Smartphone Apps for Leading A Healthier Life

You can use your smartphone for a lot more than playing Angry Birds and texting. There are apps that can help you reach your weight loss and fitness goals, and talk you through CPR during an emergency. Turn your smartphone into a life-saving device. Here are five pillars of health and apps to make them easier:

First aid
The First-Aid Android app is designed to handle emergency situations. This free app provides step-by-step instructions on what to do in the emergency, and provides tips and allows you to tests your first aid knowledge. The American Heart Association has a Pocket First Aid & CPR app that you can buy for $1.99 from iTunes. This app has instructional illustrations, articles and videos that you can access without cell phone service. You can also use it to save and keep track of your medical and insurance information.

Fitness
If you want personal training experience, check out numerous iPhone and Android fitness apps. Workout Trainer for iPhone and Android, provides you with exercises you can do at home. You can download the app, which includes some workouts, cost-free, and you can opt to pay for additional exercises. Nike Training Club is a free way to get a full-body workout without hiring your own drill sergeant. If you prefer to pound the pavement, you can also find apps that use your phone���s GPS to track and map your run, such as RunKeeper (free, available for iPhone and Android).

Nutrition
You know that it is important to eat right, but you may find it difficult to make worthwhile changes to your diet. That is where the apps come in. Fooducate is a free app for iPhone and Android that helps you make smart food purchases at the supermarket. Scan a product���s bar-code, and the app will show the nutritional information and highlight trans fats, additives, preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. The app will serve up suggestions for healthier alternatives.

Diet and weight loss
Apps make dieting discrete and easier than ever. You can keep a detailed log of what you eat without drawing attention to yourself by pulling a notepad out of your pocket. There are many free apps for calorie counting and portion tracking, as well as ones that allow you to track your weight loss, so find one that you find works best for you. FitNow���s Lose It! app helps you set and meet your food and exercise goals. Calorie Counter by My Fitness Pal, Calorie Counter by FatSecret, and CalorieKing Calorie Counter are other apps that allow you to monitor what you are putting into your body.

Well-being
Your phone can be an important tool in getting a better night’s sleep, which makes for an all-around healthier you. Sleep Cycle alarm clock, which is available for 99 cents from the iTunes store, analyzes your sleep patterns. You set your alarm for the absolute latest time you can wake up, and then Sleep Cycle finds the best time to wake you up starting a half hour before your alarm is set to ring. It will go off during your lightest sleep phase, allowing you to feel refreshed. You can also download apps that produce white noise to lull you to sleep.