Why use Oqea to help my fitness? Maintaining our physical wellbeing through movement and exercise is vital for our mental wellbeing, not just overall health. You can read this article from the Oqea resource library to explore the connection between physical and mental wellbeing, however in this article , we will explore a range of Oqea features, how to use them and why their use is important in driving and maintaining our physical wellbeing! The features we will discuss are;

·      Goals

·      Tasks

·      Notes

·      Events

Including how these come together on the Journey Page of Oqea!

Goals & Tasks

Why it’s important

Setting realistic goals is an important and helpful way to become more physically active. Well planned and considered goals keep us focused while also helping to motivate us.

You can read more about the importance of setting goals for physical wellbeing and beyond here.

How to set realistic goals for physical wellbeing‍

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Identify your goal

      Be realistic – It’s important to remember, most of us will never break world records or be elite athletes. Think about what is achievable for you and be proud of that outcome, no matter what.

       Be specific– Giving yourself a specific outcome will help you measure your progress. E.g. An improvement on ‘I want to run more.’ Would be ‘I want to run 10 km.’

       Choose so mething important AND meaningful to yourself – This goalis about you and no one else. Make sure you are doing it for reasons that will make YOU happy.

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Research! – Find out how you can achieveyour ultimate goal, and check you are setting a beneficial and achievable goalwhile you are doing so. ‍

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Don’t set one goal, set many! – Setting a large end goal is great, but ensuring you set smaller goals that lead to that end goal is also extremely important. It helps us maintain consistent effort towards the end without burning out and also encourages us along the way.

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 Adapt – Changing life circumstances can often interrupt your training or routine. Be prepared to cope with such interruptions. Don’t be afraid to adjust your mini, or end goals in the constant journey towards personal success.

     E.g.If you become injured or sick, don’t abandon your goal just change the timeframe for achieving it.

Once you have determined your end goal, and the mini goals leading to it, it’s time toset these within Oqea! We recommend you use the goal feature of Oqea to set your main goal and use tasks as the mini goals along the way!

Select what focus area this goal relates to (in this case fitness), the problem that this goal is related to, and then the actual goal itself. Don’t worry if your goal isn’t associated with a problem, it might be something you just want to improve on! If that’s the case just write down the purpose behind your goal.

How it works - Goals

You can create a goal by going onto the journey page, clicking the plus icon on the topright and selecting ’Goal’. If you have fitness selected as a focus area, you can also create or edit you goal by selecting the fitness tile under focus areas (see below).

 Journey Page Location

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Home Page Location
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Share your goal! – Once you have set these goals you can share them your support team. Sharing our goals and achievements with the people around us means they can encourage us when we need motivation, celebrate with us when we achieve and give advice if we are ever struggling.

Unsharing – If you ever feel the need to unshare these goals you can. By going to;

More > My Content  > Shared Contents

   Here you can see a record of everything you have shared with your support team and by clicking the orange link button, will have the choice to unshare or share it with other support team members.

How it works - Tasks

Similar to goals, you can set tasks as the mini goals that lead you to achieving the end goal. The good thing about tasks is they allow you to set a time associated, with the ability the ability to set reminders.  

Tasks, unlike goals will be viewable on your journey page. So it’s good to get into the habit of checking tasks and setting reminders if needed. We will explain why this is important further on.

Notes (Journaling)

Why it’s important

Making sure you measure progress is crucial in making it easier to maintain focus on our end goals, encouraging us by knowing how far we’ve come, giving us achievements to celebrate along the way and helping us to identify difficult situations or barriers to our exercise.

There is even evidence to suggest consistent journaling (note taking) can improve your immune system, drop blood pressure,help you sleep better and just make you healthier overall. Journaling actuallyhas a vast range of health benefits both physical and mental, you can read more here.

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How it works - Notes

Note taking is simple, found on the journey page like tasks and goals, just select the focus area the note relates to and write out your thoughts for that gym session, run, swim, etc!

The great thing about notes in Oqea is they are saved with a date on the journey page. So upon reflection, you will be able to understand what happened around this period and gain further insight to drive your physical or mental wellbeing journey, this applies to tasks and events as well!

Note: Don’t forget to make notes/journal entries regularly.

For example, after you complete the exercise itself or you might record your weight once a week if your goal is to lose weight!

The more you do it, the more you ‘ll get out of it!

Events (Planning)

Why it’s important

Giving our bodies the right balance of food, rest, activity that it needs is a vital part of maintaining our mental and physical wellbeing. However, to do so we must ensure we are planning and actioning all these important aspects of our life.

Planning activities ahead of time, especially in relation to exercise, helps keep us honest and true to our goals.

It even has broader mental health benefits, it can act as a proactive coping mechanism, allowing us to have a future orientated mindset that can often help to navigatepotential hardships we can encounter. This is known to help us reduce feelingsof anxiety and stress, you can read more about these benefits here. 

How it works

Write a title (name of the exercise type, location, training milestone you are tryingto hit, etc), select the time it will occur and add notes about the activity itself (location, who with, how far you are trying to run.... etc)

Once you have completed an event it will appear on your journey page. Like notes this will allow us to see what events we have done in the past, and what is upcoming.

Note: We would recommend planning weeks or even months ahead if you are able, the longer ahead you set these goals the more likely you will stay true to them!

Journey Page

Why it's important

Use this as the central focus for your physical wellbeing plan.

Giving you easy access to view your tasks, notes and events in once place, it can be a record of everything you have done and will do in the future. We have already explained how using notes and keeping a record of your activities is important for driving your wellbeing and this is what brings it all together!

Filtering

You can filter your journey page using any of the items adjacent to show only particular information.

For example, if you click notes you will see onlynotes. Which could be handy in measuring the outcomes of you activities!

Get intouch at info@oqea.com or via the ‘App Feedback’ if you experience any issues or bugs while using any of these features. The ‘App Feedback’ button at the bottom of most pages. It can also be found under ‘More’.

Additionally, if you have any suggestions or comments about this blog post/article, the Oqea platform or anything relation to Oqea please feel free to submit it via these channels!

Sources

• www.health.gov.au/health-topics/physical-activity-and-exercise/physical-activity-and-exercise-guidelines-for-all-australians?utm_source=health.gov.au&utm_medium=callout-auto-custom&utm_campaign=digital_transformation
• https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/physical-activity-setting-yourself-goals
• https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-goal-setting/
•  https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-p-mono-toc~mental-pubs-p-mono-bas~mental-pubs-p-mono-basant#:~:text=Planning%20is%20what%20empowers%20people,able%20to%20make%20such%20decisions.
• https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-017-0494-ywww.fastcompany.com/3041487/8-tips-to-more-effective-journaling-for-health
• www.health.gov.au/health-topics/physical-activity-and-exercise/physical-activity-and-exercise-guidelines-for-all-australians?utm_source=health.gov.au&utm_medium=callout-auto-custom&utm_campaign=digital_transformation

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