The Personal Computer As a Stress Relief and Exercise Coach?
People who use their personal computers have many ways to describe them, and most are not words that are considered polite in public spaces.
Many people whose job requires the use of a computer daily are faced with deadline, schedules, interruption, and all forms of social media announcements and messages.
All these get compounded when the computer becomes slow or is rendered useless by a hardware or software failure.
How then, might one turn the personal computer into a source of stress relief or even exercise motivation? With a calendaring program and the internet, such a thing might just work for some people allowing them with a rejuvenating break rather than a hair pulling hassle.
To begin with, one needs to figure out if they want to take a break during the day for stress relief, exercise, or both.
Once that is decided, then pick the times during your day that you'd like to take a 10 minute break.
It can be during work, or when you are home working on your computer.
When you have chosen the time(s) of day to take these pauses from life's crazy rush, set them up in your calendaring software on the computer.
For many, this will be Microsoft Outlook, however, there are many calendaring or Personal Information Management (PIM) software titles out there to choose from.
Some are even free.
Users can go in and schedule "Break Reminders" in to their calendar software.
For example, let's say that at 2:00 PM a stress or exercise break would be a great idea.
We'll take 10 minutes to do our practice then resume our work/home day.
Since some calendaring programs will only schedule in half hour increments, it's hard to put in a 10 minute break.
So one can accomplish this by putting in a reminder in the calendar rather than a scheduled appointment using a block of time.
If the user knows that at 2:00 PM they have no meetings, appointments, or phone call to make and they are free, the reminder works just as well as scheduling out that block of time so it cannot be booked.
Now that the calendaring program is set up with the time of day for the reminder, and the person has chosen what they wish to do with that time, the next task is to find the content that they will use for their break time.
This is where the fun comes in.
The content can make use of an internet website, music, pictures, or refer to physical objects near year.
Actually the content one can use is unlimited.
Some examples of a stress relief break can include websites with beautiful vistas or pleasing images, websites with soothing music or personal music files on the PC, or family pictures or reading letters from a loved one.
Some examples of an exercise type break can be dancing to internet or personal music, websites that have yoga poses demonstrated, or just a reminder to stretch or run in place for 10 minutes.
One need only to chose the goal of the activity and the sounds or images that will help facilitate it.
Using ones computer to help bring a 10 minutes stress relief break or exercise break during the work day or day at home, can help break up the pressure of today's full and fast paced life.
The calendar software on the personal computer can give one the timely reminder that it's time to relax and focus on something beautiful, or to get up and move.
The reminders can contain links to websites, music files, or remind the user to pick up a heartfelt letter in order to create a break that can help relieve the pressure or monotony of the day.
Sometimes the computer can add to stress, so it's nice to turn that around and use it to calm stress.
Many people whose job requires the use of a computer daily are faced with deadline, schedules, interruption, and all forms of social media announcements and messages.
All these get compounded when the computer becomes slow or is rendered useless by a hardware or software failure.
How then, might one turn the personal computer into a source of stress relief or even exercise motivation? With a calendaring program and the internet, such a thing might just work for some people allowing them with a rejuvenating break rather than a hair pulling hassle.
To begin with, one needs to figure out if they want to take a break during the day for stress relief, exercise, or both.
Once that is decided, then pick the times during your day that you'd like to take a 10 minute break.
It can be during work, or when you are home working on your computer.
When you have chosen the time(s) of day to take these pauses from life's crazy rush, set them up in your calendaring software on the computer.
For many, this will be Microsoft Outlook, however, there are many calendaring or Personal Information Management (PIM) software titles out there to choose from.
Some are even free.
Users can go in and schedule "Break Reminders" in to their calendar software.
For example, let's say that at 2:00 PM a stress or exercise break would be a great idea.
We'll take 10 minutes to do our practice then resume our work/home day.
Since some calendaring programs will only schedule in half hour increments, it's hard to put in a 10 minute break.
So one can accomplish this by putting in a reminder in the calendar rather than a scheduled appointment using a block of time.
If the user knows that at 2:00 PM they have no meetings, appointments, or phone call to make and they are free, the reminder works just as well as scheduling out that block of time so it cannot be booked.
Now that the calendaring program is set up with the time of day for the reminder, and the person has chosen what they wish to do with that time, the next task is to find the content that they will use for their break time.
This is where the fun comes in.
The content can make use of an internet website, music, pictures, or refer to physical objects near year.
Actually the content one can use is unlimited.
Some examples of a stress relief break can include websites with beautiful vistas or pleasing images, websites with soothing music or personal music files on the PC, or family pictures or reading letters from a loved one.
Some examples of an exercise type break can be dancing to internet or personal music, websites that have yoga poses demonstrated, or just a reminder to stretch or run in place for 10 minutes.
One need only to chose the goal of the activity and the sounds or images that will help facilitate it.
Using ones computer to help bring a 10 minutes stress relief break or exercise break during the work day or day at home, can help break up the pressure of today's full and fast paced life.
The calendar software on the personal computer can give one the timely reminder that it's time to relax and focus on something beautiful, or to get up and move.
The reminders can contain links to websites, music files, or remind the user to pick up a heartfelt letter in order to create a break that can help relieve the pressure or monotony of the day.
Sometimes the computer can add to stress, so it's nice to turn that around and use it to calm stress.
