Appsolutely fabulous

TOP WELLNESS APPS

If you’re looking to invest a bit more time in your wellness and mindfulness, funnily enough, you needn’t look any further than your smartphone. As well as connecting with friends, looking up dinner recipes and streaming music for your workouts, there are a whole host of new ways we can use our everyday tech to boost wellbeing - including an assortment of apps aimed at just that. Here are a few that stood out to us.

HEADSPACE

Literally giving users a workout for the brain - led by former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe - the premise is to take ten minutes a day to listen in and clear your mind. So what are the benefits? Users report better attention spans, alertness and instant calm.

MY POSSIBLE SELF

If your mental health is a concern, My Possible Self may be the app for you. Use the ‘moments’ function to monitor your feelings and recognise any patterns or triggers in your behaviour, and the self-help ‘modules’ to tackle issues such as stress, anxiety, loss or major life changes.

FEEL BETTER

A recipe book in your pocket, cult lifestyle blogger Deliciously Ella’s popular app brings her tasty plantbased recipes straight to your phone, with nearly 300 nutritious dishes to choose from - and with 2021’s update, there’s plenty more to enjoy, too.

It now includes a personalised wellness plan and an intuitive daily tracking tool to monitor your veggie diet, exercise, sleep, mindfulness and water consumption.

CALM

One of the original wellness apps and still hugely popular, Calm is a tool designed to help with sleep, meditation and relaxation. Recommended by top psychologists and mental health experts, the app aims to reduce stress by offering guided meditations, breathing programs, stretching exercises, and relaxing music.

The highlight is undoubtedly the celeb-fronted

Sleep Stories, a collection of bedtime stories read by A-list celebrities including Harry Styles and Matthew Mcconaughey.