7 Superb Apps for a Healthy Living

This year my focus has been on developing a super-strong inner life. In my previous blogs on self-awareness  and meditation, I discussed how self-awareness remains at the core of evolving a powerful inner life. Along with Self-awareness, self-belief, self-respect, self-care and self-development form the 5 basic elements of a firm inner life. While I will be writing more on each of these elements in my forthcoming blog posts, today I want to zero-in on ‘technology’ which plays a prominent role in our daily affairs. 

Our Responsibility in usage of technology

Technology as Servant

In this age of unending sources of distraction, you would agree that things like introspection, self-awareness, self-realization have become a rare commodity. Today one cannot think of an hour away from technology, forget imagining life a day without it. While our generation grew-up with advancing technology when Cable TV, mobile phone, facebook, twitter, mobile apps birthed and gradually shaped up to prominence, our next gen is born in the lap of technology. Electronic gadgets like TV, tablets and specially mobile phones (which almost every individual carries by default) serve as baby sitter for them. My daughter Sanskriti, who is not even 3, knows opening whatsapp, games, and even browses picture gallery in her mother’s smart phone, and I know this is the story of every single family with small kids. And when you try keeping the phone away from them, they use their weapon (of crying) to which there is no option but to surrender.

Well I am not writing to criticize technology by any means; it has done a lot of good to humanity making our life much easier. However only thing I urge each one of us today is to use it with responsibility. Friends, I do not have much love for electronic gadgets (or to say precisely any material possessions). Only material thing I have lust for is my books. Until late this year, I was using the most basic smart phone (for internet features, checking emails, etc) that would just serve my need being in the kind of industry I work with. However recently I invested in an iPhone 6 plus for 3 simple reasons. First and most importantly, to leverage technology for delivering on my future goals; secondly, I had never used an apple product and wanted to experience the vision of Steve Jobs first hand; and thirdly, to get over the limited features of a windows and android phone – just one device that could do all I need.

In past 3 months I have explored hundreds of apps in the app store with my infinitely curious, ever inquisitive mind looking for something that would help me grow as an individual. As a trial and usage, I downloaded hundreds of app providing the key words like ‘health’, ‘breathing’, ‘walking’, ‘running’ and so on.  Out of my 90 days of research I have come out with a list of 7 apps which are extremely helpful to boost up our lifestyle and foster healthy living. 

7 Superb Apps for a Healthy Living

1. Sattva:  

Sattva

How about if I say this app has been a life-changer for me and thousand others who knew the importance of meditation but were reluctant doing it amidst the busyness of daily life affairs. I am extremely thankful to my good-hearted friend Venkat Malapati who referred this app to me.  

Sattva is an elegantly crafted app solely designed to inspire people to meditate.  For my non-Indian friends and readers, Sattva is a sanskrit word meaning purity, harmony and balance. The best thing I like about this app is it introduces and encourages you to do meditation in a fun way.  It surprises you with small perks in the form of trophies and badges. For instance you get a ‘Punya’  which stands for ‘the acquirer of merits of positive actions’ when you share your thoughts on social media 3 times , you are awarded with ‘Dhyana’ depicting ‘the one who is in deep meditation towards deeper awareness of oneness’ when you meditate twice in a day and so on. Yesterday evening I unlocked the ‘75 sessions’ badge along with ’40 days in a row’ trophy, its pure fun and you will for sure enjoy the experience of using this app.

It also acknowledges your milestones when you complete your first session, 10^th session and so on maintaining a record and statistics of your sessions on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, even keeps track of the duration and days of meditation. It provides platform to socialize with like-minded people with whom you can seek spiritual guidance and suggestions.

The app motivates to meditate by challenging you with the 7 days, 21 days or even 40 days in a row challenge. The rule of thumb is you miss one day of meditation and the day count begins from 1. So even if you have finished 20 of the 21 days challenge and you miss to meditate on the 21^st day, day count starts from 1 once again. All in all, I would recommend you this app from the bottom of my heart and every encouraging fiber of my body cells seeing the importance and role of meditation for a richer, happier and peaceful life.

2. Sworkit

Sworkit

What meditation is to mind, exercise is to the body and both are equally important to live a happy, healthy and fulfilling life. Now most people often feel reluctant to go to gym 5 days a week. In my case there is no gym in the 3 Kms vicinity. I was in search of something which inspires me to workout at home, something that instigates me to make exercising an integral part of my daily routine. My long haul search got over when I found Sworkit (lite) in my appstore.

Sworkit is a terrific personal trainer app which provides dynamically created fitness videos for 5 to 60 minutes. Tagline of the app reads ‘Fit in 5 minutes’. You set the time and you can exercise along with your digital trainer which also creates fitness program to fit your schedule. Sworkit (lite) is free and consists of a whole bunch of quality exercises under 4 categories namely – strength, cardio, yoga and stretching.  You have choices under each category depending on the part of your body you want to focus upon on a particular day. For instance, under stretching you can select from the four workout types: ‘head to toe warm up stretch’, or ‘a full body stretch’, ‘standing only stretch’ or ‘back strengthening’. Wanna do cardios and you have options of doing a ‘Light warm up cardio’, or ‘full intensity cardio’, ‘plyometric jumps cardio’ or even a ‘boot camp’ program is set up. You have options of strengthening your ‘full body’, ‘upper body’, ‘lower body’ or just stick to ‘core strength’ and so on. Sworkit routines guide you through videos demonstrated by professional personal trainers.  Friends, when you explore more, I bet you will simply fall in love with this app.

In my case, I usually start with 5 minutes of head to toe warm up stretching followed by 10 minutes of light cardio (or intense cardio on some days) eventually to end with 10 minutes of core strength exercises. Of-course I keep changing workout types on a need basis. In mere 10 to 15 minutes of intense workout at home, I sweat profusely which definitely makes you feel good (with the release of those ever wanted endorphins). What more you could ask from an app which helps you get fit in the comfort of your home, isn’t it?

This is simply one of the best apps I have ever come across. Exercising had never been easier and fun. This is the app which makes exercising an integral part of your daily routine like tooth-brushing or (even :P) bathing. I would term it as an intense trainer in your pocket. Please… please do not delay and install this app in your mobile phones right now and this very moment if not already done so. All the best in your fitness journey. 

3. Walk Diary

If you run on a consistent basis, well and good. However, sadly most people do not.  Okay, how about walking? Do you walk consistently?   People often ignore the power of walking as an exercise. There are those few days when you don’t feel like exercising, you simply want to walk. No guilty feeling, just walk.

Walk Diary

I would say that I am almost addicted to walking. Thanks to the Walk Diary app, my new discovery from the apple appstore. My inner love for walking mingled with the external motivation from this app has helped me to walk long distances. Walk Diary is an app that keeps you motivated for your walking process. It uses GPS to locate and calculates total time used, calories burned and average speed for all logs. You can create walking goals with days and distance.

About 3 months ago, I was depressed with the weight I had gained in my days of ignorance. Even didn’t feel motivated to run or go to gym (which was over 3 Kms away from my residence).  I had to do something; it was a ‘do’ or ‘do’ situation. I came to know that local walmart store is 3.5 miles away. Just out of fun, I decided to walk all the way to the store and one fine Satuday in the month of May’ 15, I did it, walking a total of 7 miles (a little over 11 Kms). I repeated the same for the next 2 Saturdays in a row. In this way my long distance walking-haul continued. In that month alone, I walked over 105 Kms in 21 days surpassing my set goal of 100 kms.

The best feature of this app is it helps you set goals and keep track of your progress. Walking becomes fun and in the process you foster growth of your physical health. Pure sense! Isn’t it?

4. Snore lab

Snore Lab

      First of all let me make a confession on this platform, I snore. Yes I do. Well, didn’t realize it for a long time until my family members told me so. One of the health goals I have set for this year is to reduce if not get (completely) rid of my snoring woes. I was looking for something that records my snoring so as to become aware of the intensity of my snoring sound and know what kind of a snorer I am i.e. whether I produce a pinched nasal sound or more of a throaty, guttural, louder sound.

Friends, snoring happens due to the vibration of soft tissues in our head and neck while we sleep. The exact sound that we make depends on the type of soft tissue that is vibrating. Snoring may be caused by several factors such as obesity when there is large amount of fat around neck area or the advancing age when the muscles tend to weaken making snoring louder and more prevalent, or it may be due to genetic factors, mouth breathing or even seasonal factors like cold or fever, or even intake of alcohol or caffeine products may enhance snoring.

I came across Snorelab which uses proprietary soundwave technology to measure and analyze each night’s snoring and allocates each night a unique Snore Score; indicating the severity of your snoring over the course of a sleep session. Now this Snore Score acts as a means of comparing snoring across nights, allowing you test the effectiveness of snoring remedies and measure the impact of special factors such as alcohol, baths and caffeine. A full night’s sleep recording along with the snoring score can be presented before the doctor for a better treatment.

5. Smile More:

Smile More

Smiling is one of the most precious treats that you can give to yourself and others and all that for free. Every moment spent not smiling is a moment wasted. Although I smile often, as the day goes along, due to the pressures of daily life I forget smiling. I hope you could relate with the situation.

Smile More is an app that brightens your day with reminders throughout the day to keep you smiling. Sometime when you feel down and a bit lost, all you need is a simple reminder that there are things to smile about. The app will keep you positive and smiling with its five categories of reminders namely ‘It will get better reminders’, ‘You are special reminders’, ‘You are not alone reminders’, ‘Relaxation reminders’, and ‘Benefits of smiling reminders’. Each category consists of beautiful messages to keep you happy and upbeat as you go along the day.

The free version of Smile More allows you to select up to three reminders to pop up every day and includes a banner ad at the bottom of the settings screens. The paid version available for $1.99 USD removes the ads and allows you to select as many reminders as you would like. Well this little investment in your pursuit of happiness is simply worth it.

Want a natural rush of happiness? Smile! and simply go for Smile More app. J

6. Daily Prayers:

Daily Prayers

I do believe in the power of prayers. And hope most of you do as well. I was looking for something which gives me inspirational messages of goodwill and grace. I came across this beautiful Daily Prayers app in appstore which provides sweet, short and simple yet powerful, healing and uplifting Payers.

One of the prayers read “Dear Lord, help me to only say uplifting and encouraging words that will build and never tear down.” Another prayer goes like “Protect me Father, from any person or relationship that would slowly prod me down the wrong path.” These beautiful prayers are complemented with equally beautiful background pictures. 

7. Instant abs:

Instant abs

Instant abs is a brilliant prize winning personal trainer app especially to tone up and tune up your abs.  Major feature of the app includes its comprehensive exercises for body weight, dumbbells and resistance bands. It provides detailed exercise instructions with exercise photos, videos and animations. Working out with the app becomes easier and convenient at home or on the go. While I use sworkit for regular exercises, I stick to Instant abs for building up my ab muscles. 

As part of this blog I have provided hyperlink for the apps for iOS users. I am sure you all can google out for equivalent apps for android and windows phones. 

My final words:

Many years ago, famous Norwegian and Noble laureate, Christian Lange said “technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master”.  British-Canadian author Cary Doctrow said "This is why I loved technology: If you used it right it could give you power and privacy". Well the whole idea is not about the choice between using or not using technology, the challenge is to use it right. Let us be responsible in usage of technology, let us use it to build bridges rather than creating boundaries between fellow human beings. I wish you the very best in the wise usage of technology for the benefit of yourself and your family members. God bless humanity! :)

One Life!

Narendra Gupta