Doomscrolling Twitter until 4am? Anxiety attacks at dawn? Let your phone be a source of calm, not panic, with these physical and mental wellbeing apps.
Correct your posture: FROSTURE
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Free / iOS
Posture correctors like the Upright Go stick to your back and get all buzzy when you slouch. Frosture reckons you can have a similar experience with just your iPhone. Run the app and slip your phone into your front pocket: it will use the device’s accelerometer to detect when you’re not sitting up straight – and nag accordingly.
Monitor diet triggers: SOOSEE
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Free / Android, iOS
For many people, diet is dictated by what they can eat, rather than what they want to. Soosee tries to keep sensitive stomachs safe by scanning for allergens. Various items are built in, but you can also add you worn – then point your camera at an ingredients lavel and you’ll be warned if matching terms are found.
Stay hydrated: WATERMINDER
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£4.49 / Android, iOS
Science is divided on how much liquid you should take in daily, and how often. One thing’s for sure: too many of us don’t drink enough, and thereby become dehydrated. WaterMinder lets you define goals, tracks your progress, and can give reminders to have a slurp.
Mindful gaming: TOWNSCAPER
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£4.49 / Android, iOS
About as non-gamey as a game can be. Townscaper has you place foundations in an endless sea, atop which you build structures. What they look like is determined by an underlying grid – and rules that you’ll need to discover yourself. From the first splash you hear on tapping the screen, this is joyful, soothing fare.
Breathe deep: EZ MEDITATION TIMER
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Free / Android, iOS
Many of the best wellbeing and meditation apps want to help you achieve inner calm – while helping themselves to your wallet. Not this one, which is free from a price tag, and free from complexity, too. There’s a simple, bold design that offers great clarity, and it will track sessions, so you can keep yourself honest.
Health check: MEDICAL ID RECORD
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£4.49 / iOS
A basic medical ID card can be accessed from your iPhone’s lock screen. This app takes that idea and runs with it, providing you with a greatly expanded range of options. It’s easy to browse, and you can add PDFs, or display items as widgets. Useful stuff if you find yourself in hospital one day.
Mindfulness in your pocket: CALM
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£28.99 per year / Wear OS
Well, we could all do with a spot of Calm after 2021. One of the best wellbeing apps on the market, Calm gives emergency access to audio-led mindfulness sessions and Sleep Stories: short tales read by stars such as Stephen Fry. No phone is required, but pair with one logged into a paid account and you can get access to the full Calm library on your wrist.
Chilled out games: HEX – ANXIETY RELIEF
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Free / Wear OS, Google Play
Tap pieces of snipped-up shapes to rotate them back into place, accompanied by a stress-busting soundtrack. This is the sequel to Infinity Loop, and introduces more advanced puzzles for a greater challenge. The appeal is the same, though: it’s one of the few watch games that can genuinely help you relax.
Track your fitness: FIT500
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Free / iOS
Your iPhone’s Health app holds a lot of fitness data, but digging through menus to get at what you want can be a chore. Fit500 surfaces the stats that you care about, letting you attach various graphs and figures to a personalised dashboard. This syncs over iCloud, so you can also peruse everything on an iPad or Mac.
Avoid doom-scrolling: MIND LEAK
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Free / Android
Scrolling vacantly through social crud isn’t good for your health. So Mind Leak hovers in the background of your phone… and when it detects you’ve been gawping and scrolling for too long, it overlays a GIF or a self-recorded video. One of you looking angry or, worse, disappointed in yourself, can be highly effective.
