How Apps Can Track Your Health

When the health app debuted in 2014 for the iPhone it became super easy and simple for the smartphone users to manage and view their health data from a range of devices. If you love phone accessories then you will love these apps. It’s all about being connected and using exciting tech. I’m obsessed with everything from popsockets to colourful phone covers!

How they work

The concept behind these apps is that it gives people a chance to keep their data organised. The iOS Health app is a centralised spot for all the health data, even from third-party apps like the step-trackers, food diaries, mental health apps, sleep trackers and reproductive health trackers. 

Health functions come in the four main categories: mindfulness, sleep, activity and nutrition. You can beef up your data in those four areas (and many more) with the right app, that suits your needs. Once you have it set up, meeting your health goals and tracking information will be much easier.

Even the government recommends using apps to track your health.

Activity

The activity-section of the app is very useful. When you open up an app and go to the activity part you get mini sections of data like the snapshot of the full year or your daily activity. 

Don’t have a fitness tracker? No worries! You can use the iPhones accelerometer to count your steps.

The health app will use the iPhones accelerometer in order to measure your steps and the distance that you have travelled. Ensure you keep your iPhone with you at all times, in order to get the most accurate figures. Your annual data will be rounded up every day and will include exercise minutes, active energy, standing hours and resting energy. You can often view certain metrics like cycling distance, downhill snow sports distance, running distance etc. It will depend on the individual app as to what it can and cannot do. If you don’t have an Apple Watch but use other trackers like Garmin or Fitbit, their activity can be imported to the phone health app.

Sleep

Yes, sleep! This is the best cure for stress, lack of focus, weight gain or poor dietary choices. If you find it hard to reach your fitness and health goals, then take a look at how much sleep you are actually getting. The simplest way to track your sleep is through the iPhone, which gives you in-built support via its bedtime feature (located in the clock app). You can set the time for bed and then the phone will send you a notification it is time for bed. Set yourself a wake-up time so your phone will help to get you out of bed. You cannot cheat the wake-up feature though; as soon as you pick up or move your phone it will add that to the log as your wake-up time.

Mindfulness

In terms of support, the brand Apple doesn’t have much of this, so you will need to look into other apps that are more suited to this ability. Breath is a good app as it will remind you to stop for a bit and focus on your breathing. You can set this to happen several times a day which is good if you are prone to stress and need to take a few minutes every so often to settle yourself down. The app will send you mindfulness quotes which you can customise based on what induces relaxation for you.

With all third-party apps like this ensure that you are allowing health to talk to the app if you are using an iPhone. Health and fitness apps will most often ask you directly if you want to connect to health when they are being opened for the first time. If though it does not ask you then you will need to go to your settings and enable the permission.