Young people are increasingly using healthy lifestyle technologies (HLT) to support their healthy active lifestyles, yet little is known about how they use their digital skills and/or health knowledge to regulate their healthy behaviours and engage with HLT critically. Moreover, there is a dearth of literature on young adults’ perspectives and experiences of HLT use in this regard. This is noteworthy as this age group is more likely to use HLT to regulate their physical activity (PA) participation and health learning independently. Therefore, this study aims to explore young adults’ (aged 18–20) experiences of using HLT in supporting and regulating their healthy active lifestyles beyond a formal learning context. The research was undertaken with university students in central England, with 23 young adults participating in eight focus groups and 11 participating in individual interviews. An abductive thematic analysis approach was employed to analyse the data, and self-regulated learning theory was used as a theoretical framework to guide data analysis. Three analytical themes were conceptualised as follows: (1) The use of HLT to facilitate a healthy active lifestyle, (2) Barriers and concerns, and (3) Digital health strategies. The findings indicate that the young adults sought to foster healthy active lifestyles through a noticeable self-regulation process within the pedagogical environment afforded by HLT. This involved setting goals, selecting and implementing appropriate strategies, and monitoring and adjusting their PA participation and health learning as needed. Whilst the young adults had encountered various barriers and challenges in regulating their healthy active lifestyles via HLT, they had developed various digital health strategies to address or mitigate these. This research provides new empirical evidence on how and why young adults engage with HLT and develop strategies to support their healthy active lifestyles, thereby illustrating the potential of HLT to foster their lifelong PA participation and health learning.
Author: ultroni1
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CEDIA Tech + Business Summit Sunshine Coast
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How Technology Can Support You in Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle
In the era when fitness trackers once reigned as the pinnacle of tech-driven health assistance, we find ourselves amidst a transformative landscape that surpasses previous expectations. The future of technology for health unfolds with an array of sophisticated gadgets, applications, and AI diagnostic tools in daily life. Brace yourself, as an overwhelming 78% of individuals acknowledge technology’s substantial potential in enhancing health, and we are poised to illustrate why.
Envision awakening to personalized sleep reports seamlessly delivered by your intelligent speaker, accompanied by insightful sleep efficiency tips and the gentle diffusion of calming lavender aromatherapy throughout your room. While resembling scenes from a science fiction narrative, this scenario is, in fact, a mere glimpse into the realm of state-of-the-art technology for health poised to redefine your fitness regimen, dietary choices, and overall well-being.
This article is not a proponent of antiquated gimmicks or unrealistic fad diets. Instead, it seeks to empower you by guiding you through the utilization of lifestyle technology to unlock the pathway to your healthiest and happiest self.
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Happy, healthy heart
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the most common heart condition in the United States is coronary artery disease. This ailment occurs when cholesterol builds up in the arteries and they become damaged or diseased. In order to prevent or treat this illness, physicians recommend several lifestyle changes, all involving monitoring heart activity. There are several monitoring apps and devices that exist to help someone with a heart condition measure and track their cardiovascular improvements.
In order to cope with heart-threatening conditions, it is important to measure stress levels. A physician may recommend a periodic ECG, or electrocardiogram, that can reveal evidence of heart strains. These days, many ECG involved wearing a portable monitor for 24 hours in order for it to properly indicate any cardiovascular abnormalities. Similarly, portable tests can be used for people with arrhythmia or A-fit, who can now use FDA-approved apps and devices to track their heart rate.
Other heart-healthy devices are available to the general public, with simpler trackers that produce daily heart rates or give daily advice, suggestions and support for people looking to improve their breathing or blood pressure. Wearable heart monitors and devices make it easier than ever before for people to remain heart-healthy.
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Get some sleep
In our fast-paced world, sleep does not often get the attention it deserves. Sleeping through the night can lower your risk of injury, allow for better weight control and put you in an improved mood for the rest of the day. If sleeping or waking up have become increasingly difficult for you, it may be time to consider some technology-based sleep methods.
Sleep apps allow you to take control of your nighttime habits by tracking, measuring and evaluating your sleep methods. Some of the most popular sleep-related apps allow you to track your sleep nightly, so you can see what time you fell asleep, how many hours you slept and what time you woke up. By keeping track of these sleep statistics, you can become more aware of your bedtime routine and can adjust as necessary.
Other sleeping methods include the use of blue light filters, which can help eliminate harmful lights that are emitted by phone and tablet screens and can significantly reduce the time it takes for you to fall asleep. Nighttime filters on your electronics can also help you relax and are recommended for those who feel restless or anxious before bedtime.
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Work it out
While fitness trackers have existed for athletes for years, smart phones and watches now allow the general public to track their workout efforts with easier. This wearable technology can measure the number of steps you take per day, provide individualized workout plans for your body type and document your progress in order to help you achieve your fitness goals.
Some apps even send daily reminders to stretch, take a stroll around the office or just take some deep breaths. Dr. Lai explains that, “the best apps are the ones that not only track data, but also have reminders or social media features to help keep a person on track and motivated.
They also allow you to communicate with the fitness community, schedule daily workouts with friends and provide you with the most up-to-date research on physical fitness plans and strategies.
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Improve your diet.
Adjusting to a healthier lifestyle often starts with changing your diet. Overeating is a large problem in the United States, as processed foods and large portions have become a way of life. In order to combat these unhealthy habits, kitchen technology has emerged to help us keep track of our ingredients and portions.
While calorie tracking is not a new concept, some health apps are designed to assist you with tracking your daily food intake and offer health nutrition suggestions. Do you know how many cups of water you should be drinking per day? Not only will these health apps help you remember, but they will monitor your food and drink to make sure you are staying on track.
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Tech, apps and fitness gadgets to keep you on track.
Everywhere you look, you see them: wearable fitness gadgets. Fitbits, Apple watches, Garmins and other technology claim to help boost your diet, enhance your exercise routine, improve your sleep regime and keep your heart healthy.
But do they really do what they promise?
Jeffrey Lai, MD, MemorialCare family and sports medicine physician, believes the portability of wearable health trackers makes them ideal tools for monitoring healthy habits.
“We all want to feel better, be healthier, happier and more energetic, right? Eating right, getting enough sleep, staying physically active, decreasing stress – these are the foundation of a healthy lifestyle and something I love counseling my patients on,” says Dr. Lai. “But there’s an old saying: ‘You can’t manage what you can’t count.’ Today’s smart phone apps help out the most important healthy details.”
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Individual identity
A lifestyle is a way of living or doing things. Lifestyle is doing things, living your life and making decisions in your own unique way. Lifestyle can be political, social, economical and personal way of seeing, doing and understanding things. Not all parts of a lifestyle are our decisions. Surrounding social and technical systems, like economical situation and people around us, can limit the lifestyle choices available to the individual.
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The circadian preferences in the context of sociodemographic indicators and lifestyle
Differences between morning and evening types can also be founded on lifestyle and health. There are significant differences in the consumption of legal substances (alcohol, coffee, nicotine, caffeinated beverages) and illegal drugs between people with extreme M/E preferences. Evening types reported higher consumption of both (Danielsson et al. 2019; Wittmann et al. 2006). This overuse could be explained as an attempt to cope with social jet lag (SJL). SJL is a discrepancy between biological time, determined by our internal body clock, and social times, mainly dictated by social obligations such as school or work (Caliandro et al. 2021). Given current social factors and pressures, evening types are thought to use stimulants first to help them cope with sleep deprivation and its associated effects. However, it should be borne in mind that substance use (especially addiction) is a complex process and is influenced by many other variables, not just circadian preferences and related genes (Adan et al. 2012). An unhealthy lifestyle is associated with increasing obesity, unhealthy diets, hypertension, cardiovascular risk, and other civilization disorders (Didikoglu et al. 2019; Mazri et al. 2020). Moreover, evening types have more frequent mental disorders and more sleeping problems (Merikanto et al. 2016; Patterson et al. 2016).
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