5 Ways You Can Use Technology to Enhance Your Health

While you may be enjoying your dream job working on optimizing an app or programming a new bit of game-changing software, there are some well-known downsides to it. Whether you work on development at home as a freelancer or at an office with like minded coworkers, you are still likely working at a desk with little movement in-between. And that means you are at a much higher risk for health problems. Chances are, later down the road, you’ll run into issues with muscular-skeletal disorders, obesity, and many other painful conditions.

Despite the downsides, you don’t have to give up your dev career. Instead, you can twist how technology affects you. Technology can encourage sedentary preferences and other forms of unhealthy activity, but it can also be used to do the opposite. Just consider using technology in the following five ways to give your well-being a bit of a boost.

1. Have an app remind you when you need to take your prescription.

If you already have a lot of medication to look after for a number of health conditions, the last thing you want to do is forget to take them. Unfortunately, this is an incredibly easy thing to do. You might convince yourself that you only need one more minute of work before you take your medication. But then several hours fly by before you know it!

To make sure your focus is in the right place, you should consider a free app like Medisafe. Such apps were designed to remind you of what medication you need to take when. This notification system will give your working self a gentle nudge, reminding you that your work isn’t the only important part of your life.

2. Order your medication all from one place online straight to your doorstep.

If work tends to make you forget about anything involving medication like when and where you should start getting a refill, then ordering from an online Canadian pharmacy referral service like Canada Med Pharmacy might be in order.

Such a service allows you to order your prescription drugs online from licensed international pharmacies at a much more affordable rate from one place. That way, if you were generally a multi-pharmacy-goer, you don’t have to worry any more about what pharmacy you should go to for what prescription or how much it would have cost you. Instead, you can focus more on your dev time, knowing that all of your prescriptions will get to your home on time without costing you an arm and a leg.

3. Get a fitness tracker to stay active.

Another way to stay healthy and happy is by maintaining at least 150 minutes of exercise weekly. You can do this by moving around during your work breaks and getting more active after work or on the weekend.

It can be difficult to motivate yourself to move, though, especially after working hard for several hours. But you can give yourself a bit of motivation through a fitness tracker like fitbit. This type of digital fitness tracker will let you know how active you’ve been throughout the day, showing you how much of a great impact some of your routine activities, such as walking to the grocery store, can have on your health.

4. Add a browser extension that encourages break time.

Staying healthy isn’t all about being active and productive, though. Your body deserves a break every now and then. In today’s workaholic environment, this can be difficult. So to make it just a little easier on yourself, look for free browser extension apps like Strict Workflow. These apps enforce a short break time on your computer, where some websites are blocked from access for a short period of time. That way, you can take a small mental vacation to give your mind a well-earned rest without invading your work time too much.

5. De-stress with a meditation app.

Many short breaks from work might help your mind rest a little, but if you have a condition like general anxiety disorder, you likely need more of a break once you get off work. Without a longer rest, you might start to feel that your work routine is overwhelming or that you’re floundering under tasks that used to be a breeze.

Neither feeling is great for your mental or physical well-being. But you can prevent it by focusing on meditation. Meditation is a method that teaches you to think in the present and distance yourself from what-if anxieties. While a hard method to practise just by yourself, you can find apps like Headspace that offer guided sessions to help walk you through your meditation.

Making the most of technology like this can help you maintain, and even enhance your health, without you needing to lose your dream dev career. So if you feel a bit under the weather at work, you might want to keep these five practices in mind.