If you have a minute to add an app or two to your phone or iPad, we’d love to share a quick list of our favorite women’s health apps with you.
From diet and exercise support to fertility tracking, mindfulness, stress management apps, an app is available to nourish your mind, body, and spirit.
5 Health Apps to Support Women’s Minds, Bodies, and Spirits
Ask yourself where the “weak spots” are in your overall health plan as you review our list. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so only add an app that helps to remind you to focus on something that’s lacking in your current, day-to-day health routine.
1. Flo Period Tracker
If there were one app we wish all of our patients had immediately at hand, it would be Flo or something similar. There are two reasons for this. First, it would speed things up in your immediate office intake process. When we ask you, “when was the first day of your most recent period…,” you’d be able to answer quickly and accurately every single time.
That’s pretty important because accurate period information means more accurate reproductive health information:
- Have you had your period in the past 28 to 35 days? If not, you’re potentially pregnant, experiencing irregular periods, or something else could be going on.
- Are your periods irregular? Irregular periods are never normal. They almost always indicate something else is going on and that “something else” can range from issues that compromise your fertility to high-stress lifestyles, undereating, or over-exercising (Read 7 Causes of Irregular Periods to learn more).
- Could you be starting menopause? We don’t say a woman is officially in menopause until she’s missed her period for 12-consecutive months in a row (typically around age 51). For the years and months leading up to that, she is in perimenopause – and skipped or irregular periods are common during this time. If so, we want to begin a new phase of patient education to make sure you have everything you need to weather the menopause era with grace, humility, and courage.
2. Headspace App
There is absolutely no question that the mind-body connection is a “real thing.” And, we feel appropriate that mind comes first in that pairing. Stress, anxiety, and an inability to focus directly negatively impact every facet of your health. That’s why we’re placing the Headspace App above the large majority of the body-oriented health apps.
The Headspace app includes 10-minute daily mindfulness exercises and meditation sessions and longer meditations based on where you are, what you need, your current state of emotions, and even to help you get to sleep. There’s a wealth of free material, and you can pay more if you want to expand the features available to you.
3. Mediterranean Diet App
A Mediterranean-style diet is a smart way to go once you get the go-ahead from your physician. Like all great diet/meal plans, it focuses on lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, and a colorful array of vegetables and fruits. It avoids processed foods and refined sugars.
This Mediterranean Diet App, is one of the best available. In addition to information about this style of eating, there are meal plan ideas and recipes. It tells you what foods to focus on, which to avoid, and has dietary information specific to your particular health concerns (such as heart disease or Type 2 diabetes).
Another reason we like this as a dietary model because Mediterranean diets can double as anti-inflammatory diets, which naturally support a range of medical and reproductive issues (such as PCOS and endometriosis) in women.
4. Apps for Exercise
Since heading to the gym isn’t as easy as it used to be, or you may not be the gym type anyway, we wanted to provide an extensive array of fitness- and exercise-oriented apps for you to choose from.
If exercising is tough to work into your work-from-home and distance-learning life, don’t forget there are ways you can make exercise a more natural part of your daily rhythm.
5. Glow Fertility Health App
Are you trying to get pregnant or planning to in 2021? While the Period Tracker app listed above does have fertility information, we recommend downloading the Glow App instead.
Glow is designed explicitly for women who plan to get pregnant, providing a wealth of information about ovulation, the optimal fertility window, etc., and uses your unique period and symptoms tracking to create personalized recommendations.
Let these health apps support your optimal physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing into 2021 and beyond. Ready to take a proactive approach to your reproductive health? Schedule a consultation with Women’s Health Associates.