Best Health & Safety Apps for Students

Staying safe and healthy while you’re at university is important, and while your university’s support services are always there, you may find the apps below very useful and convenient for when you’re on the go. Read on to discover some of the best health apps for students, including fitness apps.

General health apps 

Although none of the apps below can replace the advice of a doctor, they’re useful for keeping track of your health…

• iTriage – If you’re prone to googling your symptoms, this app is what you should be reaching for instead. It asks you a series of questions to determine what your possible illness could be, and then gives you some options to solve the medical problem – whether it’s a trip to the GP or just a rest. It leaves out the medical jargon, so you can easily understand your health. Better yet, it’s free!
• Sleep Time – This app is great for those who find it difficult to wake up an alarm in the morning. Doubling as a sleep analysis tool and alarm clock, it analyzes your sleep patterns to find the best time to wake you up. You can even select one of your favorite iTunes songs to wake up to.
• Glow – This is a very useful health app for women, allowing you to track your ovulation and menstrual cycle, so you’ll always know roughly when ‘that time of the month’ is coming. It can also send you reminders to keep track of contraception such as the pill. And unlike other period tracker apps, it has a community in which you can ask questions and receive help and support.
• ALL i CAN EAT – If you have any food intolerances or allergies, this health app is great for easily establishing what you can and can’t eat with color codes of your compatibility with different types of food and drink.
• Drugs.com – This health app enables you to quickly look up information on any medications you’re taking, to check interactions and set up your own personal medication records. You can also ask a specific question about your medication or check from thousands of existing questions and answers.
• AlcoDroid Alcohol Tracker – This health app tracks your alcohol consumption with a drink diary and blood alcohol content calculator, giving you a good overview of your drinking habits. You also have the option of tracking how much your drinks cost, and you canset yourself goals to reduce the amount you drink (and save money!).

Student safety apps 

If you ever feel unsure about your safety whilst out and about, these apps can help…

• My Safetipin – This app is ideal for those who are getting to grips with an unfamiliar new location (such as when you’re studying abroad for the first time), as it tells you the safety score of different areas, gives you alerts when you’re in an unsafe area, and tells you the safest routes.
• bSafe – bSafe lets you set off an SOS alarm when you’re in danger, share your location, invite friends to walk home with, and even get out of awkward situations by setting up a fake phone call.

Student fitness apps 

Feeling like a bit of a couch potato? Try one of these fitness apps…

• Nike+ Training Club – Described as ‘your personal trainer’, this app lets you chose from over 100 workouts, complete them with step-by-step guides and stay motivated. You can also share your progress on social media.
• iMapMyRun – This health app lets you track your progress using the built-in GPS of your phone. It tracks your route, pace, how long you ran, how many calories you burned, and more.
• 7 Minute Workout – Ideal for busy students, this does what it says on the tin – outlines seven minutes worth of easy-to-understand exercises with video and text descriptions.

Healthy eating apps for students 

These apps can make eating nutritious meals easier…

• FoodPlanner – If you like planning meals in advance (or want to become more organized!) then this app is for you. It lets you import healthy recipes from blogs and websites to build your own customized meal plans. You can also use your own recipes and create grocery lists – ideal for when you do your weekly food shop.
• Rockin Ramen – Designed for hungry students, this app provides you with many affordable and healthy meal options, with ramen as the main ingredient.
• Fooducate – If you’re watching your weight and want to avoid added ingredients that aren’t so good for you, this multitasking app can help. It lets you track your food intake and exercise, track quality and quantity of calories, share tips and ask questions in a community, scan thousands of product barcodes to see nutrition grades, and more.

And if you want to sync all your health apps into one, Nudge is ideal for avoiding an overload of notifications. It brings together your apps to give you a score of your current health level and what you can do to improve it. 

This blog post was originally published in February 2016. It was checked and updated in March 2019.

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