The best technology hacks for healthy living

Remember the days when the only access to health information was your family doctor and women’s magazines? Unless you are one of my very supportive friends or family members (thank you all, by the way ), you likely learned about the Age Sister website by way of a computer, mobile phone, or tablet. The use of technology for health has come a long way, baby.

Typically using the internet is the main focus of technology in healthy living, but there are so many more devices and applications that you can use to help take better care of your health. Just to be clear this blog post is not a promotion of any specific product, and I have no affiliate relationships with any of the companies listed below.

Built-in phone features  

Remember last week’s blog post on habits? Habits and cues go together. You can use technology to provide some of those cues for you.  One of the very simple phone features that can help you to stay on track is the “reminders” function.

You can use reminders for the more obvious health tasks such as remembering to take daily medication, as well as cues for behaviours like, “drink a glass of water”. The reminders function is also great to use as a nudge to get up and move every 45 minutes or hour when sitting for long periods of time (like, when writing a blog post). 

As I always say, if you can’t do any other regular activity, focus on breaking up sitting time throughout the day. Multiple studies have shown that prolonged sitting time is associated not only with higher cardiovascular disease risk, but also with “all cause” mortality.[1] In other words, you may lower your overall disease risk simply by getting up from your chair regularly. 

There are other helpful phone features, like those for composing messages. Struggling to find your reading glasses? Did you know that there’s a little microphone button in the keyboard of your phone that you can press to dictate all your texts? If poor eyesight is an issue, voice dictation is a lifesaver. You can also hold down the main button on your iPhone to dictate a reminder, like scheduling a swim or going for a walk later in the day.

Trackers

I must preface this recommendation with full disclosure: a) I am a nerdy lover of health data, and b) I have been involved in several research projects that used fitness trackers as part of the study design. I have also used trackers as part of my assignment structure in teaching a post-secondary health course. So, it’s safe to say I really love trackers. 

Many people use trackers to measure their daily steps. If you’ve never used a fitness tracker, the premise is that the device collects some sort of data (either by a small device that measures acceleration forces, called an accelerometer, or by receiving satellite signals that measure location).

A word of caution here; if you are measuring step counts, you should base your increases on your own data, rather than on an arbitrary number. I’ve said it before, but the magical 10,000 steps-a-day number has no basis in research. 

You can start by collecting your own baseline information for a week. Collecting a baseline means simply tracking what your normal movement is over the course of seven days and making a change (or possibly no change) based on what you discover. Collecting daily information also allows you to see patterns (e.g., you may have much more sedentary time on one day compared to another) and gives you an average to begin. An increase of five percent to your weekly steps counts is a safe way to get more activity. 

Satellite trackers, like those in apps like walkmeter or on a satellite enabled watch, are a fun way of collecting more detailed information about things like pace, speed, and maps of where you’ve been. Satellite enabled watches have become so sophisticated that they have many more functions than most of us will ever use, but they can provide motivation – seeing progression in your speed or distance can help you to understand how adaptable your body truly is, and how we must continue to add challenge to move forward. 

Apps

Where do I even begin with this category? There are endless fitness apps to choose from, but when studied, few met the American College of Sports Medicine recommendations for regular physical activity (considered to be a gold standard worldwide in exercise prescription).[2]

With this caveat, I would recommend that you use an app that just helps to keep you accountable. For example, I am a huge Strava fan because it connects me with friends who are active, and the weekly totals keep me coming back. Strava works for me because of the types of activities that I do, but you can find an app for almost any tracking (e.g., MySwimPro). 

Although I would NEVER recommend dieting, some nutritional apps are helpful to get a basic understanding of your nutrient intake. Of course, possible vitamin and mineral deficiencies should be assessed and diagnosed by your doctor, but you can get a general sense of your overall nutrient intake by using an app like Myfitnesspal or Fooducate. Just be sure to get some professional advice before making any major change to your diet. 

For the Age Sister community in the UK, you can also use the Edo app to help you make assessments for healthy choices in the grocery store. By scanning bar codes and with manual entry, Edo gives you a rating along with alternatives that might be considered more nutrient-dense, but pro-tip: apart from things like dried lentils, bar codes are usually a sign that what you are about to eat is not really food. 

Finally, if you are looking for help with adding more mindfulness or stress-reduction techniques into your routine, there are some great apps like Headspace or Insight Timer. Just be warned that for some functions, both apps require a paid upgrade. 

Your sister in health,