» Best of the Best Wellbeing AppsPop Therapy

Do you use wellbeing apps? Wellbeing apps are huge at the moment and with improvements in technology are getting better by the day. However, it’s often hard to know where to start (and it’s so much easier to scroll through Instagram than to do something mentally taxing)!! I’ve been road testing a few apps lately, and have found that being able to use my smart phone to fit in health and wellbeing activities around my busy schedule has been fantastic. I can practice mindfulness anywhere, get a free workout without going to a gym, and become more mindful of my health behaviours.

No more Snapchat, it’s time to improve your wellbeing!!

Here are a few of my favourite apps:

Mindfulness and Psychological Wellbeing

Smiling Mind (Cost – Free!!). This is my favourite mindfulness app – it has mindfulness meditations designed for adults, as well as for children and teens. You’re guided through simple to follow mindfulness activities that require no previous experience with mindfulness. The great thing about this app is that you can follow structured programs, or you can choose “bite-size” meditations from as short as 2 minutes. Once you get your practice up, you can also choose from longer and less guided meditations. The app keeps track of your practice time, and you even receive reward badges as you build up your practice time!! I also find the voice of the narrator to be quite pleasant!!
Calm (Cost – Free for a selection of meditations, then $14.99 per month on a subscription basis). Calm is another mindfulness meditation app which is great for beginners. With the basic free app, you can complete the “seven days of calm” course, which will take you through a 10 minute daily mindfulness meditation, which includes information about learning mindfulness before each meditation commences. You can also access a loving kindness meditation and a body scan meditation for free. My favourite thing about this app, is the relaxing sounds and visuals which play in the background during the meditations (you can choose from a gently flowing lake, falling rain, waves on a beach and all sorts of other delightful sounds!!). If you decide to subscribe, you can access mindfulness courses to help with anxiety reduction, increasing focus, happiness and other great topics.
Mind the Bump – (Cost – FREE): This is another great app from the creators of the Smiling Mind App, in collaboration with Beyond Blue. It’s specially designed for new mothers, pregnant mothers-to-be and for partners too, to support their emotional wellbeing when becoming parents!! I thoroughly recommend this for mummas and mummas to be. As well as guided meditations, it also includes introductory information about mindfulness and info on the importance of mindfully caring for your baby.
Mood Mint (Cost – $2.99) – Mood Mint is a game designed to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, and uses a technique called Cognitive Bias Modification, which trains the brain to develop a tendency to focus more on positive information in your day to day life, rather than negative information!!

Fitness and Exercise

Freeletics (Cost – Free – with additional in-app purchases) – Freelethics gives you short workouts which can be tailored to your fitness level!! You can choose from a variety of routines, and no equipment is needed!! I just started on the “Aphrodite” which consists of a series of Burpees, Squats and Situps. If you don’t know what the hell a “burpee” is, luckily the app also provides short videos of how to perfect each technique (Phew!!).
FitBit (Free, but you have to buy the Fitbit first approx. $80 – $370). I recently started tracking my daily steps, using the FitBit app. Since doing this, I’ve actively been finding ways to increase my walking throughout the day. As well as tracking your steps, the FitBit app can store all sorts of information – you can enter your daily calories, and based on your height, weight and daily exercise, the app will calculate how many calories you should be consuming. You can also track your quality of sleep, how much water you’ve consumed and set goals around exercise and weight. I’ve been using this app every day for about a month now and find it’s helped me to increase my exercise, as well as become more mindful of what I’m eating each day.
Pocket Yoga (Cost – $4.99). Pocket Yoga takes you through easy to follow yoga routines from 5 minutes, up to an hour long!! This is a great way to practice yoga at home (however, I would suggest doing some initial classes first to correctly learn the poses if you’re a beginner).

Close your Facebook/Candy Crush/Snap Chat App immediately!! There are a world of amazing health and wellness apps out there which you can draw on to improve both your mental and physical health!! Do you use any of these? Do you have any favourite health and wellbeing apps I haven’t listed here? I’d love to hear about them!!