Meditation: A Look at the Benefits

A graduate of Marquette University, Angelyn McSwain has acquired extensive marketing and management expertise from roles at firms that include Revlon, L'Oreal Paris, and US Weekly. Since 2016, Angelyn McSwain has used this experience as a senior brand strategist at Flipboard, a news and content aggregation platform.

Outside of her professional work, Ms. McSwain enjoys staying fit and regularly practices meditation. Meditation can be thought of as an approach to training the mind in order to foster greater awareness. Often, meditation is practiced to encourage mindfulness, or being present, throughout daily life. There are a wide range of meditation techniques, each with its own merit. Some include loving-kindness meditation, breath awareness meditation, tai chi, qigong, and walking meditation.

Regular meditation offers a host of benefits to practitioners. In addition to an involuntary relaxation response, meditation can lower blood pressure and improve blood circulation. The practice also lowers heart rate, decreases perspiration, and slows the respiratory rate. Moreover, it can decrease anxiety and stress, and promote feelings of well being. Meditation may also lead to long-term benefits in brain function and immune system response.

ACSM Journal Highlights Top Fitness Trends for 2019

The recipient of a bachelor's degree in communications and French from Marquette University, Angelyn McSwain is an experienced market strategist and brand builder who has served in a marketing role with Flipboard since 2016. In her spare time, Angelyn McSwain is passionate about fitness.

For the past 13 years, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has released a list of the top fitness trends in its Health & Fitness Journal. The list is the result of data obtained through a survey of more than 2,000 health and fitness professionals worldwide across all multiple sectors of the industry, from commercial to clinical. For 2019, ACSM expects wearable fitness technology to be the top trend. It was ranked third in last year's list and spent the two previous years at the top. Dr. Walter R. Thompson, past president of ACSM, noted that one of the reasons for the resurgence of wearable technology could be due to manufacturers correcting past monitoring inaccuracies.

For the second straight year, group training was the second-ranked trend, while high-intensity interval training, older adult fitness programs, and body weight training rounded out the top five. Trends that fell out of last year's top 20 included core training, sport-specific training, and circuit weight training.

Three Meditation Apps You Need to Download

The recipient of a bachelor's degree in communications from Marquette University, Angelyn McSwain is an experienced digital marketing strategist who has held manager roles with Revlon and Us Weekly and presently serves as senior brand strategist with Flipboard. Outside of her professional responsibilities, Angelyn McSwain enjoys meditating. 

While smartphones aren't generally associated with mindfulness and meditation, there are a surprising number of useful applications geared to these disciplines. Below are three apps that can help you in your search for inner peace.

1. 10% Happier - Based on the New York Times bestselling book 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works, this app includes meditation practices and courses crafted by the world's leading meditation teachers. You can also converse with meditation experts with more than 10 years of experience. Full access to the app's features costs $8.33 per month.

2. Calm - Upon opening this app, you'll hear the soothing sounds of nature, following which you can choose from a wide range of guided meditations specifically designed to help you in areas such as stress, relationships, or personal growth. The app also includes features to help you manage your sleep schedule. 

3. Stop, Breathe & Think - This app prompts you to complete a short survey on how you're feeling at the moment, and then recommends meditation sessions based on your responses.

Global Mobile Advertising Trends to Look out for in 2018

Angelyn McSwain works for California-based Flipboard,

as a senior brand strategist. Her primary role as a member of the Sales Strategy team is to develop marketing programs for advertisers that leverage content, creative and audience targeting through the lens of data-driven insights.

Throughout her career, Angelyn McSwain has held positions that focused on integrated and digital marketing. Below are three of the top digital advertising trends in 2018:

1.) Video: By 2019, video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic and according to YouTube, mobile video consumption is doubling every year. The old standard: 15s and :30s have become less effective and as such, publishers will increase their focus on performance optimization, arriving at new best practices for video format, length, placement, as well as the platform.

2.) Brand Safety: 2017 saw several major brands take action in response to their ads appearing adjacent to objectionable content. Brand safety continues to be a concern for advertisers as they look to publishers to offer guaranteed safety measures that filter out controversial content and target ads away from sensitive subject matter.

3.) Big Data: Data continues to play an increasingly important role in advertising as marketers realize the potential of using data to predict user behaviors. These actionable insights increase efficiency by targeting the right audience at the right time with the right message. The combination of 1st party and 3rd party data allows brands to segment and target an audience with a degree of precision that makes media increasingly accountable to deliver on KPIs and brand objectives.