Category: Special Moments Page 7 of 8

What are you going to try to do better this year? Are you going to exercise more? Lose weight? Save more money?

These are all great goals, but there’s another that you may want to add: being better at staying in touch with friends and family.

While family members are scattered farther than ever these days, thankfully, there are also more ways than ever before to stay in touch: social media, email, texting, and of course, Nixplay WiFi Cloud digital frames, which allow you to send pictures immediately to your loved ones’ frames.

And there are lots of reasons to do so. Staying in touch with the ones you love means you’re building a strong social network, which has many proven benefits. Here are just a few of them.

Better quality of life

Most of us know without even thinking about it that having a strong social network means a better quality of life.

Humans are social creatures – without social interaction, we wither away. That’s almost the literal truth, as countless studies have shown that isolation, especially in old age, is connected with shorter lifespans and poorer health.

Having a positive social network, on the other hand, in the form of friends and family whom you can count on in times of need, has been linked to better health, better mental functioning, and longer life.

Less stress

Strong social networks of friends and family also contribute to lower levels of stress, as well as better handling of stress when it occurs.

The simple fact of knowing that there are people who care about you, and who are willing to help shoulder your burdens, can help a great deal in relieving everyday stress. When something major does happen, as it does eventually for all of us, you can rest easier knowing that your support network will be there to help you get through it.

An important point, however, is that this support network must be built in advance. It’s got to be maintained. We never know when the difficult times are going to strike – it’s important to stay in touch with those we love not only so that they can be there for us, but so we can be there for them when they need us, too.

Better brain health

Studies have proven over and over that positive, regular social interactions help preserve our mental functioning. This becomes especially important as we age and cognitive decline begins to be a possibility.

Research by faculty at the University of Michigan, for example, have uncovered a link between positive social relationships and cognitive performance.

In a follow-up study, this was further proven. Study participants were assigned to one of three groups: one was supposed to socialize, one solved puzzles, and another watched TV. Afterwards, members of each group were tested on cognitive performance, and the group that socialized scored the highest.

Better mental health

Brain functioning is one thing, but how about your overall mental health? Staying in touch with friends and family and building your social support network is also strongly linked to better psychological well-being.

Keeping loved ones close can help you prevent loneliness, give you a feeling of security, and increase your self-esteem, all of which are vital to preserving your psychological well-being.

Now that you know the benefits of staying in touch, what are some easy ways to do so? Texts, emails, and phone calls are great methods, but you can also use our Nixplay WiFi Cloud digital frames as a way to build and retain relationships.

Give one to Grandma, so you can send her pictures of the grandkids’ birthday parties and sports games.

Get one for your own home, so your kids can check the frame for new images while you’re traveling on business trips.

If you’re an avid traveler, you can also create photo playlists on your frame that let you better share your trips and experiences with the ones you love. For more on this, read our post “How to Create a Meaningful Photo Playlist to Share Your Trip with Loved Ones.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

50 years ago, it was rare for a family to be spread out across the four corners of the earth. Today, however, it’s becoming a lot more common.

Children graduate college and spend a year teaching in Japan; our parents retire and decide to fulfill a lifelong dream of living in Paris. Even our high-schoolers are becoming more and more comfortable with looking at colleges and universities across the country or even abroad.

While this can be hard on families, the good news is that technology has made it easier than ever to stay in touch, and to maintain strong, rich relationships with the ones we love. If you find yourself struggling to find meaningful ways to show your faraway loved ones you care, take a look at this list.

Use your social media cues to spur real-life action

You know how Facebook tells you your friends’ birthdays? An easy response to that is to write “Happy birthday!” on your friend’s wall and call it a day. It’s nice for someone to get that acknowledgement, of course, but ultimately it’s not terribly meaningful.

A nicer gesture is to write someone a personal message, whether through Facebook or email. But the best thing to do is to take that virtual reminder as an opportunity to go buy a birthday card and stick it in the mail.

It sounds like such an easy thing to do, but most of us seem to keep our social media and real-life lives rather separate. This same principle can be applied to all kinds of situations – when you see a friend or family member post a status update about feeling overwhelmed or sad, give them a phone call or send a little note.

It’s these sorts of sincere, thoughtful gestures that can really enrich your relationships, and help you stay close and connected no matter how far apart you are.

Use the Nixplay app to send friends and family photos as they happen

One of the best things about smartphone photos is that you can share them with loved ones immediately, making them feel like they’re a part of the moment.

With the Nixplay app, you can send photos to your loved ones just as quickly, except that instead of showing up on your mom’s or grandmother’s little smartphone screen, they’ll greet her on her Nixplay WiFi Cloud frame.

Just think what a nice surprise that will make when she walks into the room and sees the photo from your son’s championship soccer match, which he won just minutes ago, framed so beautifully.

Plan a fun virtual activity together.

No one said staying in touch had to involve nothing but Skype conversations and texting.

Instead, get creative and come up with a fun, virtual activity to do with your loved ones. If you’re a mom or dad who travels for business, set up a scavenger hunt for your kids before you leave. You can schedule a time for them to start it, and feed them clues via FaceTime, Skype, or by sending photos. When they find the objects, have them send you a picture of them with the object before getting the next clue.

If it’s a dear friend you’re missing, try scheduling virtual versions of events you would ordinarily do together – a movie night, for example, or even a wedding or baby shower.

You may feel a little silly at first turning on Google Hangouts so you can chat with your bestie while watching the Golden Globes, but give it a few minutes and you’ll be amazed at how natural you’ll feel.

Being away from friends and family is difficult, but there are lots of ways to make the distance feel a little less daunting. For more on staying in touch with loved ones, read our post “How the Nixplay App Can Keep Your Family Connected.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

The chance to spend time in new, exciting places through travel is a gift – but if travel is a frequent part of your job, there are times when it will feel more like an obligation than anything else.

This is even more likely if you’ve got a family that you have to leave behind each time. Children, especially young children, don’t always understand that Mom or Dad isn’t leaving because they want to, but because they have to. This can lead to feelings of guilt on the parents’ part, in addition to the feeling that they’re missing out on part of their family’s lives.

While there’s not always much you can do about your business travel schedule, there are some fun ways that you can reach out to your family while you’re gone. Here are 4 ways to stay connected to family during business trips.

Take a special object with you and snap pictures of it in different spots.

You might feel silly sitting your daughter’s stuffed bear on a bench in Central Park to take its picture, but what’s that compared to the joy she’ll feel when she sees the image you send home?

Taking a child’s favorite toy or an item with sentimental value along on your trip can be a fun and easy way to stay connected to your family back home. You can take selfies with the object during layovers at the airport or on the plane trip, sit it at the table at a restaurant, or snap a photo of it in front of tourist attractions.

Send the pictures home when you take them. If you have a WiFi cloud frame like the Nixplay Iris, send them straight to the frame – your family will enjoy them even more in the stylish setting.

Send postcards home.

That’s right – we’re talking about old-fashioned, written postcards that you send through the mail.

Getting real, personal mail instead of junk mail is exciting no matter how old you are. Pick up postcards from each stop on your trip, and send them to your spouse, kids, or loved ones. You don’t need to write much – a sentence or two will suffice. Your kids might even start a collection with the special postcards you’ve sent them over the years.

Create a photo playlist of images of you and your children or spouse for your WiFi cloud frame.

The great thing about digital frames is that you can make multiple playlists to showcase different topics or themes. Let your family know you’ll be thinking about them by making a special “While I’m Away” playlist with your favorite pictures of the two (or more) of you together.

You can do this easily with the Nixplay app whether you’re home or hundreds of miles away. If the playlist is for your kids, put the frame next to their bed so they can see your pictures as soon as they wake and right before they go to sleep.

Set up a scavenger hunt for your kids to do while you’re away.

A long-distance scavenger hunt can be a great way to have fun with your kids, even when you’re not with them. Set up the items for them to find throughout your house before you leave. Then you can either leave notes with clues to lead them to the next item, or text them clues as they go along.

If you really want to be creative, send picture clues instead of texts. And make sure they get a picture of themselves with the grand prize once they finish!

Traveling for business can be hard on families, but there are ways to lessen the burden of being away from the ones you love. If you think a digital WiFi cloud frame might help you stay closer to your family, take a look at the new Nixplay Iris.

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

Ah, the open road, the wind in your hair, the sounds of cars rushing by—and what’s that? The sound of cars rushing by is being drowned out by the sound of your kids fighting each other in the back seat? Keep calm, and whatever you do, don’t remember that this is only hour two of a twelve hour drive to make it to the beach.

Seriously though, this is every parent’s nightmare. A long road trip with children in the backseat is a recipe for spills, tantrums, and tears. Sounds rough, right? Well, we’re here to let you in on some trade secrets—namely, how you can keep your children from losing it during a long road trip, and save your sanity as well.

• Bring them into the loop. Even if they’re pretty young, you can tell them exactly what to expect. You’ll be driving for so many hours, and you’ll stop for lunch and restroom breaks. Yes, they’ll still ask if you’re “there yet,” but you can firmly remind them of the expectations you set earlier.
• Keep them occupied. Distraction is paramount when it comes to road trips, and you can provide that in plenty of different forms.

Toys are always going to be your go-to on a road trip. That means you should definitely do a quick double check to make sure you’ve got your little one’s favorites before you get on the interstate. A child missing his or her favorite stuffed animal when traveling is not a happy child.

You can also go electronic with your distractions. Some parents don’t want their children buried in a phone or tablet playing games for hours, but this might be a time when you relax those restrictions. If that still doesn’t sit right with you, then try getting a book on tape that you know they like, or a new book from a favorite series.

• Pack your own food. There are a few advantages to packing things yourself. The first is that you’ll definitely end up saving money, and possibly time if you don’t want to stop off at a gas station or fast food joint every time someone in the back pipes up saying, “I’m hungry.”

The second benefit is that you can pack healthy food for your children—with some sweets to hold back as bribes. As with the electronics rule, this might be time to relax some of your healthy food standards. Not only can a favorite snack quiet down your little ones, but they’ll also associate road trips with a little bit of freedom and fun.

• Also, don’t forget to bring a first aid kit, as well as some kind of upholstery cleaner. There’s roughly a 97% chance that some kind of spill or accident will occur in your backseat, and you don’t want to be 100 miles from the nearest store when it happens.

Family road trips don’t have to be a pain if you plan them out and prepare your kids properly. And you’ll have plenty of amazing photos to show when you get back, so check out our selection of crystal clear digital frames.

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

Graduation season is a time that many high school and college seniors look forward to, and not just because they won’t have to attend a single class again. They look forward to the multitude of congratulatory presents and praise that awaits them. Whether you’re a family member or friend, it won’t be hard to find a great gift that will let the graduate in your life know how happy and proud you are of this accomplishment.

Since graduation marks a new chapter in a graduate’s life, it is best to think of potential gifts that will help them in their journey towards a higher education or employment. We have come up with a short list of useful gifts that any graduate would love.

A sturdy leather messenger bag

Your graduate will find this very useful when he or she is going off to college or job interviews. Leather not only looks great, but it’s also durable enough to hold school essentials, like a laptop or heavy books. For college grads, a leather bag goes well with any office wear, and can also keep their work computer and documents neat and tidy when they’re out and about.

A digital photo frame

For high school grads who are going to attend an out-of-state university, living away from home can be an exciting, but also nerve-racking prospect. No matter how much they crave this “moment of freedom,” homesickness can strike at any time. During these homesick moments, looking at photos of loved ones can help get them out of their lonely funk. A digital photo frame like the NIX Digital Frame is the perfect gift for your photo-obsessed graduate, because he or she can use it to quickly view endless pictures of family and friends. Even better, purchase a Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frame that lets them see cloud-stored photos from their nightstand.

A cookbook of simple recipes

It’s no secret that college students and young professionals usually stretch their tiny budgets at the expense of their meals. If your graduate didn’t pick up your cooking skills, it would be a good idea to give him or her an excellent cookbook with recipes that are not only delicious, but also economical and relatively easy to follow. They will love you for giving them more food options than Top Ramen, instant mac and cheese, and frozen pizza.

Gift Cards

The reality is that new graduates are short on funds more frequently than they (and their parents) wish they were. If you want to help them during these moments without having to give them cold hard cash, gift cards are another great option. For instance, an Amazon gift card can get them groceries or even new clothes for work. There are so many other types of gift cards that you can give to your graduate, depending on what he or she likes. Restaurant and spa gift cards are also excellent choices any graduate would love.

Although this is a fairly short list of valuable, memorable gift ideas for graduates, there is a wide variety of choices out there. All of the items above are readily available online or at retail stores. And if you are looking to get a digital photo frame, you can visit the Nixplay website and browse our many models today.

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.