This year has made all of us realise that our health should be one of the top priorities in life. With lockdowns still going on in many parts of the country, and gyms and various fitness activities are currently inaccessible, it’s still possible to stay healthy at home. Smartphones have become the most essential part of our lives. You can now use them to access different types of digital health apps that can track and help achieve your fitness goals.
Types Of Health Apps & Their Benefits
Today, there are a plethora of smartphone apps available from essential ones to motivational ones to keep you happy and hearty. While every smartphone comes with a basic health app like Apple Health or Google Fit, these apps will help you take your health to a new level altogether.
1. Fitness Apps
These apps can help you learn any kind of workout from yoga, HIIT, running, to your typical gym workouts. These apps will help you keep you active even at home.
2. Food & Nutrition Apps
If you’re looking for an effective way to keep track of your meals and count your calories, these apps can help you achieve your goals. There are apps that will track your water intake throughout the day and remind you to drink water throughout the day.
3. Mental Health & Meditation
Being healthy includes both your physical and mental health. Whether you prefer guided meditations, keep a gratitude journal, or talk to a therapist, these apps can provide you with a safe space to maintain your mental health.
4. Sleep Apps
We all know how important sleep is for us to be healthy. These apps can help you track your sleep times, and quality of sleep and can suggest methods of improving your sleep so you get a good night’s rest.
5. Others
These are miscellaneous apps that cater to different needs such as help diagnose symptoms and if urgent care is required, then they help you set up doctor appointments, or even help you learn new habits.
Top 10 Digital Apps For Women
1. Strava
If you’re a serious cyclist or runner, and you want to keep track of them, there is no better app than Strava. The app can track distance, speed, elevation, calories burned, heart rate, power, and cadence. It even displays all this data in easy to understand graphics. Also, you can invite your friends and compete with each other for that motivational boost. It connects with your phone GPS and provides an accurate map of your journey which can be shared on social media too.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
2. Nike Running Club
Nike brings “Just do it” onto its app by providing top-notch features like customisable workout programs, comparing progress with others, and workouts designed by professional athletes, all so you can have a great workout. While it’s mainly focused on running, it offers support for other forms of workouts too.
Free on iOS and Android.
3. Cure.Fit
Cure.Fit has become a one-stop solution for all your health needs during this pandemic. This is a homegrown company that provided workout classes in its fitness centres across major Indian cities. While it’s primarily still a fitness workout app, it now offers mediation, group classes, consultations with dietitians, doctors, therapists and much more. In terms of workouts, you can choose from a variety of options like yoga, HRX, cardio, Pilates, boxing and dance fitness. Ranging from 25 minutes to more than an hour, the live videos include warm-up, main movements, and a post-workout cooldown too. You can even buy fitness gear and workout clothes or check out healthy recipes to make at home.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
4. HealthifyMe
Another made in India app, HealthifyMe coaches you through your fitness journey. It helps you track your calorie intake and water levels throughout the day. It also offers the option of a qualified nutritionist to help you figure out a customised diet plan based on your health goals, for example, to help one lose weight or help a diabetic patient manage their blood sugar levels. The best part of this app is that it recognises Indian dishes with relative ease, meaning you don’t have to guess your macros and calories which sometimes is an issue with other apps.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
If your goal is weight loss and to live a healthy life, then with tracking your fitness journey you also need to be mindful about what you eat. Watch this video to debunk some common weight loss myths!
5. My Fitness Pal
This is one of the oldest health apps on the market and it still dominates the market worldwide due to its avid followers. This app helps you set diet goals and helps you track them and maintain them with such simplicity. The app’s database contains more than 6 millions foods to help you log in anything from a homemade roti to a restaurant meal in a jiffy. This app also provides a calculator to determine the right calorie intake for you and better plan your diet.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
6. Calm
This app is one of Apple store’s top-rated apps for meditation. It has courses, guided meditations, and different types of ambient music ranging from soothing nature sounds to breezy beachy vibes to help you find pockets of calm throughout the day. One of its standout features is their bedtime stories collection voiced over by different celebrities to gently soothe you to sleep. Even a 5-minute meditation will help you relax and take on the challenges of the day.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
7. Sleepcycle
With this app, you will no longer wake up tired and groggy in the morning. This app measures your sleep cycle and is designed to help you wake up when you’re experiencing the lightest sleep. You set an alarm with a time when you want to wake up in the morning and the app monitors when you’re in the lightest sleep phase and wakes you up within a 30-minute window of your alarm.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
8. Clue
Track your menstrual cycle with Clue, one of the most doctor-recommended free period tracker app built in collaboration with top health researchers. This app helps you track your menstrual cycle, PMS, sexual activity, pills, while its AI-based tracker can predict your next cycle due dates and when you’re ovulating. These apps help women be in greater control of their health and can also help in family planning. The app also provides information regarding your reproductive health and can help you understand important health information.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
9. Practo
Practo helps you book doctor appointments, search for diagnostic centres, and hospitals thus removing waiting in queues. During the lockdown, they have also started offering online consultations with doctors and five you online prescriptions to better serve your needs. The app also provides verified reviews of doctors, you can also get various diagnostic tests and medicines delivered at home, and have a history of all your digital health records in one place.
Free with optional in-app purchases on iOS and Android.
10. 1mg
1mg is an online pharmacy that delivers all your medicines home. You simply have to upload your prescription, enter the medicines and quantity required and they deliver it like any other e-commerce platform. They have also started offering lab tests and medical devices like oximeters, BP machines, glucose monitors and more.
Free on iOS and Android.
Healthy Tips
- Most of these apps allow you to connect with a smartwatch device to better track your activity. If you own a smartwatch, try connecting it to get a 360-degree tracker on your health
- These apps can help you stay on track and nudge you towards better health choices, but it’s up to you to stay consistent
- Invite your friends and family to these apps to have a friendly competition on who is burning the most amount of calories or keeping up with their workout or sleep
- Most of these apps offer analytics to help assess your weakness and strengths and one should review them regularly for better planning
- There are many other apps available in the market in case you have different requirements. Check reviews to choose the right one for you
- These apps have supportive communities which you can be a part of for tips, motivation, and general queries
- Make it fun. Remember that these apps are to encourage you and support you
These are a few of the apps that will help you achieve your health goals in 2020, whether you have access to a gym or not. They can help you get into a habit of not just working out but improve your diet, mental health and sleep too. These apps are a way to be consistent towards your goals and take care of your health in a more holistic manner.