We all love gadgets, don’t we? Whether it is our Smartphones we’re glued to all day, our e-book readers that have replaced paperbacks – heck, even those little rubber tubes that peel garlic cloves quickly (look them up if you’ve never seen them, they will change your life!)
Gadgets can be fun, they can make an aspect of our life easier – and they can also help to make us healthier.
Yes, we’ve all heard of mobile apps we can download to track movement and encourage us to drink water. But these days there is a whole market of cool health gadgets out there to help us live a healthier life.
Related Read: List of Best Wearable Gadgets that you can wear
And hey, as the year ticks along and we get into the dreaded new year’s resolution phase of guilt at the end of the holiday period, maybe you might need a little extra help?
If so, then here is our take on 5 of the best health gadgets currently on the market.
1.Slow Cooker (AKA a CrockPot)
Hey, we said this list was going to be a little quirky, right? Well, there are multiple parts to a healthy lifestyle so you need a range of health gadgets.
One of the most important, but often overlooked elements of a healthy lifestyle is a balanced, nutritious diet. That’s right – no matter how many pre-dawn runs or stomach crunches you perform if you’re fueling it with McDonalds you’re not going to see any gains.
At the same time, it can often be hard to get good healthy food when you’re working all day, maintaining a social and family life, etc. A slow cooker (or crock pot to our American friends) is a great healthy product to help with that.
Just pop in the chopped veg, some stock and some good quality protein like organic chicken. Turn it on, go to work, come home and enjoy your tasty, and healthy, chicken stew.
2.Water Filter
Hey, just as important as good nutrition is good hydration. That 8 glasses a day mantra is actually a load of rubbish (Google it and see) but you still need to hydrate, and should aim to take in around 2 liters per day – though this will depend your body size, activity levels, and the weather where you live.
At the same time, if you think of that in weekly amounts that is quite a bit of water. Drinking bottled all the time is bad news for your wallet and the environment. But the stuff out of the faucet can often contain various trace elements of chemicals, like Chlorine and Fluoride, which are used to clean it up.
Not only that, a water filter will remove heavy metals like lead and mercury, making for a healthier glass of H2O.
3.QardioBase Smart Scales
Yes, you read that correctly – smart scales!
Stepping onto the scales may well be the worst part of a healthy lifestyle for many people – particularly at the start of the process. But, if you are going to be serious about a healthy lifestyle then you need to measure yourself. No – bodyweight is not the only metric by which you should measure your health.
Which is why you need smart scales like those made by market leader QardioBase. They of course measure weight. They also measure BMI, blood pressure, heart rate, bone and muscle mass and connect wirelessly to your Apple or Android device. They can even tell the difference between different people in your family, so you don’t have to reset them – just step on them and away you go.
They don’t call them smart scales for nothing.
4.Pain Relief Wand
If you’re going to be doing exercise then you’re going to be sore afterward. This is particularly true at the start of a new healthy lifestyle when you are perhaps already not in the best condition when exercising and hauling around some extra pounds.
Even if you’re in great shape already, you’re not immune to the odd niggle or injury – and recovering from them can seriously set back your progress. Back in the day, we would reach for a bag of frozen peas for swollen knees, or a microwave heat pad for back twinges.
The modern alternative is the Instant Hot or Cold Relief Wand. It has a pretty self-explanatory name too – it kind of looks like a TV remote control, except it, has the built-in device at the end that instantly heats or cools when applied to a trouble area. Fast, convenient relief from pain – with no danger of getting defrosted peas stuck to your pants.
5.Fitbit
Ah, come on you knew this was going to be on the list!
For Fitbit, you can actually read Apple Watch or any of the other wrist-mounted exercise trackers. This really is the game changer when it comes to healthy tech. Like we said above; monitoring yourself is the key to a healthy lifestyle.
The benefit of a FitBit or an Apple watch is that it is always with you. It monitors all of your exercises. It can monitor your sleep patterns, it can monitor your calorie intake and it can remind you to drink.
In interacts with – and allow you to manage – every device on this list, and for that reason, plus the mine of data it can harvest from you, is why a Fitbit or similar is the number one health gadget. Motivation & record keeping in an easy to use, comfortable device.
Jen Starr is part of the community team at Next Day PC. Jen enjoys staying on top of the latest tech trends and sharing how new tech can positively impact people’s lives.