No-Stress Keys to HAPPY & HEALTHY
Experts caution that trendy health-tracking gadgets can have draining downsides. A better bet? These tricks!
“I don’t obsess over counting calories anymore. I do pay
attention to my weight, but not so
much calories.”
Gloria Estefan, 60
Seems technology becomes more like Big Brother every day, as experts encourage us to use apps and gadgets to monitor everything from the drinks we sip to the sleep we get. And the push to track keeps intensifying: Tufts University researchers are developing a sensor that sticks right on your tooth to analyze your diet! But there’s a downside to incessant tracking. “Keeping score of every health move can set up a quest for perfection that’s not realistic or beneficial,” says psychologist Richard Shuster, host of The Daily Helping podcast. “If monitoring some aspects of your health motivates you, it’s fine, but if it makes you self-critical or anxious, you may want to cut back.” Here, low-tech tips that help you hit healthy targets to optimize slimming, energy and more without the stress.
FAVOR THESE FOODS
Forget tracking calories. “Diets that focus solely on calorie-counting fail 94 percent of the time,” notes Joel Fuhrman, M.D., author of The End of Dieting. The reason: Foods labeled low-calorie are often low in nutrients. “They create cravings that lead to bingeing and overeating.” His advice: Simply aim to eat your fill of veggies, whole grains and beans. In a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who increased their intake of veggies and whole foods ate fewer calories without keeping tabs — and lost up to 61 pounds in a year.
BREATHE DEEP BEFORE BED
Wrist-worn sleep trackers can trigger orthosomnia—an obsession with sleep that can actually rob you of shut-eye, report scientists in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. “People find themselves worrying so much about getting better sleep readings, their anxiety interferes with their ability to sleep,” says Jerald Simmons, M.D., director of Comprehensive Sleep Medicine Associates in Houston. Instead, he recommends deep breathing, meditation or prayer for 15 minutes before bed — a strategy shown to speed sleep onset and reduce awakenings by 40 percent.
EAT YOUR WATER
Guzzling the oft-touted eight glasses of water a day can seem like a chore, and it isn’t even the best way to avoid energy-sapping dehydration, says Howard Murad, M.D., author of The Water Secret. What is? Getting water from fluid-rich produce like melons, tomatoes and greens. “The water in these foods is released steadily into tissues and cells rather than going right through you the way drinking water does. Plus, the foods are high in electrolytes and nutrients that help the body maintain fluid balance.”