The pursuit of appyness
There’s plenty of smart tools you can download to your phone and help manage your mind, physical health and wellbeing, writes Laura Tait
THE past few years have challenged most of us in all sorts of ways, mentally and physically
We could use a bit of help and thankfully it’s easier than ever to access smart tools to get your body moving, calm your mind and manage your medical needs.
These phone apps make it simpler to stay in control of all areas of your health.
SideChef
The most vital step in maintaining a healthier diet is finding wholesome foods you’re keen to eat. SideChef gives you more than 11,000 recipes, with simple step-by-step guides and a useful feature that suggests dishes using leftover ingredients in your fridge. You can search recipes according to preferences, cuisine, specific dietary requirements or allergies, and the app will even generate a shopping list for you.
Hey Pharmacist
If you take prescription medication, it can be difficult to keep track of when to renew. The last thing you want is to run out of essential medicine, so Hey Pharmacist makes it easy to remember.
After a quick setup you can manage all your NHS repeat prescriptions through the app, which is free to download. It will remind you when to renew, and you can have your prescription sent to one of more than 3000 pharmacies across the UK. Or have medication delivered to your door for free.
You can manage up to five people’s prescriptions from one account, ideal if you’re caring for loved ones who need help sorting their own medication needs.
Sleep Cycle
If you often wake up feeling like you haven’t slept well you may not know why, or what you can do to fix it, which is so frustrating.
Sleep Cycle helps you understand how you’re sleeping by recording the noises you make in the night – sleep-talking, snoring – and showing you a chart analysing when you were resting soundly and when your shuteye was disturbed. The app helps you understand the factors that influence your sleep patterns, and what you can do to improve the quality of your rest.
It also has a clever alarm feature that wakes you when you’re snoozing most lightly, rather than at a specific time, which means you are awakened gently rather than jolted out of a deep doze. Now that’s a much smoother start to your day.
Forest
If you’re struggling to focus on tasks, try this incredibly simple app. Set a timer for anything from five to 90 minutes and Forest will start growing you a digital tree. If you go off and concentrate on an activity – be it work, a workout or just reading a book – your tree will flourish.
As you focus more, you grow more trees, and you’ll build a cute little forest. But if you give in to the temptation to have a look at your phone and leave the app, your tree will die.
Forest works surprisingly well: you really will think twice about checking social media if it means your poor tree is going to suffer...
Peloton
You may know Peloton for making exercise bikes but the company also has a great app that offers excellent exercise sessions without the need for big, costly equipment. Peloton’s library of classes includes simple stretching, weight training and running to yoga and meditation.
There are different levels for different abilities and you choose how long to work out for.
The app records the noises you make during the night, sleep-talking and snoring
Calm Meditation
This is brilliant for slowing your mind down and learning to pause, even when life gets super busy. Just a few quiet minutes to yourself can make a huge difference to how you feel – and that’s where Calm comes in, with simple lessons given by mindfulness experts.
Guided meditations, lasting from three to 25 minutes, will help put you on the path to being a calmer person.
Streaks
When you’re trying to make positive changes such as doing more exercise or eating more healthily, the toughest part can be making them part of your routine. With Streaks, you put in the habits you want to form, then check the goals off every time you achieve them. You can also monitor your results to stay motivated. If you miss a day, your streak resets.