Technology can be viewed as a source of stress in your life. On one hand, technology places a near endless amount of information at your fingertips. It helps you streamline complex tasks, so you have more time to focus on other aspects of your life. The problem is that all of this information and free time can create more stress. Knowledge isn’t always synonymous with happiness, and living simply isn’t the same thing as living stress-free.
It takes work to achieve true mindfulness, but that doesn’t mean that technology can’t help. In fact, several companies have started to design technology that tries to improve your state of mind instead of filling it with more stuff. These devices and applications look toward a future when technology isn’t just a tool for being more productive. Instead, technology will make you more focused, calm and happy. Here are three ways you can use technology as a pathway toward mindfulness.
Focus on What Matters
If you work at a desk, you know that it is difficult to stay focused and resist the urge to jump on social media or the Web for a little aimless wandering. The modern Internet is designed to entice you into falling down the rabbit hole, but technology can keep you from taking the bait.
Apps like Stayfocused help you be more mindful of the way you use the Internet. It does this in subtle ways, such as offering data about which sites you visit and how much time you spend on them. It also gives you the power to block specific websites (or the whole Internet) to force you to stay on task and avoid the anxiety of outside distraction.
After using apps like Stayfocused for a few weeks, you might find that you don’t need them anymore. Like all good remedies, they make you more aware of your own behavior, so you can make a meaningful change.
Be Healthy and Boost Your Self-Esteem
Mobile technology provides you with instant access to information about the outside world. But what happens when you turn your devices inward to learn more about yourself? Fitbit bracelets were the first wearable devices that could monitor your health and provide you with hard data in real time. Fitbits also help you set specific fitness goals that help you create positive physical change.
However, turning your health into a set of numbers may create anxiety and move your focus away from healthy habits. Recent innovations like the Apple Watch Sport have more successfully avoided this problem by giving you the health data you crave while also presenting the numbers in a realistic and positive way. The health application on the Apple Watch tracks your steps and the distance you have walked or run, and it also makes you mindful of the ways in which the activity was valuable to your overall health. This gives you an incentive to run the next day and the day after that. It knows that health is as much an emotional state as it is a physical one, and it strikes just the right balance.
