Top Apps for Health

As we set goals for our health, we often focus on day-to-day healthy habits and lifestyle changes. It takes time to cre­ate habits and tru­ly see change. Because of this, it can be easy to give up on dai­ly habits when results are not seen immediately.

Healthy liv­ing does­n’t have to be dull or intim­i­dat­ing; there are a vari­ety of dig­i­tal tools at your fin­ger­tips that can help you set and achieve health and well­ness goals while track­ing your progress along the way. Whether it is healthy eat­ing, catch­ing up on sleep or main­tain­ing men­tal well­ness, dig­i­tal apps allow you to take con­trol of your health in a fun, per­son­al­ized and engag­ing way. 

Learn more about the top health and well­ness apps avail­able to you and some of the apps that our physi­cians rec­om­mend to sup­port your healthy lifestyle.

Fit­ness Tracking

(i.e. MyFit­ness Pal, Couch to 5K, ACTIVEx, Sworkit)

“Fit­ness track­ing apps can help both moti­va­tion and account­abil­i­ty. They allow for shar­ing of data with friends, and also with well-known ath­letes. Your data can be kept pri­vate if you like, or can even be auto­mat­i­cal­ly shared with oth­er social media plat­forms. I find that shar­ing my fit­ness activ­i­ties with oth­ers serves both as a reminder to exer­cise, and a moti­va­tor to go fur­ther and faster. 

From a car­di­ol­o­gist per­spec­tive, I find that fit­ness apps can help main­tain a healthy lifestyle, by track­ing exer­cise and caloric intake. More­over, apps that uti­lize heart rate can help iden­ti­fy abnor­mal heart rates and rhythms.”

• Den­nis Kil­lian, MD, Cardiologist

Mind­ful­ness

(ex. Head­space, Calm, MINDBODY)

“Using an app for mind­ful­ness, med­i­ta­tion and relax­ation can encour­age some­one to think crit­i­cal­ly and pos­i­tive­ly. This pro­duces ben­e­fits such as improved focus and mood while reduc­ing stress and anger.”

• Man­ish Kapa­dia, MD, Neurologist
  

Sleep Track­ing

(i.e. Sleep Cycle, Pil­low, Sleep Better)

“Many smart­phone apps and wear­able tech­nol­o­gy can mon­i­tor aspects of sleep. Typ­i­cal­ly, they track move­ment, heart rate, noise (i.e. snor­ing) or oth­er bio­met­ric data points to deter­mine quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of sleep. They are gen­er­al­ly accu­rate in deter­min­ing the amount of sleep inter­rup­tions that may occur dur­ing the night, as well length of time in bed. If these data points fall out­side of a pre­de­ter­mined norm, the apps may rec­om­mend focus­ing on your qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of sleep. If your sleep pat­terns con­sis­tent­ly fall out­side the norm, med­ical eval­u­a­tion may be rec­om­mend­ed to rule out com­mon con­di­tions such as OSA, RLS/PLMD or insom­nia as the eti­ol­o­gy of the problem. 

One of the most com­mon find­ings with patients’ sleep data is how under-slept the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion is. Com­mon aver­ages of sleep time report­ed ranges between 4 – 6 hours of sleep each night. This is far below the rec­om­mend­ed sleep time of 7 – 8 hours per night for most adults.”

• Juan Flo­res, MD, Sleep Medicine
  

Peri­od & Ovu­la­tion Tracking

(i.e. Flo, Glow, Clue, Eve)

“Peri­od and Ovu­la­tion track­er apps can be a great low-cost – and many times free – resource to help women con­ceive more quick­ly, aid in diag­no­sis of men­stru­al irreg­u­lar­i­ties and antic­i­pate when to expect their peri­ods. They have been very help­ful in office for me to work togeth­er with patients to help gath­er infor­ma­tion in order to reach a diagnosis.”

• Aman­da Munoz, MD, Obstetrician-Gynecologist
  

Food & Calo­rie Tracking

(i.e. MyFit­ness­Pal, Calo­rie King, Noom Coach)

“Calorie/​diet track­ing apps are a great way to track your dai­ly eat­ing and exer­cise habits in an easy and effi­cient way and uti­liz­ing the ben­e­fits of these resources can have a sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive impact on your health.”

• Anju Paul, MD, Endocrinologist
  

Tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides us with the tools to improve our work, social con­nec­tions and even edu­ca­tion, so why not our health? Dig­i­tal tools offer new out­lets for health and well­ness and can empow­er users to make healthy lifestyle changes how they see fit. Explore your app store today to see what tools you can access on your smart­phone or computer.

To learn more about set­ting and achiev­ing health goals and how you can incor­po­rate dig­i­tal health and well­ness tools into your rou­tine, sched­ule an appoint­ment with a pri­ma­ry care provider.