Apps can provide a new way for employees to stay at the top of their game, mentally and physically. Challenging the brain with interactive and motivational activities can keep them active in and out of the office. Taking breaks to do short mental and physical exercises can help to focus energy and promote productivity at work. Consider the following apps if you are looking for a way to improve your mental and physical wellbeing in the office. Get ready to de-clutter your mind and uncramp your body!
1. Try Daily Goals – Simple Habit Tracker to Create and Maintain Healthy Habits
Do you want to break old habits or make some new positive changes in your life, but have trouble staying consistent? Daily Goals can allow you to build healthy habits by tracking them. With this app, you can customize the start and end dates, reminder times and a schedule for each habit. You can schedule habits on repeat for specific days of the week or weekly, as a reminder to stay on top of your habits. Daily Goals will allow you to stay motivated in a simple, yet effective way. Your reminders may help you to choose the treadmill over the couch, get to bed on time and so on. The app will provide feedback on your progress by plotting habits of your choice on a history calendar. Up to 8 habits of your choice can be plotted at the same time-allowing you to see the patterns and progress. You can analyze your progress with an overall analysis feature of the app, which includes your current/longest streak per habit over the course of days, weeks and months. The app also allows for a passcode, keeping your habits safe and private. In addition, you can set a daily reminder to record your progress and export your habit data in Excel format. This app can help you effectively tackle numerous habits at the same time and visually see the progress you are making, which is harder to see without the convenience of using an app to help track.
2. Stand up! The Work Break Timer – App to Implement Exercise at the Office
Excessive sitting impacts our body’s metabolic system: “Today, our bodies are breaking down from obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, depression and the cascade of health ills and everyday malaise that come from what scientists have named sitting disease.” ~ James Levine, MD, PhD
While most Americans with office jobs have to sit most of the day, we can combat what is called “the sitting disease” with an app called ‘Stand Up’.
According to USA Today, if we can reduce our sitting time to less than three hours a day, we can add two years to our lives. Stand Up, may just be able to help us achieve that. Stand Up is a fun, flexible work break timer. This app is also useful for RSI sufferers or anyone who needs to take breaks to be more productive. This app is free on the itunes app store and comes with one alarm and one in-App purchase unlocks the rest of the app’s functionalities. You can set a reminder interval to any 5-minute increment between 5 minutes and 2 hours. The header of the app shows you at a glance how you are doing and how long you have until your next alarm. You can also limit alarms to your office location so that it doesn’t bug you when you go out to lunch. The app features interactive notifications, which allows you to acknowledge the alarm from your lock screen so that you do not have to unlock your phone and open up the app while at work. The app claims that it does not micromanage you and does not make you feel guilty. There is no compulsive tracking and it doesn’t tell you what exercises you need to do. The app useful for incorporating the initial movement we need to strike change and motivate us to move.
3. Use Simple Habit as a Quick De-Stressing Tool
If you are budgeted on time, Simple Habit may be a good tool to use. Developed by Yunha Kim along with a group of Harvard psychologists, the app only asks for 5 minutes of your time to meditate. The app is free to download with a 30-day trial and is recommended by Apple and Business Insider. With this app, it is easier to reduce stress, improve focus, sleep better and more. There are meditation guides in the app that are created and taught by mindfulness experts at Google to former monks. The guided meditations offered range from various specific life situations such as ‘tough day at work’, ‘commute’, ‘taking a break’, ‘sleep’ along with a wide range of other meditations available with purchase which cover almost any topic you can think to meditate about. A few scientific benefits of meditation include:
- Increased self-awareness
- Increases mental strength and focus
- Induces relaxation
- Improves emotional well-being
- Reduces blood pressure
- Lessens heart and brain problems
- Better information processing
More scientific benefits of meditation: http://liveanddare.com/benefits-of-meditation/
Nova Medical Centers provides healthcare to patients suffering from musculoskeletal injuries. Currently, Nova treats more than 40,000 injuries each year and sees more than 600,000 patient visits in 12 months. We focus on getting the patient healthy sooner with optimal results so that they can make the workforce stronger.
What programs or apps are you using to achieve your fitness and health goals? Let us know in the comments section below.
Written by: Jessica Hurd
Stand Up! The Work Break Timer App Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stand-up-the-work-break-timer/id828244687?mt=8
Simple Habit App Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-habit-meditation-guided-mindfulness/id1093360165?mt=8
Daily Goals-Simple Habit Tracker: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daily-goals-simple-habit-tracker-goal-tracking-progress/id590691570?mt=8
