When the health app debuted in 2014 for the iPhone it was such an easy and simple was for the smartphone users to manage and view their health data from a range of sources.

How they work

The concept behind this apps is it gives people a chance to keep their data organised. The iOS health app is a centralised spot for all the health data even those from their party apps like the step-trackers, food diaries, mental health apps, sleep trackers and reproductive health trackers.

Health functions come in the four main categories such as mindfulness, sleep, activity and nutrition. You can beef up your data in those four areas along with doing plenty more with the right app to suit your needs and wants. One you have it set up meeting your health goals and tracking information will be so much easier. Use your app to track your fitness during your body fit training with Tim Paine to see your goals getting accomplished!

Activity

The activity portion of the app is very useful. When you open up an app and go to the activity part you get mini sections of data like the snapshot of the full year or your daily activity.

You don’t have a fitness tracker? No worries you can use the iPhones accelerometer to count your steps.

The health app will use the iPhones accelerometer in order to measure your steps and the distance that you have travelled. Ensure you keep your iPhone with you at all times in order to get the most accurate figures. Your yearly data will be rounded up underneath you details for the day and will include exercise minutes, active energy, standing hours and resting energy. You can often view certain metrics like cycling distance, running distance etc. All exercises you do at bft with Tim Paine will be recorded as you run, lift, cycle and more! It will depend on the individual app as to what it can and cannot do.

Sleep

Yes sleep! This is the best cure for stress, lack of focus weight gain and poor dietary choices. If you find it hard to reach your fitness and health goals, then take a look at how much sleep you are actually getting. The simplest way to track your sleep is through the iPhone which gives you in-built support via its bedtime feature that is located on the clock app. You can set the time for bed and then the phone will send you a notification it is time for bed. Set yourself a wake-up time so your phone will help to get you out of bed. You cannot cheat the wake-up feature though as soon as you pick up or move your phone it will add that to the log as your wake-up time.

Mindfulness

In terms of support the brand Apple doesn’t have much for this so you will need to look into different brand apps that are more suited with this ability. Breath is a good app thought as it will remind you to stop still for a bit and focus on your breathing, you can set this to happen several times a day which is good if you are prone to stress and need to take a few minutes every so often to settle yourself down. The app will send you mindfulness quotes which you can customise based on what induces relaxation for you.

With all third-party apps like this ensure that you are allowing health to talk to the app if you are using an iPhone. Health and fitness apps will most often ask you directly if you want to connect to health when they are being opened for the first time. If though it does not ask you then you will need to go to your settings and enable the permission.