Fighting Jet Lag

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Jet lag… the dreaded effect of crossing multiple time zones and being on long flights. Most expats will suffer from jet lag at some point during their travels and adjusting to new time zones is not easy. You may be familiar with symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia, dehydration, headaches, stomach problems and having trouble concentrating when arrive at a destination that is several hours ahead or behind your point of departure. However there are ways for you to prepare your body and lessen the effects of jet lag.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/02/drugs-airlines-jet-lag

Here are some beneficial tips to help you fight the effects of jet lag:

Adjust your body’s clock. Consider the time difference and begin adjusting to your destination’s time zone a week before your flight. Your body clock is used to a certain routine and it is a good idea to gradually move your schedule forward or back (depending on where you are going) so that you do everything a bit earlier or later so when you arrive, it is not a massive shock to the system.

Keep hydrated. Drink lots of water before and during your flight. Dehydration is common symptom of jet lag, so make sure you keep hydrated. Avoid alcohol and caffeine as they will only make you more dehydrated especially in the dry cabin air on the plane.

Eat lighter meals. Start preparing your digestive routine to your new destination and avoid heavy, fatty or high-carb meals as these will make it harder for your body to adjust.

Adapt your schedule on the flight. If it is night time at your destination, then try to sleep on the flight, bring a travel pillow and wear eye shades and ear plugs to help you sleep. Whereas if it’s daytime try and stay awake by watching a movie or playing games on portable devices.

Consult a doctor. It might be good to get advice from your physician about medications that can help you sleep or ask them about taking melatonin. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone that helps regulate sleep, but it is best to check with your doctor to see if it is something you can consider.
If you are often on the move you, take a look at these apps that can help you cope with the effects of jet lag:

Jet Lag App – This nifty iOS app gives you advice about how to reduce your jet lag symptoms based on your specific trip, all you need to do is put in the information about your departure and arrival and it will do the rest.

Jet Lag Remedies – This app is great for those that always end up with stiff and tight muscles. Jet Lag Remedies recommends streches you can do during your flight so that you can stay relaxed and feel more comfortable through long travel hours and available on Android.

Jet Lag Genie – Get a customised plan focused around your flight information and normal sleeping patterns with this app. Jet Lag Genie is available for Apple devices.

Expat life, Jet Lag, Apps

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Enjoy Your Expat Garden

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It’s spring time in the northern hemisphere and what better way to spruce up your home than with a few plants! As an expat you might think it is too hard to maintain a garden with your space restrictions, travel commitments or busy schedules. However if you have a bit of a green thumb or just want something to brighten up your home, there are some great ways to get around the challenges of expat life.

Source: http://www.rareseeds.com/store/flowers/cactus/

Now not everyone is lucky enough to have a large outdoor garden, but that does not mean you can’t have something green around the house. Houseplants are a great way to liven up your home and you don’t need a lot of space for them. You can place them on tabletops, empty corners and shelves, or even hang them from the ceiling, basically anywhere there is a small space, but keep in mind the needs of the plant, such as: will it get enough light or will it be exposed to direct heat.

However being an expat also means you might travel quite a bit, so you won’t want to have anything that requires a lot of attention. Succulents and cacti are great because not only are they easy to look after, they come in various shapes, sizes and colours to suit any household.

If you still think gardening is not for you and you really don’t have the time, you can always try virtual gardens. Here are a few of apps you might have fun with:

Inner Garden – This Android app lets your creativity flow, where you can create your own unique gardens without actually having to do any manual labour.

Flower Garden – Is available for free for your iPhone or iPad and is an easy way to grow different types of plants and have a bit of fun.

Eden Garden Designer – Design and share your virtual gardens with this iOS app so you can get creative in the backyard without getting out your garden tools.

Sweet Garden – For fans of pet simulation games, Sweet Garden offers a fun twist to growing plants. This is a cute little widget for Android devices where you can care for your pet plant from your home screen.

Expat life, garden, virtual garden

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Smartwatches for Expats: How it can ease a challenging daily life

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Traditional watches slowly faded into the background with people beginning to use their phones as the prime method of telling the time. But the wristwatch could be making a comeback in the form of ‘smartwatches’. Smartwatches are wearable computing devices that do much more than just tell the time, and can potentially offer a great deal to an expat lifestyle.
With smartwatches you no longer have to worry about missing notifications because you couldn’t hear your phone that was stuffed away in your pocket or bag while on the move. Stay connected to your love ones, check your messages and get reminders so you won’t forget important meetings, appointments or flight times, with just a glance at your wrist. Smartwatches could also help you keep track of your health, like monitoring your sleep patterns when you are facing the challenge of adjusting to different time zones, as well as keeping track of your progress while exercising and calorie intake to monitor the diet in your new country of residence, so the potential for them to be part of your expat daily life is huge.
Pebble is a smartwatch that has generated a lot of hype that allows you to download useful apps and an array of cool watch faces. It uses Bluetooth to wirelessly connect to your iPhone or Android devices, so that you can simultaneously receive notifications for incoming calls, messages, emails, social media accounts and even control your music. Pebble is waterproof and the e-paper display means that it is easily readable even in direct sunlight so that it can effortlessly merge into your everyday lifestyle.

Another example is the MetaWatch, it is compatible with Android devices and now with iPhones, so that with a quick look you can get caller ID and SMS notifications. MetaWatches allows you to control your music and alerts you if your phone goes out of range, which is good news if you have a tendency to lose things and leave your phone behind. Some other smartwatches on the market are the Sony Smartwatch, and I’m Watch, each has similar functions but offer different designs and benefits.

With wearable mobile tech shaping up to be the next big thing, smartwatch developments are on the rise as more and more companies jump on board the trend. Companies like Apple, Google, LG, Samsung and Microsoft are all rumoured to be developing their own version of smartwatches. In particular there has been quite a buzz around what is rumoured to be Apple’s next big innovation, the ‘iWatch’. Now there has been varying speculation on exactly what the so-called ‘iWatch’ can do, from being able to monitor your calorie intake, control other devices  and be used as a credit card, to being simply a wrist band that would attach to your Apple devices. Either way there has been no official statement from Apple, so only time will tell what Apple will bring to the smartwatch market and the impact it will have on easing the challenges of expats’ daily lives.

Expat life, Smartwatch, Pebble, Apple

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Alcohol Consumption in Southeast Asia

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For expats that come from a Western background, you probably come from a culture where alcohol consumption is a pretty common social affair.  Usually these drinking habits will stay with you as you move overseas, but you might face major culture shock when you arrive somewhere in Southeast Asia, where the drinking culture can be far more conservative.
Southeast Asia in general has  more modest drinking customs compared to many countries in Europe and other Western cultures. Looking at Southeast Asia, the alcohol consumption per capita is much lower compared to Europe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Southeast Asia region has an average of 2.2 litres of pure alcohol consumed per capita, while the European Region has over 5 times more with an average of 12.2 litres per person.
However, if you are a bit of a boozer then you’ll be happy to know not all of Southeast Asian countries are so conservative when it comes to drinking. Thailand and Laos have a much higher average alcohol consumption compared to the rest of the region. They also have a vibrant nightlife and the expat drinking culture is hugely popular.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/02/daily_chart_global_alcohol_consumption

Let’s have a quick look at some of the stats of alcohol consumption in Southeast Asia compared to some Western countries:

Source: World Health Organization

As an expat you should always be respectful of the local customs and culture, so if you need a little help to tone down your party habits there are some mobile apps out there to keep your partying in check:

• DrinkTracker Breathalyzer is an iPhone app that helps you keep track of your BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) by making BAC calculations based on your age, height, weight and gender.

• AlcoDroid Alcohol Tracker is an app available on Android devices that lets you monitor your drinking habits, estimates your BAC and you can also track the costs of your drinks.

• Change4Life drinks tracker is available both on Apple and Android devices and helps you keep an eye on your drinking habits giving you tips and feedback.

Expat life, Alcohol Consumption, Drinking Culture, Southeast Asia

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Top 5 Health Apps for Expats

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Everyone wants to stay fit and healthy, but some of us need more encouragement to remain on top of health and fitness regimes especially if you are constantly on the move or recently relocated overseas.

Now your phone can give you that extra push you need to keep on track with a slew of apps dedicated to health and fitness. Mobile apps can help you with everything from taking prescription medication to monitoring your fitness progress to even helping your sleeping habits!

The recently launched Mango Health app is a fantastic innovation in mobile health apps as it incorporates gaming tactics and applies them to ensuring you stick to your medication and supplement schedule. Basically you can you can win various rewards, such as discount vouchers and gift certificates when you take your medication on time, giving you the extra incentive to maintain your medication schedule. What’s more it keeps record of when you take your medications and will also alert you if there are any potentially dangerous drug interactions with food, drinks or other medications and supplements.

So if you find it hard to adhere to your prescription schedule, Mango Health is the app for you and available now on iOS, but unfortunately only available to those with accounts linked to the US app store.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mango-health/id560657279?mt=8

But there are plenty more mobile applications available to ensure your continued health, especially as an expat. Here are more great health and fitness apps to check out:

• The Eatery: This is a food tracker that aims to help you improve your eating habits. It isn’t a simple calorie counter, and gives you a more holistic view of how you are eating so you can see the strengths and weaknesses of your eating habits by just taking a quick photo of your food.

• MyFitnessPal: MyFitnessPal is a diet and fitness app that helps you monitor your progress and achieve your weight loss goals. It can also work similar to a social network, which means your friends can encourage you stay on track. It also offers access to one of the largest nutrition and calorie database with over 1 million food items.

• BabyBump Pregnancy Pro: For expectant mothers, BabyBump is the must have app that helps you monitor the progress of your pregnancy as well as gives you access to a social network for expecting families for advice and support.                    

• Sleep Cycle: If you have trouble waking up in the mornings, even though you’ve had plenty of sleep, Sleep Cycle might just help you. The app uses the accelerometer in your iPhone to analyse your sleep patterns and wakes you up during the lightest part of your sleep so you awaken in a more ‘natural’ way and feel more rested.

In this day in age, most of us don’t go anywhere without our phone, and with so many more apps out there designed to keep you on track with your health and fitness goals, you’ll have constant support and reminders no matter where you are in the world.

Expat life, Health, Mobile Apps

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Augmented Reality for Expats in 2013

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Wearing a pair of augmented reality glasses and wearing computing devices for fashion may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie but it’s closer than you think! Google have released specific details about their ambitious Google Glass project aiming to have a fully refined version of the augmented reality glasses ready for release by the end of 2013!

Now what’s in there for the Expats we might ask?!

ExpatFinder first successfully jumped into augmented reality in 2009 when partnering with Twinity, a 3D virtual world where we used avatars as virtual guides to do pre-arrival tours of Berlin. As digital advancements become more sophisticated we can definitely expect to see more from augmented reality.

Imagine what Google Glass could offer expats as they move around the world.

• Onscreen translation support will allow you to communicate better with the locals
• Easily navigate your way through a new city as you explore, and share your experiences through your own eyes with your friends and family back home.
• Also think of the advantages it could offer during your move, where you would be able to make a quick survey of your belongings and their condition to create an inventory list to send to movers for quotes. Already there have been innovations to make moving simpler with the release of Moveline, a brilliant mobile app, but with augmented reality, these conveniences could be pushed to new and better limits.

image: http://questvisual.com/us/

Aurasma is another leading name in the augmented reality (AR) industry as it quickly became the world’s leading AR platform since it first launched in 2011. Using advanced image and pattern recognition technology, the Aurasma app (available on iPhones, iPads and Android devices), brings real world images to life with videos and animations dubbed ‘Auras’.

All over the world people are getting into the augmented reality phenomenon with plenty of existing apps ready for download today, whether it is for educational value, practicality or just for fun. For example:

• Star Walk is an amazing stargazing app, where in real-time you can identify the stars and constellations in the sky.
• For those that love hiking and the outdoors, Theodolite is an AR app that in real-time overlays information about your position, altitude, and much more. It functions as a compass, GPS, map, camera and two-axis inclinometer.
• If you need help translating, look up Word Lens, this app will translate printed words using your smartphone’s camera.
• While in Japan a newspaper, Tokyo Shimbun, has developed an AR app that turns news for adults to articles for children through simplified language and animations to educate children from a young age about important social and political issues.
• Another popular augmented reality app within Japan is Sekai Camera. The app displays tagged information layered over real world objects in the form of floating icon graphics. Looking through your phone’s camera, you will see deals, photos and information about where you are as well as being a social platform to share photos, comments and memories.

AR technology is no longer a futuristic concept, and with the increasing number of AR apps and the upcoming release of Google Glass, it won’t be long before it is all around us.

Expat life, Google Glass, augmented reality

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Welcome to ExpatFinder’s New Blog!

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We’ve revamped the look and aim to connect with our local expat communities with some fun stuff about life as an expat.

Don’t forget to follow us on twitter to keep up to date with all our postings. Also join our Linkedin expat networks to connect with others living abroad! Click here for a list of all the country networks we have.

http://www.expatfinder.com/expat-network-linkedin
https://twitter.com/ExpatFinder

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