Question of the week: Can Technology Help You Beat The Booze

We want to find technology that genuinely benefits us in our real lives, so every week we will be trying to find answers to everyday problems. So if you have any experiences to share, please let us know. 

This week there has been a lot of media commentary on the number of units of alcohol that it is safe to consume, as the current recommendations (which have been in place for almost 30 years) are likely to be revised over the next year.

In a hectic world balancing work, family and social commitments it’s very easy for health to take a back seat.

So, this week’s question is, can technology help you manage how much alcohol you consume without compromising how you live your life? We’re looking for any Apps, Gadgets or websites that could support or inspire.

We’ll be reporting back next week on what people have found the most beneficial.

If you have any experience to share, or if you have a problem you would like to get community advice on then please let us know.

 

How do we stop bright screens disrupting our sleep?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? How to ensure bright screens don’t disrupt your sleep
• How do you benefit? Increased alertness; Increased productivity; Decreased tiredness; Decreased stress

OK, hands up who climbs into bed and starts looking at stuff on their phone or tablet? Even worse, hands up who does this with the lights off because their partner is asleep. Right now, I’ve got both hands AND feet in the air 😦

What makes this worse is that I KNOW this is bad for me. I know all the scientific evidence points to the fact that this reduces the quality of my sleep as a team from Harvard Medical School told us just before Christmas last year.

But what’s the solution? Paul Gringas, Professor of children’s sleep medicine and neurodisability at Evelina London has now laid down a challenge to manufacturers of smartphones, tablets, and e-readers saying that they should have an automatic ‘bedtime mode’ to help them stop disrupting people’s sleep

He says that the blue-green light emissions from such devices can stop people falling asleep by up to an hour, which is pretty significant for a long-distance commuter like me!

Software (free software at that) does currently exist to automatically reduce such light emissions from your laptop or desktop in line with the time of sunrise and sunset in your location. It’s called f.lux and you can download it here (I use it myself, so can guarantee it’s an easy process). The software is not yet currently available for smartphones or tablets as the devices would need to be ‘jailbroken’ to install it and you really don’t want to go there. But at the very least, if you like to work late, this is a good solution for at least part of your ‘bright screen’ problem.

Now we just have to hope our voices can be heard to encourage Apple, Samsung, Motorola etc. to address the wider problem with our mobile devices.

How to find patterns in your baby’s behaviour

• Who is this post for? New parents
• What does it discuss? How to track your baby’s behaviour and find beneficial patterns
• How do you benefit? Peace of mind; decrease in stress; better communication with your partner

Last week I wrote about soothing your baby with technology. This week I’m going to take a look at ways of identifying patterns of behaviour that help you understand whether your baby is finding the holy grail for all parents – a routine!

We’ve all seen stats in the news – how babies who have regular sleep times, feed times etc. are better behaved, more balanced, and so on. But when you’re in the middle of the emotional whirlwhind that comes with having a new baby, dutifully remembering key information is…well…low on your list of priorities.

In the first year of her life (and especially those incredibly tiring first six months) my wife and I were keen to use an easy technical solution to give us a clear picture of how our daughter was progressing. We wanted to monitor sleep times, feed times (even what breast she had been suckling on), how many times a day she was pooping, bath times…I could go on.

Crucially, I also soon figured out the last thing my wife wanted on my return from work was for me to start grilling her on how many sleeps and feeds my daughter had had that day. She was tired and had been with our daughter all day and if she was going to engage in conversation at all, she wanted to talk about something else!  So I needed a solution that was cloud-based – where either of us could input simple information and wherever we were, we could both instantly see what was going on. This was great for me as I could see what kind of day my wife had had before I even got home – meaning I knew when to buy some chocolate or flowers before I walked in the door, and then just quietly put the TV on and went to make dinner!

We tried 3 or 4 different apps on our smartphones but settled on Total Baby, (yes, website is ugly but ignore that) available for your iPhone or your Android phone or tablet. It was AWESOME. We simply pressed a button when baby went to sleep or started feeding and pressed it again when baby stopped.  All the data was recorded and then presented to you in easy-to-read visual formats that made it very clear if we were starting to see a pattern develop or not. We didn’t have to remember a single thing and we never had to wonder about any aspect of baby’s behaviour at any point. It was all there, available at the touch of a button, wherever we were, without having to ask the other. There are even settings for recording activity of multiple children, just in case you happen to have twins or more!

In summary, very simple to use, easy to see impact, incredibly useful. What more do you want for £3.99?

Snacks or…short stories?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? A wonderful idea for how commuters and shoppers can fill their spare time
• How does it benefit you? Increased happiness, decreased stress

We love, love, LOVE the work of a new start-up in France. Vending machines in the city of Grenoble are dispensing short stories instead of sugary snacks and drinks.  The publishing start-up company is called Short Édition and it has installed eight such vending machines in the city with the full approval of the mayor.

The company hopes that commuters and bystanders will use these quirky vending machines while around the city instead of reaching for the ever-present smart phone to check Facebook or Twitter (though frankly, if news of their presence is spread via Facebook and Twitter who are we to complain?).

Please someone bring this to the UK. Perhaps you can ask your mayor to do the same?

Music as medicine

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? A technology project for all that explores how music can benefit your mind and body
• How will you benefit? Better health, clearer focus, more thoughtful children…we could go on

The Sync Project is a initiative started and run by one of my old colleagues Marko Ahtisari.  Marko and his team believe that if music can reach us physically, then we can find a way of decoding what music does, and we could then use it to improve health.

The project itself centres around a platform that maps music characteristics to real-time biometrics gathered from an exploding variety of sensors. The team hope to understand and decode the personalized therapeutic effect of music.  Or in layman’s terms – they collect data from things like smartphones, wristbands and smartwatches to help us understand what happens to our brains and bodies when listening to music.

Read more about the purpose of the project here

Right now, I advise doing what I’ve done and simply sign up to see what happens. Up to this point I’ve been getting e-mail updates but I’ll certainly be a willing volunteer (as would my wife and daughter) when the project scales up and starts to have its desired positive impact on all our lives.

The best headphones for your workout

• Who is this post for? Gym junkies, runners, cyclists
• What does it discuss? It gives the verdict on the best headphones for use whilst exercising
• How does it benefit you? Increased focus, enjoyment and motivation

The verdict is in. Engadget has tested 145 pairs of headphones for use whilst exercising and come up with one pair to wear the crown. See the winner here.