How to Use Your iPhone to Live a Healthier Lifestyle
The path to a healthier lifestyle is now in the palm of your hand. While we are all used to sending iMessages, Facetime with the family and using Apple Pay in the morning when we grab our coffee, many tend to forget the powerful health features built within your iPhone.
A person’s health is of the utmost importance, and technology has been working tirelessly to make health tracking easier and more manageable. While Apple doesn’t offer all of the health features yet, users are able to access many 3rd party applications through the App Store and live a healthier lifestyle.
Some argue that Apple’s health features are mostly focused on the Apple watch. At NYC Mobile Device Doctors, we are here to tell you that the iPhone by itself is also an extremely powerful health monitor. We believe that healthier employees lead to happier customers. One of the basic health features most of our employees use on their iPhones is the step counter. Yes, our technicians are always on the go. For some repairs, the technician comes to you on site with the necessary tools and parts to complete the repair. One of things our technicians love is the weekly step challenge we have across our team. The bragging rights that come from it are considered the ultimate trophy.
What Health Features Does My iPhone Offer?
The features listed below come built into every iPhone and are available by accessing the pre-installed health app.
Step Counter – The iPhone’s built in accelerometer is able to track the number of steps you take in a day. It can also track the total distance you traveled as well as the number of flights of stairs you’ve climbed. The data is graphed out over time so you can easily compare daily/weekly and monthly statistics. This is the feature the team at NYC Mobile Device Doctors uses for our weekly step challenge. We encourage everyone to use this feature as more steps lead to a healthier lifestyle. Start a challenge with your family or friends and you might find yourself on a late night walk soon to maintain your first-place lead!
- Headphone Audio Levels – If you have ever encountered an audiologist while you had headphones on, they will probably remind you to take them off as they are not good for your ears. These days, many people have their headphones on while they are on the go and like to listen to music at a very LOUD level. Unfortunately, science has taught us that loud music, especially when coming from ear buds, is not very healthy for your ears. Within the health app on your iPhone is a tool that will monitor the level of sound being played on your headphones. If the level exceeds what Apple recommends as “healthy listening” your phone will alert you.
- Health Records – Apple has released a feature called Apple Health. If your physician’s office offers integrations with Apple Health, you are able to view all your health records from within the Health app on your iPhone. This makes things like viewing your blood test results and checking on the details of past medical procedures simple. The need to call your doctor’s office to check your test results are a thing of the past with the Health Records feature. The test results are instantly pushed to your iPhone as soon as they are available.
- Sleep – The health app allows you to set sleep goals. It helps keep track of how many hours a night you sleep and also lets users set up a bedtime routine. Once you have customized your bedtime routine your iPhone will automatically start the routine when the time is right based on your preferences. Some of our team members really enjoy this feature as they love their sleep!
- Track Your Cycle – The health app within the iPhone includes the ability to track your menstrual cycle. You are able to view your cycle history as well as get predication notifications based on the information you input into it.
- Fitness Progress– While this feature works better with the use of an Apple Watch, you are also able to manually input your daily fitness activities into the Health app and keep tracking of your fitness goals that way. If you have an Apple Watch you are able to sync it up to your phone so it automatically tracks your workouts throughout the day.
The following features are available through the use of 3rd party apps available within the app store.
- Food and Nutrition – While you can use the nutrition section of the Health app to input your daily food intake the process is very time consuming and complicated. The App Store offers an easier alternative that will automatically sync the data with the Health app. These apps feature large databases of food options and include all the nutrition information with it. This makes the process of inputting your daily food intake much simpler. Our favorite app for food tracking is MyFitnessPal.
- Mindfulness – Stress is a part of the daily life of many, and for that Apple has included a mindfulness tracker within their Health app. Meditation is a tool that can be used to help alleviate stress and one that is used by many in our team. While there are a plethora of 3rd party apps that offer meditation guidance to users, our favorites are Calm, Breeth, and Headspace. All three of these apps will automatically sync your meditation data with the health app and help you keep track of how much you meditate each day.
- Activity – Activity tracking is very important as it allows users to make sure they are sticking to their fitness goals. As we mentioned above the Health app comes with a fitness progress section but without an Apple Watch it makes inputting your daily activity a bit cumbersome. Luckily, there are a variety of apps that are able to sync directly with the health app and make fitness tracking easier. Some of our favorites are MyFitnessPal, and Starva. If you have a separate activity tracker, most of them are also able to sync with your Health app (as is the case with Garmin and Fitbit).
- Weight Loss – For some, beginning a healthy lifestyle begins with focusing on weight loss. With that in mind many companies have created apps to help users with weight loss and post weight loss maintenance. They feature a vast array of features and recommendations for every type of person. We asked some of our technicians if they had any recommendations that we could share and a few of them did so here they are. Lose it! and Noom. While some may think these apps are only really for people looking to lose weight, that is not necessarily true. These apps help everyone maintain a healthy lifestyle by watching what they eat. And best of all they automatically sync with the health app on your iPhone, so you are easily able to keep track of your entire health profile at once place. Even if you are not looking to lose weight, we recommend you check out these apps!
Using Your iPhone to Live a Healthy Lifestyle
The iPhone can really be used in a variety of ways to make sure you are living a healthy lifestyle. It will protect your ears in the future by ensuring you are keeping the volume of your headphones at the right levels while also reminding you to get enough steps throughout the day. One of our team members uses the Calm app 3 times a day and has gotten many of us to use it as well. Even if you only have a few minutes available for meditation, the app leads you through the proper ways to meditate and the health app helps track your mindfulness.
An important part of a healthy lifestyle is healthy eating and using apps like MyFitnessPal help make sure your daily intake has all the components of a balanced diet while alerting you if it does not. Inputting all this information and some of the lifestyle changes associated with living a healthy life do take some time and effort, but the science has proven the benefits clearly outweigh the time invested in jumpstarting a healthy lifestyle.
Contact NYC Mobile Device Doctors When Things Are Not Working Correctly
As our reliance on our smartphones continues to grow, our need to get them fixed on a moment’s notice also becomes critical. At NYC Mobile Device Doctors, we offer same day appointments focused on you. Our technicians can even come to you for repairs. We bring the tools and parts necessary to complete the repair on site, at your place of choice. If you are having any issues with your iPhone, make an appointment today and our team will get your smartphone repaired as soon as possible!