Fast pace and increased stress?       

Stress and overwhelm are all too common in today’s hectic lifestyle with our brains constantly bombarded and active with things to do. The pace of life is faster than ever before. Technology and the digital revolution have improved our efficiency of getting sh*t done by speeding up many tasks and cutting out the slack. This is great in terms of productivity. But has led to a faster pace of life, more multi-tasking, and often less down time. All combined, this can lead to greater stress. Most of us – for better or for worse – aren’t about to trade in our ‘busy’ lifestyles. Instead, we need to find ways to live fast and live well; we need to improve our Wellness. Bellabeat Wellness trackers are one solution.

The Global Wellness Institute defines Wellness as “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health”. It is incorporating healthy habits into our daily life to improve our physical and mental health. Key aspects of lifestyle that contribute to overall Wellness include exercise, sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, social connectedness, and our environment. By making small improvements to these things, we can improve our overall Wellness and reduce stress.

So why track yourself?

If not managed well, stress can have a big impact on our bodies, our sex hormones, and on our health. Chronic on-going stress elevates the stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin. This puts many other parts of our body out of alignment and disturbs our smooth operation. More on this another time, or check out one of Dr Libby Weaver’s great books, i.e. The Invisible Load. When life gets busy, we tend to sacrifice healthy habits like relaxation, sleep and exercise! This is when a well-being tracker is useful to ensure your health and fitness is kept on track.

By understanding the impact of certain features of our daily lives we can become smarter about setting goals and improving how we feel. I personally would have no idea how well I slept a week ago or how much exercise/activity I got last week. I would have some idea how these factors would impact on my mood but no idea how my menstrual cycle or hydration would contribute. So, the beauty of tracking all of this stuff is that you can build up a picture of what makes you feel good. And an understanding of certain things that might make you feel stressed. This is a necessary step to making changes and improving Wellness.

Bellabeat Wellness Trackers

Founded in 2014, Bellabeat creates beautiful, innovative products that help women easily track, manage, and improve their overall health and well-being. Bellabeat helps promote a better, healthier lifestyle by bringing intuitive wellness tools to women — encouraging them to take care of their health through educational content and community support. Bellabeat has always been inspired by the beauty and power of nature, which is incorporated into all of their products.

Bellabeat’s mission is to empower women by providing them with the data to discover themselves.

Our core mission at Bellabeat is to inspire women to be healthier so that they can be successful at other things. I believe it’s really important to have a healthy life and work balance. It’s okay to take care of yourself first, because if you’re falling apart, you won’t be able to do your job. Women tend to forget that more than men. They tend to be focused more on everything else than themselves. Jobs comes first, relationships come first, kids come first, and they themselves come last. My advice to women is that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes!

Urška Sršen

Wellness trackers that look good!

The Bellabeat Leaf products are wearable technologies that are not only extremely functional but also just look really good. They can be worn as a necklace pendant, a clip or brooch, or as a bracelet. The Bellabeat devices don’t need charging – they come with a battery that should last for 6 months during constant operation. After 6 months you will need to replace the battery using a standard coin cell battery. This means the Bellabeat trackers can be worn consistently 24/7 for a complete picture of your activity and sleeping habits.

The Bellabeat App

The easy-to-use Bellabeat app collates the measured data in one place. With data collection for activity, sleep, hydration, mindfulness, stress sensitivity and your menstrual cycle, the free version of the app offers useful insights with your tracked data. It also provides inspiration quotes when you wake up and calculates a measure of your stress sensitivity based on your measured data combined. From this, you can get insights into which lifestyle habits create higher stress levels in your life and learn to manage them with help from guided breathing and meditation exercises.

There is also a paid version of the app, which offers personalised fitness training, additional mindfulness activities and educational content on nutrition and beauty. There is a free seven-day trial so you can try before committing to a longer-term plan.

Four areas where Bellabeat is aiming to make an impact

1. Provide analysed data simply and transparently #BIGDATA

Data is a powerful asset. Although it is believed we know everything about ourselves, the truth is different, we barely know the details.

2. Give women equal care #EQUALITY

Women are the primary caretakers in every country in the world. Even though women outnumber men by 66 million in the world population, they are still disregarded as care receivers. At the current rate of change, it will take more than 300 years for women to reach equality. Bellabeat designs everything to prioritise women and women’s health.

3. In sync with your cycle #WOMENSWELLNESS

There’s one thing that the majority of women have in common — a menstrual cycle. This isn’t just a period, but is a 28-day cycle that influences all areas of a woman’s life all of the time. By understanding the hormonal impact behind each phase of the cycle, women can sync their current needs to their goals, increase their well-being, productivity, and overall satisfaction.

4. Create a sustainable future #DESIGN&ENVIRONMENT

Bellabeat believes in a future where technology is invisible and perfectly connected with nature. That’s why their designs are made using natural materials and invisible technology. They avoid complicating our lives with notifications and screens; less screen more love.

Women’s health is Bellabeat’s priority. They aim to inspire people to be healthier, happier and more conscious.

Bellabeat Leaf designs and features

There are tree beautiful designs: Leaf Urban, Leaf Chakra – created with natural crystals, or Leaf Crystal – created with Swarovski® crystals. You can find all of these in our shop. And a new one is coming very soon (Ivy). This figure below shows the Bellabeat trackers range of functionality.

How do the Bellabeat trackers work?

The trackers have highly accurate sensors that measure every step-based movement, like running and walking, as well as smaller movements you make while sleeping. By measuring how much time you spend in each sleep stage, the Bellabeat tells you how long and how well you’ve slept.

Reproductive health

Its reproductive health feature starts off with the information that you have input into your app – the length of your cycle and your period. Leaf’s learning algorithms adapt to your cycle through time and and improve the prediction accuracy, even if your cycle is irregular. The app lets you have an overview of your fertility, premenstrual and period days and gives you hints on how it affects other aspects of your health.

Stress

The stress you might experience throughout the day is calculated taking multiple factors into account. What time you went to bed and how much sleep you got, as well as how active you’ve been as this all plays an important role in the calculation. If you’ve meditated or done any breathing exercises, and you have the reproductive health feature turned on, these values will help calculate your stress level too.

Meditation

Leaf helps you cope with stress by encouraging you to learn and practice deep breathing techniques through guided meditation exercises. Controlled breathing not only keeps your mind and body functioning at their best, but it can also lower blood pressure, promote feelings of calm and relaxation, and help you de-stress.

You can learn more about each feature and what it looks like in the app here.

Should you get a Bellabeat Wellness Tracker?

Well, you can’t ask me that, of course I’m going to say yes! If you’re looking for a health tracker or even a statement piece of jewellery, the Bellabeat products are great. The decision is yours. To stay informed of new product arrivals (i.e. the new Bellabeat Ivy coming soon) and for more information on the app, sign up to our newsletter! And follow us on social media.