Relationships June 10, 2021
BYOD (Bring Your Own Data).
Image via Unsplash / @robhampsonAs women, our lives are constantly busy, and it can be hard to focus on our own physical and mental well-being. Luckily, there are dozens of products and apps on the market to help us squeeze self-care into our days. Products like FitBits track our vital signs and movements and collect data that can help us learn to become experts in our own bodies.
We asked Jody Miller-Smith, SVP of Marketing at Southern Careers Institute and ENTITY Academy mentor, about the areas where women could use data-driven apps to level up their self-care game. Based on her suggestions, we have compiled 10 of the best health apps that allow you to become your own personal data scientist.
Now more than ever, maintaining your mental well-being is just as important as managing your physical health. Apps that help you destress are on the rise, but none do it as well as Calm, an all-in-one meditation and relaxation app designed to help you be happier and healthier. Whether you want to improve your sleep quality, reduce stress, or master the ability to focus, Calm has guided meditations and thought exercises to help users achieve their mental wellness goals. With daily check-ins to log your mood, keep a gratitude journal, reflect on your day, or practice mindfulness, Calm allows you to visually track your mental health through each week or month. Additionally, the app will recommend meditations that cater to your emotional needs, whether it’s a 10-minute break to de-stress or a quick reflection on relishing your joy.
Other fun features include Calm’s ever-expanding library of meditations, “sleep stories,” and relaxing music remixes. Meditate with Lebron James or Camilla Cabello, or fall asleep to stories read by Harry Styles, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra, and more. The app is free, but users can subscribe for premium access to its full library for $69.99 a year. Some insurance providers also allow their members to access Calm Premium for free.
VeSync is focused on bringing you smart products for every room of your home, such as lights and kitchen appliances, that are all connected by one app. They feature a couple of health-focused products, including their own version of a FitBit, a Smart Scale, and Smart Blood Pressure Machines.
When using these products, the devices use BlueTooth technology to send data directly to your phone. So, every time you step on the scale or slip your arm into the blood pressure cuff, you can look at the VeSync app to view charts and graphs of your numbers over time. No matter what you are trying to do for your health, VeSync has products that can help you manage your data in one convenient app. In addition, if you’re just looking for something that will help you relax, they also have a Smart Foot Massager!
For women with busy lives, it can be hard to stay on top of our nutrition. MyFitnessPal is a free app that allows you to keep a “diary” of the foods you eat in a day to help with mindful eating. The app automatically breaks down the important data relating to the food you eat so you know exactly how much protein and vitamins you’re getting in a day. The app also has a built-in pedometer so you can also keep track of your steps or create a custom workout routine.
MyFitnessPal uses data based on your age and lifestyle to help you set and maintain reasonable fitness goals and view comprehensive charts to measure your progress. By combining nutrition with physical activity, it takes a holistic approach to managing your health and wellness.
Sleep is one of the most important components of your overall health, and having trouble sleeping can be one of the most disruptive and discouraging parts of your daily life. One way to improve your sleep is by using a sleep tracker, and the most in-depth one on the market is SleepScore. It gauges the quality of your sleep by measuring your heart rate, movement, sounds (snorers and sleep-talkers, prepare to be called out), and environmental factors such as room temperature and brightness to calculate your “sleep score.”
Each morning, you can check your score and see a detailed breakdown of your sleep cycle, from the duration of your rest, to the time spent in each stage of sleep, to how long it took you to fall asleep and wake up. Another great tool is the customizable alarm that slowly rouses you, rather than abruptly lurching you out of sleep. You can monitor how your sleep score changes over time, compare your score to the recommended sleep patterns for an individual of a similar age and gender, and receive personalized recommendations for how to improve your sleep quality. You can even export your data to share with doctors if you discover you may have a sleep disorder.
SleepScore’s main features are free, but the app’s premium version offers lifetime sleep data storage, personalized insights, and a self-generated medical report. SleepScore Premium costs $7.99/month or $49.99/year after a one-week free trial.
Many of us have been indoors for the past year and probably have not gotten nearly enough Vitamin D, which has been shown to help regulate symptoms of anxiety and depression. With D Minder Pro, you can insert your height, weight, and age and the app calculates how much Vitamin D you should be getting during the day.
The app also asks you to input your location, then uses weather mapping technology to tell you what times of day are optimal for going outside and soaking up the sun. It will even let you know how long you can stay out in the sun without getting sunburned (always with a layer of SPF, of course). You can then track how much Vitamin D you got on a certain day, or throughout the week. If you have an iOS device, you can connect D Minder Pro to your built-in health app and look at that data alongside the rest of your stats.
When it comes to health and wellness, skincare can be tricky since everyone truly has their own unique skin concerns. Many apps and services struggle to personalize their recommendations for users who may vary in dryness and oiliness, or have certain conditions or sensitivities. Creating a custom skincare routine is the best way to ensure your skin is healthy and radiant, but if you’re not sure of the differences between cleansers and toners, or serums and moisturizers, it can be overwhelming to find a good place to start.
Skincare Routine is an app that allows you to create a list of products you use and keep track of your morning and nighttime skincare routines. One of its features also advises on which formulas will cause reactions when mixed. You can track your skin’s progress by recording any symptoms and uploading photos in your skincare “diary.” You can also indicate in your diary if you are on your period, which can increase skin oiliness and breakouts. By recording data in this app (which is only $3.99), you will be able to watch your skin’s glow-up in real-time.
Glow is a data science health company whose mission is to “illuminate health through data” and empower users with information about their bodies. Their family of apps – Eve, Glow, Nurture, and Glow Baby – track your period and sexual health, fertility, pregnancy, and even your baby’s developmental milestones. Their titular fertility app, Glow, allows you to share your cycle data with a partner to plan for pregnancy, while their pregnancy tracker, Nurture offers the ability to schedule appointments with an obstetrician. With visualized data compilations to give you and your doctor insights into your health, as well as forums with millions of other users sharing tips and advice, Glow provides a comprehensive user experience no matter what you’re tracking.
MapMyRun by Under Armour is an app designed to help you track your workouts and challenge yourself to reach your fitness goals. In addition to mapping your running or walking route, per the app’s name, it can also monitor your performance whether you’re going on a hike, biking on a trail, doing some yoga, or sprinting on a treadmill. It provides information on a range of data points including calories burned, average pace, and even stride length, with highly detailed metrics like your average and maximum pace, speed, and heart rate.
MapMyRun works on your phone and a wearable smart device, so a wide range of users can benefit from its robust features. With options to listen to coaching audio or encouraging feedback during your workout, participate in local or national mileage challenges, or join the app’s large community of fitness enthusiasts, MapMyRun aims to keep you motivated and cheer you on as you strive to hit your personal best.
If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or Apple Watch, data from your vital signs such as your steps per day, heart rate, and even your blood oxygen levels get stored in their built-in health apps. But making sense of this data to manage your health independently can be daunting. That’s where Point comes in.
Point takes health data from your smart device and creates personalized workout plans based on your fitness goals. Once you outline those goals in the app, it measures your sleep, movement, and any workouts you log to help you analyze your progress on your personal fitness journey. Premium users even get access to curated workout videos and post-workout recommendations to maximize their fitness gains. No matter your health and wellness goals, Point can help you take your raw health data and create an actionable plan to get yourself where you want to be.
Most of Point’s functions are free for all users. A monthly premium subscription is $12.99/month, while a yearly subscription costs $69.99, or $5.83/month.
Period Calendar is a free app that helps you keep track of your menstrual cycle so that you can predict when your next period should be starting and how long it will last. What makes this app unique is that you can also track your symptoms and rate them by their severity. You can choose the level of flow for the day (light to heavy) as well as nausea, diarrhea, pelvic pain, cramps, color and viscosity of vaginal discharge, and other physical symptoms such as changes in mood.
This app is ideal for women with irregular periods. The best way to use this app is to keep track of your symptoms all month long, so you can start to look for patterns and overlaps. For the days leading up to your period, do you tend to be more irritable? Do your cramps get worse on the second or third day of your period? By looking at many months’ worth of data, you can start to make educated guesses for what is “normal” when it comes to your cycle. If there are irregularities or things that you find concerning, you can use their “export” feature to bring a full report to your doctor. You can then present your findings as the “expert” of your own vagina.
The age of smartphones and other wearable products has opened up a new frontier for businesses all around the world. Every future-forward company is analyzing data, whether they’re tracking daily customer activity or using machine learning to predict future trends.
“Data scientist” has topped the charts on sites like Glassdoor as one of the hottest jobs in the U.S. over the past few years. However, an overwhelming majority of data scientists are male. When it comes to topics like women’s healthcare, we need to make sure women are involved in organizing and analyzing these sets of data. They also need to be in the room when writing code and programming machine learning algorithms in order to continue to create the best health apps possible that keep women’s unique wellness needs in mind.
Do you want to help create the next best health app? If you’re considering a career in data science, apply for the Data Science Virtual Academy powered by Woz U. This female-focused program will give you the hard skills needed for a career in data science from the ground up in just 33 weeks. In addition to the most up-to-date technical curriculum, you will receive mentorship from ENTITY Academy as well as soft skills workshops and career success services. Classes start every three weeks, so apply today!
