Are there any health and wellness apps that can support me?
First look at some free apps for mental health and lifestyle health. I have included two paid apps at the end as well as they come recommended
Best free apps for mindfulness and meditation:
Practicing mindfulness and meditation can help us improve a variety of areas in our lives including stress, sleep, focus and more. Here are some apps to try:
Healthy Minds Programme
This research backed app helps you train your mind through meditation and podcast style lessons to develop skills that can help you gain focus, reduce stress and maintain positive social connections
Smiling Mind
Practice quick meditation and mindfulness exercises for stress, sleep, focus, relationships, sports performance, mindful eating and more. This app also covers the fundamentals if you are new to mindfulness and meditation practices.
InsightTimer
This app offers the world’s largest free library of meditations that are focused around different topics areas including sleep, anxiety, stress, relationships and more.
Best free apps for stress relief:
Take a Break!
Developed by meditation oasis. Take a Break is a free app that helps you quickly recharge. It features two popular meditations from the meditation oasis podcast. Or you can simply listen to nature sounds or music without the meditations.
Best free apps for mental health:
MyPossibleSelf
This mental health app is a leading free companion for anxiety, sleep, stress, depression and wellbeing.
Best for CBT and ACT:
What’sUp?
What’sUp? Uses CBT as well as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help redirect negative thoughts and feelings. The app gives you tools to help put your problems in perspective if they feel overwhelming. It also lets you track your positive and negative habits and more. It uses techniques from evidence - based therapies to help you cope with stress, anxiety, depression and anger.
Free nutrition apps:
Food: Nourishly
This app allows you to track your hunger, activity, sleep, feelings and more to help you identify patterns and build a more positive relationship with your body and food. You can also set goals and milestones based on your own needs.
Best free physical activity app:
Jetfit
This all-in –one workout tracking app provides customizable routines, video instructions for a variety of exercises and tools to help you track your progress over time.
Best paid apps:
Calm
Calm is a tool designed to help with your sleep, meditation and relaxation. Recommended by top psychologists and mental health experts, the app vows to reduce stress by offering guided meditations, breathing programs, stretching exercises and relaxing music.
Headspace
Meditation and mindfulness is made simple with Headspace, the app that counts Gwenyth Paltrow, Emma Watson and Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski as fans. 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. Users report better attention spans, alertness and instant calm.
