The year is more than half over, which means most of us have already broken the resolutions we made in January. You don’t need to wait for another New Year to get back on track though. With these apps on your smartphone or tablet, there’s no time like the present to break bad habits.
FreakyAlarm: Never Oversleep Again
Repeatedly reaching for the snooze button is a bad habit that starts your whole day on the wrong foot. When you do give in to your alarm, you’ll feel stressed readying yourself for the day and risk facing your boss’s wrath if you arrive to work late. FreakyAlarm should fix the problem, because it’s incredibly hard to ignore. You need to solve complex math equations or complete tasks like scanning barcodes to shut off the alarm. It’ll get your brain working and get you back into good waking habits in no time.
FreakyAlarm is $1.99 from iTunes.
Livestrong MyQuit Coach: Kick Cigarette Habit
Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health and bad for your budget. While most “quit smoking” apps come down hard, LIVESTRONG MyQuit Coach takes a more realistic approach. It lets you choose whether to go cold turkey or taper off your cigarette smoking habit, perhaps by supplementing your usual smokes with e-cigarettes from Vaporcade. It offers inspiration tips, informative facts about quitting, and achievement badges to help you stay motivated. This app is endorsed by doctors so you can feel confident that it’ll help you quit.
LIVESTRONG MyQuit Coach is free from iTunes.
Gratitude Journal: Start Thinking More Positively
It’s easy for the pressures of daily life to get on top of you. Using an app like Gratitude Journal is a great way to break the bad habit of negative thinking and rewire your brain. The app’s creators say it takes just five minutes every day to rewire your brain and start thinking more positively. It encourages you to record five things you’re grateful for each day. By inspiring you to notice these positive things, you’ll increase your happiness and start seeing the world as a more beautiful place.
Gratitude Journal is $2.99 from iTunes.
Coach.me: Start Living Better
If your bad habit wasn’t addressed by any of the other apps, then you’ll likely find the incentive you need to change in Coach.me. This clever self-help app motivates you to adopt healthier habits, like flossing daily, spending more time outdoors, meditating, and eating breakfast. Choose the habit you wish you work on and the app will check in with you whenever you should be performing it. When you follow through with the healthy habit, just click the check-in button. Coach.me tracks your habits and creates graphs so you can see how well you’re sticking to your resolve.
Coach.me understands that breaking bad habits is never easy, so it also offers a user community for support. Other Coach.me users can give you props, the app’s equivalent of likes, for your check-ins, to help you stay motivated. Coach.me is free from iTunes and Google Play.
With a little willpower and technology behind you, you’ll find that breaking those bad habits is easier than you think.
