The Wellbeing Hub: The Best Health Apps You Need To Download!
Your health is so important as a student. Living away in nice student accommodation is a good start, providing you with a base to call home for your years studying at university.
There are other things that you can do to help you stay safe and healthy, both physically and mentally.
Plenty of exercise, eating well, and making good friends that provide you with a good support network are all great, and as with everything else these days there are some amazing apps that can also help you along the way.
We’ve put together a list of 10 of the best health apps around that will help you, as a student, to look after your health.
If you download these health apps, you’ll have expert assistance in mental health, meditation and sleep techniques, fitness tips, calorie tracking, food recipes, and much more.
1. Calm
Calm is one of the leading health apps to aid with meditation and better sleep habits. At some point during your student years, there is likely to be times when you struggle with stress and anxiety over a variety of issues.
You might suffer from lack of sleep or poor sleep, struggle to focus on your work, and generally feel flat and unrested.
This is where the Calm app comes in very helpful. It has some free sections but is also a subscription service, costing just £28 for a 12-month contract and access to premium content.
Calm includes guided meditations, programmes aimed at teaching you how to focus on your breathing and other techniques, relaxing music, masterclasses in all things mental health, and Sleep Stories – where you are guided to sleep by a calm voice.
Why not download the app?!
2. Sleep Cycle
Another great health app aimed at helping you sleep better is Sleep Cycle, which helps users to learn how to relax, how to sleep better and to wake up refreshed and ready to go.
It is a smart alarm clock that has been designed to track your sleep from your bedtime right through until the morning.
The app provides you with a detailed analysis of the quality of your sleep, which over time helps to make your waking up process in the morning much easier and helpful to how rested you feel.
The app is unique as it is an intelligent alarm clock that only wakes you up when you are in a light phase of sleep, based on the information it has collected.
That way, you are never rudely woken up during a heavy sleep, which only ever leads to a feeling of grogginess.
Try out the app for yourself!
3. My Fitness Pal
My Fitness Pal is a fantastic health app that contains an easy-to-use calorie tracker and a whole host of recipes and food guides, alongside exercises that you can follow at home.
The idea behind the app is to plug you into a community of like-minded people and it also connects well with other fitness apps to help you have all of your relevant fitness information in one place.
Some of the exercises and a personal fitness programme are behind a paywall, but there is plenty to the free version of My Fitness Pal that is worth looking at.
If you have a specific goal in mind, enter your current weight and target weight, and the daily food diary allows you to barcode scan food items, input your food intake and give you a daily calorie goal to hit.
You’ll quickly start to gain a greater understanding of the nutritional value of everything you eat and how your exercise and food intake combine to create a healthier you.
4. 5 Minute Yoga
This free app is a fantastic way to get in a few stretches before you go to sleep at night, or if you fancy some yoga at the drop of the hat, wherever you happen to be.
Yoga doesn’t have to be difficult, if you love yoga and are always looking at ways to fit it into your daily schedule, 5 Minute Yoga is the health app for you.
Every single flow is no longer than five minutes in length, every pose has a clear image attached and you’ll be given the clearest of instructions.
All of this leads to it being an app that is brilliant for beginners taking their first stretch into the yoga world as well as a great way for those with more experience, to fit in yoga in any location or at any time they see fit.
5. Plant Nanny
We all know how important it is to drink water regularly. The NHS recommends that we drink 6-8 glasses of fluid per day.
Too little leaves you with the chance of becoming dehydrated, whilst too much can cause its own problems.
Plant Nanny is a cute app that is designed to bring a bit of fun and frivolity to something that is really important to your health.
If you are one of those people that is always saying how they want to drink more water but just forget to, Plant Nanny could be the health app for you.
Whenever you drink some water, log it into the app and it won’t just keep track of your fluid intake, it’ll water the cartoon plant that you see on your screen.
The plant will thrive and glow if you are drinking enough water, if you do not, the plant will start to wither and eventually die. It is a fantastic visual representation designed to help you live your life in a healthier way.
6. Strava
Strava is a fitness app that works as one of the best health apps around but also has that social media angle that gets users sharing information and making connections with others interested in fitness.
It has become incredibly popular during lockdown in 2020 especially, with people turning to walking, running, and cycling instead of using public transport, driving places, and getting exercise in when there have been fewer options available to people.
The app tracks the distance you have travelled and the time it has taken you to do so, it tracks your calorie burn and gives you a clear picture of how you are progressing in your chosen activity – with personal bests etc. viewable.
You can also share advice, tips, and specific details of routes with other users that you have chosen to connect with through the app.
The social aspect also includes users giving each other kudos and congratulations, egging each other on to keep at it and to keep progressing, the camaraderie that many people involved in running and cycling clubs missed during lockdown.
7. Apple Health
Apple Health is another one of the fab health apps that stores and tracks all of the data that you have relating to your fitness and health from various devices.
It makes it easy to see everything in one place, to keep track of your progress, and to make sure you are maintaining the level of health that you are looking for.
Whether you have an Apple smartwatch, scales, exercise trackers like Strava, your sleep patterns via your iPhone, or any other device, all of the information is automatically pulled into one place and collated into a simple app design.
There are so many things that you can choose to track on your Apple Health app, allowing you to customise what you see and how you view your progress over the coming months and years.
You can track your daily steps, specific walking and running distances, your heart rate, analysis of your sleep patterns, your heart rate, weight, and nutrition.
Whatever Apple device you have that is linked to the app, you’ll get updates and reminders to get moving or to breathe, to check certain aspects of your fitness and it does help you to get into the positive habit of looking after your physical health.
8. Samsung Health
If you have a Samsung device (or indeed any Android device) instead of an Apple device, Samsung Health is the app for you.
It is loaded full of features, allowing you to create a bespoke fitness and nutrition regime that is best suited to your personal needs and health goals.
You can track your steps and your calories (or link it up with other dedicated fitness and calorie apps that will automatically update these aspects for you), as well as your blood pressure, heart rate, weight, sleep, blood glucose and so much more.
The main home page on the app contains a whole host of information relating to your health.
At first, this might seem a little overwhelming, but you can remove parts of it that you are not tracking and add bits that are relevant to you.
After a while, it becomes a quick and easy way to see how many steps you’ve walked that day, how many active minutes you’ve had, or how your blood pressure has changed over the last few weeks and months.
You can add specific exercises, such as running, cycling, tennis, dancing, stretches, and more!
Setting timed exercises that show calorie burn and give you a vocal boost when you’re halfway through or nearing the end of the exercise period you’ve inputted “you can do it, two minutes left!” comes the cry from your Samsung Health app.
9. Noom
Still looking for health apps? Noom is a personalised weight loss app that provides users with access to nutritional coaching whenever they need some help.
Noom is a paid subscription app and behind the paywall, there are some amazing solutions aimed at helping you change the habits of a lifetime and build an organic approach to how you make positive change with regards to your overall health.
We have seen the damage that fad weight loss can have on both the physical and mental health of a person.
But with Noom, it is about making little changes and understanding nutrition better, rather than crazy weight-loss goals that are met if you push yourself too hard but are almost impossible to maintain over a long period of time.
After a short quiz, you’ll be given a customised plan, with meal plans, exercise tracking, and recommended snacks, that have been designed by specialist nutritionists and dieticians.
Over time, as you log your meals and activities and take advantage of the personalised support, you’ll develop good habits that stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.
Click to download the app!
10. NHS Student Health App
The NHS Student Health App has been designed as a free tool for students studying at universities and colleges to find all the relevant health and wellbeing information that they need, in one, simple to use and trusted source.
Within the app you’ll find over 900 pages of health information that has been created by NHS doctors, specifically for students.
It is regularly updated too, so you never have to worry about searching for something and finding that it is out of date.
Whatever worries you might have, whether it is a physical issue or to do with your mental wellbeing, the app builds your confidence and helps you find the specific support that you need.
It can be a lonely time living away from home at university and this is a fantastic tool to give you everything you need in one place.
If you need to access local support and services, boost your self-care or make better-informed choices that impact your physical and mental health, the app has information to help you do so, covering over 125 topics.
These cover depression and anxiety, suicidal thoughts, first aid emergencies and what to do in any given scenario, alcohol and drugs, love and relationships, healthy eating habits, and navigating NHS services.
Click to download the app!
As you can see, there are some amazing health apps for students available. Some of them are free, some are paid subscriptions, but they all add value to your life in some way.
If you are looking for some help with your health, whether it be fitness, nutrition, or mental health, these 10 health apps could provide you with the answer. Take a look at each and work out the best apps for your personal needs. After some healthy meals to cook for your mates this summer? Check out our blog!