhile can help to reduce stress and anxiety by providing meditative games and experiences.

A number of gadgets have also been used to reduce stress and depression. Research is even being made into headsets that can send electrical impulses through the brain to help encourage a positive mental attitude.

Organize your meds

Technology can also help when organising and dispensing medication. If you have to take a number of pills at certain times and struggle to keep track of them, downloading a pill organizer app could help you to keep to a schedule by providing alarms and telling you which pill to take.

You can also buy dispensers that give out certain pills at allotted times. These may be able to be used in conjunction with an app. Such technology can be particularly useful for those with memory problems.

Overcome physical disability

There are so many gadgets out there that can help those with physical disabilities. The most obvious include electric wheelchairs to help those with mobility problems, hearing aids to help those with hearing problems and voice recognition to help those that can’t use computers manually.

Smart technology has opened up new possibilities allowing homes to run themselves and be controlled remotely. It’s thought that once this technology is affordable it will help many people with disabilities in the future to live independently without the need for a carer.

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