Embrace year-round wellness: The best fitness wearable tech and apps to keep you thriving

January is often the time of year when people make resolutions to get fitter and become healthier. However, wellness isn’t a seasonal trend; it’s a year-round commitment. And while willpower plays a crucial role, the right technology can significantly boost your efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle, no matter the weather outside.

From smartwatches that track your every move, to apps that guide your mindfulness practice, the market is flooded with options. But which ones truly deliver on their promise of year-round wellness?

This post explores the best fitness wearable tech gadgets and apps to help you stay on track throughout the year, offering insights into features to look for and recommendations for different needs and budgets.

Wearable tech: Beyond the step count

While basic step trackers have their place, today’s fitness wearables offer a far more comprehensive picture of your health. Look for devices that go beyond simple step counting and incorporate:

Advanced heart rate monitoring: Accurate heart rate tracking is crucial for optimising workouts and understanding your cardiovascular health. Look for features like continuous heart rate monitoring and heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, which can provide insights into your stress levels and recovery. Examples include the Apple Watch, Garmin Smartwatch and Google Pixel Watch.
Sleep tracking: Sleep is fundamental to overall well-being. Wearables with advanced sleep tracking capabilities can analyse your sleep stages (light, deep, REM), identify sleep disturbances and offer personalised recommendations for better sleep hygiene. The Oura Ring 4 is known for its detailed sleep analysis.
SpO2 monitoring: Measuring blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) can be a valuable indicator of respiratory health. Many wearables now include this feature, providing an additional layer of health monitoring – the O2Ring Oximeter Continuous Oxygen Monitor is one of the top devices for tracking blood oxygen saturation.
GPS tracking: For outdoor enthusiasts, GPS tracking is essential for accurately monitoring distance, pace and route during runs, hikes and bike rides. Many GPS watches, including the Fitbit Charge 6, also offer features like map navigation and trail tracking.
Stress management: Beyond fitness, wearables such as Nurosym can also lower your stress levels, reduce fatigue, stabilise your mood and improve the quality of your sleep.

Apps: your digital wellness coach

Wearable tech is only half the equation. Complementary apps can enhance your wellness journey by providing:

Personalised workout plans: Apps like Peloton, Nike Training Club and Adidas Running by Runtastic offer structured workout programs tailored to your fitness level and goals.
Mindfulness and meditation: Apps like Headspace and Calm guide you through meditation and mindfulness exercises, helping to manage stress and improve mental well-being.
Nutrition tracking: Apps like MyFitnessPal and Lose It! help you track your calorie intake and macronutrient ratios, supporting healthy eating habits.
Sleep improvement tools: Beyond wearable sleep tracking, apps like Sleep Cycle can analyse your sleep patterns and wake you up during a light sleep phase for a more refreshed morning start.

Choosing the right tech for you

The best wearable and app combination depends on your individual needs and preferences. Consider:

Budget: Prices range from affordable fitness trackers to high-end smartwatches.
Features: Prioritise features that align with your wellness goals.
Ease of use: Choose a device and app that are intuitive and easy to navigate.
Integration: Ensure your wearable and apps seamlessly integrate for a holistic view of your health data.

Embracing year-round wellness requires a multifaceted approach. By combining the power of advanced fitness wearable tech with supportive apps, you can gain valuable insights into your health, track your progress and stay motivated throughout the year, ultimately leading to a healthier and happier you.

Our week that was: Walking, walking, cycling

It hasn’t been a terribly action-packed week – no events were hosted or attended. We had a short, sharp, torrential downpour after almost a month of drought – the garden is thankful!

We’ve been – as per usual – doing lots of walking, but we’ve also been gearing up (see what I did there?) for the cycling. That is to say, we’ve been watching it… not physically doing it!

Walking

This week, I stumbled across the official OS benchmark online archive. I was surprised to see how many of them there are to be found in a little Welsh village like the one where we live!

…benchmarks were fixed points which were used to calculate a height above the mean sea level. Benchmarks have been around for a long time, much longer than our trig pillars. While the first systematic network of levelling lines and associated benchmarks was initiated in 1840, some benchmarks in our archive date back to 1831.

There were over 500,000 benchmarks created, but this number is reducing as roads change and buildings are demolished. Ordnance Survey

Of course, I had to go out in search of them. Alas, I could only find one out of the supposed nine that I walked past! Perhaps mid-summer isn’t the best time to embark on my bench mark discovery quest. The roadsides and hedgerows are completely overgrown – I’ll try again after the winter dieback. Also, I fear that many old stone walls that the bench marks have been chiselled into have collapsed or have been demolished.

More walking

StepsApp is a new (to me) walking app that I’ve been trying out on my phone. Unlike Strava, I don’t have to remember to turn it on and off again. As long as I have my phone on my person, it tracks my movements all day, not just when I’m out on a walk or hike… and the app doesn’t even need to be open to work.

I’ve set myself a goal of 10k steps per day to keep me motivated to move. On a Monday morning, it alerts me to how well I did during the previous week.

Cycling

The Tour de France starts at the beginning of next month; 3 weeks of world-class cyclists vying for the most prestigious jerseys in the sport – the white, the green, the polka dot and the yellow (the Maillot Jaune).

We got into the spirit early by watching the newly-released series, Tour de France Unchained, available on Netflix. The 8 episodes give a brilliant fly-on-the-wall insight into the various teams and riders. The ups, the downs, the friendships, the rivalries, the wins and the losses. If you’re into cycling – this series is a must.

Our week that was: The first in a new series

This is the inaugural post in a new series we’re launching entitled, ‘Our week that was’. It’s where we’ll share a few highlights of our previous week; be it somewhere we went, something we watched, something we did etc.

Television

We’ve just finished binge watching all three series of Australian tv programme, Mr Inbetween. We thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t recommend it highly enough. Without giving too much away – it follows the day-to-day life of protagonist, Ray Shoesmith, a contract killer.

App

The Merlin Bird ID app is my new addiction! It all started when I heard an unusual-sounding bird while out walking the dog. I recorded its call and shared it on Instagram, but no one could identify it. I downloaded Merlin to help solve the mystery.

I’m amazed at the way the app can analyse a sound recording of a chorus of song and pick out all the individual birds from it.

A week or so after hearing the mystery bird, I saw a post from a near neighbour about a hoopoe visiting their garden – it made the main Welsh news website!

Hoopoe sighting news headline from the Wales Online website

Image of hoopoe from the Wales Online website

Event

Justin went to The International Antique Home & Vintage Fair of Wales at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Showground in Builth Wells. It happens twice per year, and we always make sure to attend to buy stock for our shop. The fair is huge, with sellers both inside and outdoors.

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A post shared by Sarah Jones Antiques & Curios (@sarahjonesantiques)

The best apps that can dramatically change your life

There’s the belief that gadgets prevent a person from being productive and keeping a grip on reality. However, in the year 2022 it’s impossible to deny that a smart phone can not only be a method for watching Netflix or playing NZ slots online but also a way to improve your quality of life, especially if you find specific apps that can help you improve your health and increase your knowledge. Here’s a selection of just such apps!

Dailyart

If you’ve been wanting to start getting into art but keep putting it off, Dailyart will help you finally get into painting. The concept of the app is simple – once a day you’ll receive an image of a classical, modernist or contemporary piece of art, and beneath it you’ll be given a short summary about the picture.

The app’s gallery contains more than 3,000 masterpieces of world classics, biographies of 780 artists and information about 500 museum collections. All you need is 2 minutes a day! Imagine how much more you’ll learn about art if you check out Dailyart every day.

Daylio

This app is recommended by many psychologists because with it you can track your mood, and thus you’ll become more conscious about and gain a better understanding of your feelings.

Daylio is a mood diary where you can not only check how you’re feeling during the day with different types of emojis, but also keep track of what activities you do, and most importantly, how they affect you. For each marked emotion for the day, you can write a short note, so you won’t forget what the sadness or joy was about. Moreover, after a while you’ll see how your mood has changed over time in the form of a graph.

Plantie

Plantie is a great free alternative to Forest. With this app, you can improve your concentration and stay focused on your tasks.

If you need to do something continuously and stay as involved as possible, just set a timer and start growing your favourite fruit. If you close the app or switch from one thing to another, the fruit dies. This format can help to ward off the obsessive desire to read what news has broken or checking to see what photos your friends have posted on social media.

Tappsk

You can become overwhelmed when trying to find a good ‘to-do’ planning app. There are so many of them on the market that it’s impossible to find the most useful and convenient one. Relax and try Tappsk.

The interface of this app is attractive and intuitive, but the most important advantage of Tappsk is its combination of a planner, a habit tracker, a calendar and a reminder function. It really helps you to concentrate, and not have to switch between apps that only cater for one thing. Another benefit of Tappsk is the ability to create subtasks.

Insight Timer

If you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, not getting enough sleep or generally have a lot of thoughts running around in your head, you need to try meditating. Insight Timer is the best meditation app out there.

It includes a huge number of free meditation guides that are recorded by world experts in mindfulness practices, neurobiology, psychology and meditation teachers from Stanford, Harvard and Oxford. You’ll be able to find a meditation for any occasion, because the Insight Timer media library already has over 100 of them, and it’s constantly added to. There’s also a large selection of mantras and soothing music.

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: app