EXPLAINER: Here are 22 of the top health and fitness apps for 2023

We’ve never had so much access to virtual health resources with the availability of so many amazing health apps for our phones.

Whether we’re on the go, working from home or you just need a little time-out, here is a list of some top apps for your body and mind, which you can take with you everywhere you go.

Here nutritionist Laurann O’Reilly and owner of Nutrition by Laurann guides us through some of her top health apps with everything from mindfulness, sleep, brain training, fitness and wearables.

Relaxation & Stress Reducing Apps
1) Headspace: This app acts as a guide to mindfulness for your everyday life. You can choose from hundreds of guided meditations including those which can help with managing stress, anxiety and focus. It’s also built to help you stay resilient during tough times with a special ‘weathering the storm’ collection which include meditations for coping with sadness, anger and adapting to change.
2) Calm: This award winning app recommended by top psychologists, therapists and mental health experts helps with sleep, meditation and relaxation. Whether you’re new or experienced in mindfulness, it’s tailored to every level. With guided meditation sessions ranging from 2-25 minutes you can choose the length to suit your schedule. It also includes sleep stories for both kids and adults.
3) Smiling Mind: Designed by psychologists, it helps us to practice mindfulness and teaches us to “pay attention to the present moment with openness, curiosity and without judgement”. With mindfulness for adults, kids, youth, families, the classroom, sports clubs and at work, it has over 300 meditations for all ages. You can also track it’s impact on your wellbeing and receive mindful tool tips.

Apps For Sleep
4) Sleep Cycle: Start your day feeling energised with sleep cycle’s intelligent alarm clock, designed to gently wake you up whilst in your lightest sleep phase. It includes a detailed sleep tracker which analyses your sleep patterns, detects snoring, sleep talking, coughing and other sounds. The premium feature include relaxing sleep sounds and a story library.
5) Sleep Watch – Top Sleep Tracker: Helps to track analyse and improve your sleep by allowing you to listen to your sleep sounds and recording and tracking snoring. It also has customisable white noise sounds, smart bedtime and alarm reminders as well as personalised coaching with their AI sleep coach.

Apps For Memory & Brain Training
6) Elevate: Apple’s app of the year, this is a brain training program is designed to improve focus, speaking abilities, processing speed, memory, math skills and more. Within it you get your own personalised training program that adjusts over time to maximise results. It also includes a workout calendar to help you keep on track and stay motivated.
7) Lumosity: Created by a team of scientists, this brain training programme is a fun and interactive way to not only train your brain but also to learn about how your mind works. It includes personalised science based games designed to exercise memory, attention speed and problem solving.

Period Tracker Apps
8) Clue: More than just a period tracker, this is an easy to use solution that helps you make sense of your periods fertility, pregnancy and menstrual health. With 30+ tracking categories such as cramps, mood, hair, skin and sleep, helping you adapt to your unique cycle.
9) The Flo App: No matter your stage of life or reproductive goal, Flo helps you to monitor your cycle, fertility or pregnancy. Including an ovulation and pregnancy calendar, lifestyle and fitness tracker, reminders (such as water/sleep/birth control), health reports, and support forum.

Nutrition Apps
10) Ate – Food Diary & Photo Journal: Rather than wasting time and headspace inputting every last bite of food, this visual journaling app allows you to also focus on how foods make you feel, all you have to do now is snap a pic of your plate.
11) SuperCook Recipe By Ingredient: How many times have you looked in the fridge and cupboard and wondered what can you make? This app helps you to create recipes using the ingredients that you already have. This not only helps you come up with amazing recipe ideas but also helps to prevent food waste.

Workout Apps
12) Wakeout: This award winning wellness app uses movement therapy to improve your life. Recognising that movement has the power to help us heal, relax, energise, empower and make us happy, it has over 1,800 unique ways to help us move in over 35 situations. From the bedroom to the kitchen, it has creative movement therapy for nearly every room in the house.
13) FitOn: If you’re looking for some amazing home workouts to get lean, toned and fit, then this one is for you. Packed with free workout classes and valuable fitness and nutrition advice. You can also share workouts with friends, plan meals together and create encouraging messaging groups.
14) Down Dog: For any yoga lover or anyone who would like to give it a try, this one helps you get a brand new yoga experience every time you come to your mat, unlike your regular pre-recorded videos.
15) Yoga Studio: Whether you’re a true beginner or have experience this one is tailored to all levels. If you’re looking to increase flexibility, lose weight, gain strength, find balance or just relax these guided audio and video classes may suit your needs. You may just get a taste for the real thing.
16) Strong Workout Tracker: Whether you’re a beginner or experienced power lifter, this app provides everything you need to record your workouts effortlessly. It includes a range of cardio and strength exercises (you can add your own too), detailed exercise instructions with a library of animated videos, countdown timers and stats to show your progression.
17) YouTube: Whether you use the website or the YouTube App on your phone, this is also a great source of easy to access and free fitness resources. My YouTube recommendations are 1) Yoga: For yoga lovers or those who want to get a taste of it, I recommend ‘Yoga with Kassandra’ and ‘Yoga with Adrianne’, 2) Cardio & HIIT: If you want to break out in a sweat and get the heart rate going I recommend ‘FitnessBlender’ and ‘The Fitness Marshall’ and 3) Meditation & Mindfulness: If you need a way to unwind, destress and relax the mind ‘Headspace’ is also available on YouTube, you can also check out ‘Eckhart Tolle’ and ‘The Mindful Movement’

Wearables
Whilst there are many wearables or fitness trackers available here are some of the more common ones people may be familiar with.
18) Apple Watch: Allows you to set goals, assess and adjust your progress through apps on your phone. The Activity app: is for tracking daily steps, active minutes and time spent standing and is designed to ensure you're not too sedentary, The Workout app: on the other hand, is for running, swimming, cycling, gym classes and all the other stuff that gets your heart racing. It's through this app you can see how many calories you're burning and your performance, The Breathe app: encourages you to take a few minutes out of your day to take a few deep breaths to relax. Newer versions are capable of generating a heart ECG reading which is automatically stored in the Health app on your iPhone and can be shared as a PDF with your doctor.
19) Fitbit: Whilst the Fitbit app may be used on its own to track basic stats, when used in conjunction with the Fitbit tracker/watch you can monitor your activity (steps, distance, calories burnt, active minutes), heart rate, workouts, sleep, and nutrition. The app is free with an option to upgrade to a premium subscription for additional features such as audio and video workouts and habit forming programs. The newest model also allows for touch free payment.
20) Garmin Watch: This GPS smartwatch has advanced health monitoring and fitness features. Track health stats (including heart rate, blood oxygen levels, respiration, stress, hydration and sleep), contains 25 preloaded sports apps, some allow you to store music (if you wish to leave your phone behind), some also contain a touch free payment option as well as having a wearable map features.

Outdoor Activity Apps
21) Runkeeper: Created by Asics, this is a great and free app not just for running but for all activities such as walking, hiking and cycling. It allows you to track exercise manually or through GPS and to set goals such as weight loss or to achieve faster times. You can also synchronise your workout playlists into the app and also participate in the in-app challenges for yourself or with groups. If you happen to have a wearable (see above) it synchronises seamlessly with Garmin, Fitbit and other fitness trackers with ease.
22) Strava: Whether you’re training for an event or you prefer some leisurely exercise, this free app allows you to track your fitness activity, record your run, map your route (using existing route or creating your own) and analyse your training stats (such as distance pace, speed and calories burnt).
You can also participate in challenges here either personal or compete with others. Whilst used most commonly for running you can also track a whole range of other sports.
It’s also compatible with many of the wearables or GPS devices such as Garmin and Fitbit.