Staying fit and healthy can be a daunting task, considering the need for the frequency of it. However, things can be much easier if you play your cards right and know what to do. Thanks to the Chrome Web Store, where it’s possible to download extensions for Google Chrome, the fitness lives of those who are cautious don’t have to stay overly tricky anymore.
In this guide, we will talk about dedicated add-ons that can help you stay consistent in maintaining your health and fitness, including those that help you relax during the daytime and sleep well at night. People with desk-oriented jobs must be cautious with how they balance their life regarding keeping healthy. We recommend trying out all the forthcoming extensions for great results.
Best Chrome extensions for keeping fit and healthy
We’ve compiled a cherry-picked list of the most noteworthy Chrome extensions that are goal-oriented in maintaining cautious users about their health and fitness. Each add-on mentioned ahead has something unique to offer, so it’s worth getting to know each of them to determine your preferences best.
1. PostureMinder
PostureMinder
Starting with something simple yet exceptionally needed, PostureMinder is for everyone who has to sit at a desk and work multiple hours daily. It’s no secret that somewhere along the scale of our workday, we become unaware of how we sit down. As you may know, your sitting posture is crucial for your overall health, especially for the back region. If we hunch the body and continue like that for hours, our health is bound to deteriorate with time.
With PostureMinder, though, you can effectively change that for the better. The extension at hand duly reminds you to change your posture and sit straight up after every 15 minutes or so, although the timer on that note is customizable. Additionally, there’s another reminder for talking a walk that the developer recommends to be kicked in by default after every 60 minutes. Walking is a great exercise to break up your lousy posture with.
2. Pomodoro Work + Stretch
Pomodoro Work + Stretch
Next up, we’ve got another extension to focus on, which is a pretty multi-faceted add-on to consider. The Pomodoro Work + Stretch app helps you optimize your health and work by offering 25 minutes of complete focus and 5 minutes of “desk-friendly” stretches. You must relax your muscles and relieve the tension trapped inside with optimal stretches now and then, and with this extension, you’ll be doing just that.
Pomodoro Work + Stretch is a featured extension on the Chrome Web Store with numerous 5-star ratings. People who’ve reviewed it commend the extension’s non-intrusive tab notifications and popup functionality, not to mention the customizable on/off feature. And quite notably, the extension has an AI-powered form detector that analyzes whether you’re performing the included exercises correctly or not.
3. Screen Shader
Screen Shader
Screen Shader is an incredibly functional Chrome extension that filters blue light from our monitor or laptop screens. It’s an advanced add-on that’s regularly updated and always has new features flowing toward it occasionally. The primary purpose of Screen Shader is to tint your display in a way that it’s easy on your eyes, thereby preventing fatigue, screen, and other relevant health concerns.
Although the default setting of the extension makes Screen Shader put on a “Cozy Orange” hue on your screen, you can painlessly switch that up as per your preferences. Various color schemes, such as purple, yellow, and blue, have additional brightness controls. Moreover, including shortcut key controls lets you control the extension without breaking a sweat on your Chrome browser.
Those who have to sit long hours at their desk consistently working will undoubtedly love what Screen Shader can do for them in the long run. That’s because blue light from your screen can also affect your sleep cycle and make you experience trouble while sleeping. However, all that can be easily prevented if you put on a filter for blue light with the help of Screen Shader, which, due to its effectiveness, has over 100,000 users on Chrome and stands tall as a featured extension.
4. Water Reminder
Water Reminder
Water is essential to survival, but many of us treat it as semi-important without considering the true wonders that it can work. Yet, sipping about 8-12 glasses of water every day is what health experts recommend to each of us simply because of the life-changing benefits that follow in the wake of it. If you know about all this but struggle to keep it balanced, the Water Reminder app can help you out significantly.
The extension features a plain ideology that asks how frequently you’d like to be reminded to get water. You can enter as many minutes as required and tap on the “Remind Me!” button to get started. Some tweakable settings of the add-on include switching up how you’d like to be reminded, such as setting an auditory or visual notification or both. It’s a harmless extension that can do great for you if you’re passionate about improving your health.
5. BioDigital Human
BioDigital Human
While this extension doesn’t directly influence your health in a way, it does, however, go beyond normal means to teach you a hefty ton about your body, how it functions, and what physiology it comprises to be the way it is. It’s no secret that gaining a deeper understanding of the human body is akin to learning the essence of health. If you’re the one to take a great interest in building knowledge, BioDigital Human can act as the pathway to success in this regard.
With over 1 million users, thousands of ratings, and verified developer backing, the BioDigital Human Chrome extension acts as a quick getaway to the program’s official website, where you can view true-to-life anatomic models of the human body and examine various physiological structures up close in high definition. You can even select and dissect objects for even better inspections, not to mention being able to take screenshots on the go and annotate them as well.
6. 30s Neck Stretch
30s Neck Stretch
Alongside the importance of our posture, the neck is a part of the body that often goes unnoticed until it starts troubling people. Be smarter than the rest, and care for your neck before things get bad. For this purpose, the 30s Neck Stretch extension activates itself every 45 minutes to prompt you to perform various exercises focusing on the neck.
The developers’ goal here is to improve the desk health of people, so users are constantly reminded to stretch their necks out and give them some action without staying in one position for a ridiculously long period. Although the add-on is pretty old, it still works like a charm and holds up to modern standards. After you install it, toggle the extension on and get reminded to stretch your neck every three-quarters of an hour.
7. Tabtics
Tabtics
Have you ever considered reinvigorating Chrome’s “New Tab” section so it refreshingly caters to your health? Tabtics helps you accomplish just that by transforming the Chrome browser into a hub of motivation. Every time you use “Ctrl” and “T” to open up a new tab, you won’t see the regular user interface of the internet surfer with Tabtics installed. Instead, an inspirational quote will pop up, along with the time, weather, and an energizing background image that changes frequently.
If you’ve got a Fitbit watch and regularly use the Fitbit app to monitor your health and fitness progress, you can integrate Tabtics with it for even clearer communication. All in all, the extension at hand is certainly a sight for sore eyes for people who have just grown tired of the regular “New Tab” page in Chrome. Try it out for a fresher coat of pain mixed with a hint of fitness tips.
8. Desk Athlete
Desk Athlete
Another Chrome extension that fitness enthusiasts will undoubtedly admire is Desk Athlete. This add-on offers users various exercises as they sit at their desks and work long hours. The activities are short, easy to do, and even have 30-second tutorials to watch and learn the proper form. There are over 40 exercises that you can perform as part of your mobility training, so an extension worth having on Chrome to stay fit.
9. Dark Reader
Dark Reader
If the default Google Chrome dark mode does not quite cut it for you, we’ve got a genuinely high-quality, open-source extension worth mentioning here, which can seemingly turn the theme of every website to dark on the fly. As you may know, Chrome cannot pull off something like that, not yet, at least. It does as much as inverting bright colors and switching up the contrast so those who are the night owls among us can have a better time using their devices at night.
Since Dark Reader is open-source, please contribute to the extension’s source code by heading to this GitHub link. There are also developer tools for those wanting to tweak the extension at a higher level. As for spyware, the add-on in question is exempt from advertisements, so you won’t have to be annoyed in that regard.
10. Fresh Air – A Simple Breathing Tool
Fresh Air – A Simple Breathing Tool
Last but not least, we have yet another highly desirable Google Chrome extension that has made rounds on the internet for boosting the mental health of its user base. Judging from the screenshot above, one would think that the extension’s user interface is still loading, but that’s the unique part about Fresh Air – A Simple Breathing Tool. It’s minimal at its core and works via a clean circular animation that denotes your breathing in and out times.
The add-on also lets you customize various options related to its working mechanism. For starters, it’s possible to tweak the length of both your inhaling or exhaling length and the breath-holding length in seconds. Moreover, you can start the extension’s functioning as soon as a new tab opens up without having to click anywhere, and even tweak the hex color to switch things up after a while.
Conclusion
The Chrome Web Store is home to some of the most world-class Chrome extensions spanning various categories, such as fun, entertainment, business, productivity, life, and even health and fitness. These purposeful add-ons have been crafted to lift the base functionality of the Chrome browser to greater heights and make the browser all-accessible to every type of user out there.
In this detailed listicle, we’ve enlisted several Chrome extensions for those passionate about their health and fitness. From relaxing and taking deep breaths with the Pomodoro Work + Stretch add-on to being reminded of water breaks now and then, Chrome can help you consistently achieve your fitness goals. In the comments section, let us know whether you found the article helpful.
