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Getting ready for Christmas? These are all the deadly apps you need to stay on top of things

Mind, body and, er, waistline.

CHRISTMAS IS GETTING ever closer and with it the great anticipation of doing very little over the few days.

However, Christmas is notoriously hard for sticking to any sort of healthy-eating or exercise plan. Your schedule’s all out of whack and there’s always some delicious treat being offered around. Not only that, but Christmas can be at times quite stressful with the enforced jollity.

With that in mind, we’ve rounded up seven apps to help you stay healthy in lots of different ways over the Christmas period – and beyond.

1. Fitness tracker apps

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The first thing that can go out the window when you have a few days holidays is your fitness schedule.

So, in order to help keep up the momentum, or even get that momentum started (those New Year’s resolutions are no doubt starting to be formed), why not try a fitness app that tracks what you get up to on a daily basis?

Map My Run or Fitbit (which can be used alone or with the fitbit device) are great places to start.

2. Healthy-eating apps

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No matter how much of a healthy eater you are during the year, chances are strong that you will overeat or indulge during the Christmas period. It’s (almost) inevitable.

One way to help with that is to keep track of what you’re eating with an app such as My Fitness Pal which not only tracks what you eat and calculates the calories, it can track how much exercise you do and the calories you lose too.

3. Brain training apps

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Keeping your brain in tiptop shape is just as important as keeping your body in good nick. One way to do this is an old-fashioned crossword or similar challenge, but if you fancy being all modern about it, there are loads of brain-training apps out there.

Try Lumosity which has loads of different exercises from logic based, to word based, to numerical. It tracks your results and opens new levels and games based on how you do. There’s even an app to train your brain to be happier – check out Happify which uses brain exercises to build skills for happiness.

4. Mindfulness apps

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Living mindfully is probably never more important than at occasions like Christmas when it can be easy to get swept up into a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that might not be quite based in the here and now.

To help you remember to be mindful there are apps that you can set to remind you a number of times during the day. Try one like MindfullyMe which will remind you periodically to just be in the moment.

5. Meditation apps

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Meditation is another way to bring calm to your life, both in the moment and in the longer term. Regular meditation is supposed to have great results from physical such as lowering blood pressure, to mental – being calmer and more mentally strong. If nothing else, it’s ten minutes where you can sit and do ‘nothing’.

Try Insight Timer which has a meditation timing function as well as guided meditations and an worldwide community. Or you could try Calm which has guided and unguided meditations as well as mediations for specific concerns such as anxiety.

6. Sleep apps

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Sleeping is so important to our health and well-being but all too often we end up staying up too late on phones or tablets, or watching television.

To help you get into good patterns and recognise when is the best time for you to go to sleep for optimum rest, check out Sleep Genius. Not only does it help calculate the best bedtime for you, it has personalised sleep reporting, gentle alarms to wake you up in the morning and relaxation programmes to do.

7. General health apps

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Often times we have little aches and pains that could end being something serious, or might not. Nobody wants to run to the doctor every time they have a headache, so using an app like Symple, a symptom journalling app, that can help you keep track of when you’re having these little pains and when. So that if you do have to head to the doctor, you go with solid information.

If you do have something less serious to deal with, you could try using MeeDoc instead of heading to your physical GP. MeeDoc, while not replacing going to see a face to face doctor, is a way to get a diagnosis online with a GP who you can Skype or send images of symptoms to.

Better than getting stuck in a waiting room with a load of sick people, right?

What health apps would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below.

Nobody wants to get sick, especially over Christmas but if you do, check out the MeeDoc app. It’s an app that connects you directly to GPs remotely, who you can Skype and speak to about your symptoms, receive a diagnosis and have a prescription delivered to your local pharmacy. You can also send the GP images of physical symptoms, and obtain repeat prescriptions. Would you be interested in using an app like that? Let us know in the comments below and head over to MeeDoc to find out more. 

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