3 Health Apps That Will Help You Align With Your Goals
We’re all connected to technology 24/7 these days it seems, but are you using it to your advantage when it comes to your health?
I have three health-related apps that I’m using, and thought I would share them with you too, in case it can help provide the tracking and consistency needed to build new habits.
The change of seasons often feels like a time when people have a little breathe of fresh air and perhaps take a moment to shift their focus back to their health and life. We need to capitalize on this refocus and set up systems and structure that help us be consistent, long after that initial wave of motivation fades. Health focused apps are a great option because, a) let’s face it, we’re always on our phones and b) the apps have notifications and rewards or badges that help connect with our internal psychology of wanting to see some progress and getting positive reinforcement for our efforts.
If you’re thinking there are a few things in your life you wouldn’t mind shifting, then perhaps one of these apps can help keep you focused and building habits that support your goals.
Try Dry
One of my clients cued me on to this app and I really like it because it allows you to find a middle ground when it comes to drinking. Whether you’d like to cut back on your drinking a bit, or cut it out completely, this app can help you track and measure days you’ve gone without drinking, and the costs associated with cutting back. Each day you can track if you had a ‘dry day’ or if you drank. If you did drink, you enter in the serving size and number of drinks, as well as cost (if you like). What’s great is that you don’t have to commit to doing 30 days dry, you can focus on cutting back mid week, or maybe limiting it to 1-2 drinks on a weekend, whatever you like. It will show weekly, monthly and year totals related to money and calories saved.
Sometimes it’s external data quantified like this that can keep us motivated. Seeing the individual day decisions lead to larger month and year progress is what habit building is all about.
*Note this is a British app, but you can change the currency to dollars in the settings.
Loop Habit Tracker App
There are a lot of habit-tracking apps online, the one I’ve been using lately is simply called ‘Habits’ and had a little white circle with an arrow on a blue backdrop.
I like this app because you can set whatever habit you like (walk for 20 min each day, strength train 4 x a week, drink water, meditate etc) and create the frequency that you’d like to do it. You can set it up so it’s a simple check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or you can put in measurable goals (how many km’s did you run, how many pages did you read before bed, how many minutes stretching etc).
The key is of course coming back to this app to track your progress daily, so I’d recommend putting it somewhere visible on your main screen, or using the alarm suggestion below and adding a daily alarm to ‘track habits’. Our brains are so confident sometimes, we think we’ll remember it’s not that difficult. But if shifting habits and remembering to do the thing we wanted to do was so easy, well you wouldn’t be reading this list of my suggestions on how to do just that ;)
The Loop Habit Tracker is apparently only available on Android, so if you have an iphone you can search the istore for habits and a slew of options will come up.
Alarm Setting
This isn’t a specific app, but it’s utilizing your phone features to help you prioritize sleep and get into a better sleep routine. If sleep is compromised then the next day is not likely to go as planned. Workouts get skipped, we lose time in the morning trying to squeeze in an extra 15-20 minutes of sleep. Time that could’ve been used preparing a lunch to bring with us, or sitting down to eat breakfast before the day gets started.
Go into your alarm setting and create an alarm that’s at least 30 minutes (ideally an hour) before you want to be sleeping in bed. Set this alarm to reoccurring every day…or at least on work days. Label this alarm ‘Get off your phone’ or ‘Start getting ready for bed’ or whatever floats your boat.
This alarm is meant as a nudge to out your phone down, turn the TV off and start getting ready for bed. Creating a nighttime routine that doesn’t involve screentime up to the minute before we turn the lights out is key to a better sleep. So what do you do in that time? Do the dishes, tidy up, take your dog out for a final walk if you have one, wash your face, brush your teeth, read a little bit before bed, do some stretches. Something that doesn’t involve TV or computer screens.
Ok those are my top 3 suggestions - which one are you going to try? I’d love to know :)
