For this week, I wanted to focus on finding wellness apps to help me with my inquiry question. Living in a world with technology creates a lot of issues with mental health and physical health. I find myself often comparing myself to influencers, doomscrolling on short videos, and constantly checking my phone almost every minute. But I wanted to look into the positive influence of technology on mental and physical health. There are so many apps out there that focus on daily affirmations, daily tasks, meditation, journaling, and exercise tracking that can aid in reducing anxiety, building confidence, and motivating the user. 

This week, I tested out a few wellness apps for myself to see if these wellness apps are able to help me with my workouts and understand how technology can be used in positive ways.

The first app is called MyFitnessPal which is a physical health app that helps you log your food and water intake, stepcount, sleep, and exercise. I found this app extremely helpful as it logs many factors in my day. After using this app I think I am going to continue it because it helps me track a lot of factors in my life and I could see it being a helpful tool if I continue to workout consistently. 

The next app I tried is called Daylio which is a daily journaling app. This app allows you to log how you’re feeling at the end of the day and create mini reflections with prompts about your day. After using this app at first I felt like it was a bit silly, but I really enjoyed the mini reflections and daily check-ins. It was also interesting to see how I was feeling over the week when looking back at it. I will definitely be using this on a daily basis (see below for image.)

The next app I tried is called Mantra which is a daily affirmation app. This app sends out a new affirmation every morning of your choice. After using this app I really enjoyed waking up to some positive words to start my day. I would even say them aloud when I was reading them. I think I would use this every morning as a little positive affirmation for myself to make me feel better about the day. 

The last app I tried is called Habit which is a check-list style app. This app allows you to create your own habits that have to be completed each day. The habits I set for myself include 3 cups of water each day, 20 minutes of meditation, 7 hours of sleep, 1 hour of a workout/physical activity, and interacting with my other wellness apps daily. After using this app I enjoyed the satisfaction of checking things off as I go on about my day, but I do think that a plain old checklist or the notes app would suffice (see below for image.)

After trying out all these apps it makes me wonder, can an app really create lasting changes for one’s body and mind, or is it more of a quick fix? I think for me if I am consistent with using these apps it would definitely help me both mentally and physically, but I can see how these apps could easily get brushed aside since in the end it is up to the user to decide if they want to hold themselves accountable to do these daily.