Thu, Apr 2 2020
Wellness App Reviews
- Headspace App
- Sleep Cycle App
- The Breathing App
- Wellness apps are applications used on iOS and Android that are designed to help you enhance, track and manage various aspects of your life
- They mainly focus on lifestyle guidance, sleep, meditation, diet + nutrition and stress reduction
- There are some free versions but many require subscriptions for full access (often affordable)
- Apps cater to different audiences and are designed to be user friendly
There is a wide variety of Wellness apps available for iOS and Android. Finding the right app for you will depend on your specific needs and goals. Wellness apps are a popular way to learn, track, manage and enhance your lifestyle using your phone as the facilitator. This article will include brief descriptions and reviews of popular Wellness apps, but keep in mind that finding the best app for your particular needs might require some additional research on your part. Apps can be downloaded via the App store (iOS) and Google Play (Android).
Headspace App
- Introduces the basics of Mindfulness
- A very popular and favorably reviewed App that offers a free 10-day introduction
- Can complete sessions in ‘Level 1’ for free
- App progresses as you complete sessions
- Programmable reminders, daily messages, progress tracking and guided mediation videos
- Personalized coaching in training the mind
- Techniques include Breathing exercises, Body Scans, Focused Attention, Visualization and Sitting Meditation
- Full version is $12.95 per month (Discounts for yearly subscription)
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Sleep Cycle App
- Used to monitor and enhance sleep quality
- Free version with a premium version offered to unlock more features
- User friendly and favorably reviewed
- Compares your data to others to see how you compare to other people
- Displays sleep data using graphs
- Becomes more insightful the more the app is used
The Sleep Cycle app is a popular sleep monitoring application that utilizes your smartphones accelerometer to monitor movement whilst you sleep. By analyzing your movements, it is able to discern whether you are in deeper sleep such as REM sleep as well as restlessness and lighter sleep stages. By analyzing data such as sleep quality, heart rate, time in bed and snoring the app is able to give you an accurate depiction of your current sleep quality, with more data collected leading to deeper insights into how to improve your quality of sleep and wellbeing. The alarm feature allows you to set a flexible alarm so that it wakes you up at your lightest stage of sleep depending on the parameters that you have set.
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The Breathing App
- Free to use
- Simple App designed to promote calmness and teach advanced breathing techniques
- Focuses on the concept of ‘Resonance’ or ‘Resonant breathing’, which is where your heart rate, blood pressure and brainwave function come into a coherent frequency – through slowed and conscious breathing
- Practiced by monks and has been shown to lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression, improve heart rate variability, increase resilience and emotional balance
- It’s basic design allows it to be used very easily used by beginners
- Uses visual and/or audio cues to assist in teaching correct ‘Resonance’ breathing techniques
The Breathing App is a free app that focuses solely on learning a scientifically researched and heavily supported method of breathing called ‘Resonance’. This App does not seek to offer a variety of features, but instead delivers a few functions very well. Users are able to pick up their phone and instantly engage with the breathing technique, and utilizes easy to interpret visual and audio cues to get you quickly immersed with the app. It is not as popular as some other apps, however as it is free it poses no risk to finances for trying it out.
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