My Favorite Wellness Apps
We use apps for everything, why not use them to benefit our wellness? Here are a few of my favorites.
Emotional Wellness: Aura
Aura reminds me to meditate daily based on a timer I set for my own schedule, asks me about what I'm grateful for and my mood every day (and tracks that!) and gives me a new guided meditation to try every day. Each one is about 3 minutes long... so simple and easy!
Runner up: Insight Timer- really popular meditation app
Physical Wellness: Sworkit
Basically all workout apps have "premium" functions that you'd have to pay for, and since I'm not about paying for apps I look for ones that give me the most value for free. Sworkit has quite a few workout sessions for free, divided into categories of Strength, Cardio, Yoga, and Stretching. You could definitely get into a good routine with the free sessions. They also let you customize how long you want to work out and just the session accordingly. They offer daily reminders, let you fill in your work out goals, and even create custom workouts.
Runner up: Yoga Academy- also lots of free features. FitBit app- because I'm a FitBit user!
Financial Wellness: Acorns
Acorns has a simple premise: when you buy stuff, they put the rest of the cents up to the next dollar into your Acorns account, plus $1 if you purchase something that's exactly on the dollar. You can then invest automatically, and if you're like me and have no clue where to invest, they give you suggestions and you get periodic dividends. You connect the cards and bank accounts you'd like, making it easy to invest money automatically, as well as withdraw money from Acorns into your personal account. You can also directly invest into Acorns if you wish. I've been pretty lazy with Acorns, just using the function that puts in spare change, and I've saved about $800 over the last couple years. That spare change adds up!
Runner up: Your bank's app- stay on top of your bills and finances!
Mental Wellness: Maven
In all fairness, you have to pay for Maven, but it's worth it. Maven is a virtual women's health clinic. You can make appointments in a wide variety of areas, from discussing your birth control with a GYN to making a therapy appointment to meeting with a nutritionist or physical therapist. These appointments are done over Maven's interface, similar to Skype, and they can be done anywhere and on your schedule. Plus, the appointments are way cheaper than your average insurance co-pay. Obviously, you can't use Maven for an appointment requiring a physical exam, but it comes in handy for a lot of other things. If you want to try Maven, click here and enter the code U10HL for a free appointment!
Runner up: Elevate- free brain training games