After spending so much time inside and away from friends or family during most of 2020, you’ve most likely become reliant on your phone. After all, how else would you stay in touch with your family and friends, listen to your favourite Spotify playlist, join a Zoom party, keep an eye on your local cafés’ Insta feeds or revel in the latest TikTok trend?
Screen time might be on the up, but you can make better use of your phone time while improving your health and wellbeing too. There are many amazing apps out there to assist with nutrition, meditation, journaling and overall productivity.
To make the most of what is available, I have put together a handy little list of five apps that my friends and I regularly use to help our wellbeing:
Top five health and wellbeing apps for everyday use
- Sleep Cycle – Sleep Tracker
Starting with what is the most crucial part of our physical health, sleep! Being a Year 12 student (in 2020 no less) sleep is something that’s been difficult for me, and getting out of bed even harder. However, I’ve been using the Sleep Cycle app for over three years now, and it is one of my absolute favourites. I would recommend it to anyone.
Sleep Cycle is a “smart alarm clock” that will detect your sleeping patterns, record snoring or coughing, determine your -rough- sleep quality, and wake you up gently when in a light stage of sleep. The app gives you the option of four different alarms that are light and soothing, but slowly increase in volume the longer they play.
Each night before you sleep you’re also given the option of how to set the alarm, either waking you up at an exact time, waking you at your lightest point between a time window of your choice, or not setting the alarm at all and just monitoring your sleep. I usually stick with the second option, with a 30-minute window slightly earlier than I need to get up. Then if I’m woken up later I’m good to go and my deeper sleep stages are not interrupted. If it’s earlier, I’ll snooze the alarm every 5 minutes until the 30-minute slot is over and it won’t let me snooze anymore. Perfect 🙂
Sleep Cycle is available on Apple and Google Play
- Clear Fear
Clear Fear is an excellent app that allows you to manage anxiety and panic attacks. This is an app that I find useful to have when I need something to distract or calm me during an anxious time. Although I only use it occasionally for these occurrences, others I know use it daily to clear high anxiety levels.
The app has a vast range of advice, activities and options for when you are feeling anxious. A few of these include: breathing exercises, GIFs of animals to make you smile, improving your grit, journal prompts, goals for working on physical symptoms, plus a bunch of options to manage and react to anxieties such as a worry ladder or stopping avoidance.
In addition, Clear Fear has information about different anxiety types, the ability to talk to chosen close contacts, call a helpline and self-monitor your own anxiety. My own usage of the app has been minimal, but I am grateful for it.
Clear Fear is available on Apple and Google Play
- Doingly: Charitable Focus
Doingly is a fantastic app that uses the Pomodoro Technique to help with procrastination, and it is one that I am using while I write this article. Although I love my phone and its super useful, most of the time I need to put it down while I get work done, without checking my Insta notifications for the 50th time.
Pomodoro is a 25-minute measured time to work or study, followed by a 5-minute break. After four Pomodoros, a longer break is suggested. This technique improves time efficiency, increases productivity and stops you from overworking (something I’m very guilty of doing).
One of my favourite features of the Doingly is that it is charity-focused. After each Pomodoro that is completed, a small amount of money is donated to one of the listed charities you have chosen. This gives me the motivation I need to use the app and study. This is a great feature that similar haven’t been able to do.
I discovered Doingly recently in lockdown while I was trying to study and work on my important assignments, but kept getting distracted by TikTok. When a Pomodoro is active you can’t exit the app without cancelling the timer. The app is still very new with minimal users, however, the more people use the app the more can be donated to charity and more productive we’ll all be!
Doingly is available on Apple and Google Play
- Flo – My Health and Period Tracker
Flo is a popular app, and most women may have heard of it. But just in case you haven’t, and because it truly is a wonder, I’m going to break it down for you.
Flo is a period tracker that can be used for so much more. The app gives you the ability to view an ovulation and pregnancy calendar, as well as track your health and lifestyle such as weight, water intake, physical activity and mood. Flo will predict your cycle start time, length and possible symptoms, sending you a reminder when you’ll most likely start (thank GOD). This is along with the options to record period symptoms like headaches, PMS, acne, cramps, flow level and products used.
Flo also has extensive articles and tips available about your period, the symptoms you’re experiencing and what you can do to improve your health. Along with secret chats or forums to share stories and get advice. My 13-year-old self very much appreciated this feature.
Flo is available on Apple and Google Play
- Gratitude: Journal & Reminders
The Gratitude is an amazing app to build positive self-talk, increase your happiness and improving your resilience. My sister (plus boss lady) Chrissy recommended this when she came to visit, and I found it super beneficial to use throughout my exams.
Gratitude gives daily reminders and writing prompts to fill out a short journal entry about what you were grateful for at that moment. There are also 7 or 14-day challenges with longer writing prompts, which is great if you’ve got a little extra time or just love writing. Research suggests that writing down something you are grateful for, every day for a few months, decreases negative or depressive thoughts and increases happiness.
The app has ‘daily zen’ quotes for you to feel inspired. However, the feature of Gratitude that I love the absolute most is the affirmations. This is probably because my love language (by a pretty significant amount) is words of affirmation. So, I’ve been loving that I can add my own affirmations or pick some based on my values, then get reminded to view them each day.
Gratitude is available on Apple and Google Play
Other amazing apps I’d recommend:
- Peak – for brain development and exercises
- Headspace – for meditation
- Calm Harm – for self-harm help
- MyFitness Pal – for nutrition and calorie intake
- Terrarium (Apple & Google Play) – for relaxation
- Strava – for tracking exercise (running/cycling)
- Free Rice – for brain development through trivia/charity
- Calm – for meditation and anxiety relief
I hope you found this collection of wellbeing apps useful. Now it’s over to you to tell us your favourite wellbeing app. Share your favourite health and wellbeing app with the Creative Little Soul community in the comments below.