Forming new healthy habits and breaking bad ones requires time, consistency, and patience. That's why wellness challenges are so popular—they help you get the ball rolling by giving you structure and support.

And there's no better companion than your smartphone, with an assortment of apps in its store aimed at helping you become healthier and more productive.

Here, we'll cover different wellness challenge ideas and apps to help you adopt diverse health habits.

1. Drink Enough Water

Water is the foundation of an active, healthy lifestyle, as it plays a crucial role in transporting nutrients to cells and draining toxins from organs. Even mild dehydration can cause fatigue and worsen mood, which can be dangerous if it goes on too long. Drinking enough water every day helps improve not only your physical health but also your mental health as well.

But, how much is water is enough?

The answer depends on who you ask, although several experts recommend drinking 2 liters or half a gallon of water daily. The quantity of water you should drink also depends on various factors like the weather, level of activity, gender, or weight.

So, considering how vital water is to your body, you can challenge yourself to drink enough water and replace one of your favorite beverages (soda, coffee, or alcohol) with water for the next 30 days.

You can find many apps that can help you take on this water challenge by reminding and motivating you to drink enough water each day. For instance, Aqualert is a user-friendly water tracker and reminder app that enables you to calculate your daily water intake.

Aqualert also integrates with your Health app (for iOS users) and Google Fit app (for android users) to track your activity level and determine the amount of water you should take.

Download: Aqualert for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

2. Meditate Daily

Meditating helps you reduce stress, deal with anxiety, and improve your mood. It teaches you to be less reactive and more present in every moment.

Don't know where to begin? You can easily find many tools that simplify meditation so that anyone can incorporate it into their daily routine even if they only have a few minutes to spare. One great example would be Smiling Mind.

This handy app offers countless guided meditations for beginners and provides you with the resources you need to adopt meditation as a habit. Using Smiling Mind, you can challenge yourself to start each of the next 30 days with meditation.

Download: Smiling Mind for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Learn New Skills

Learning a new skill can help improve your confidence and self-esteem, brain health and memory, and foster connections with others. Professionally, learning new skills can boost your value to your employer, thereby increasing your chances of getting promoted.

To give yourself an edge in the job market and improve your wellbeing, set out to pick up new skills like computer programming, personal finance, entrepreneurship, to name a few. It doesn't matter what the skill is as long as it's new to you.

Khan Academy is a free online platform that offers several courses on different topics. It enables you to learn at your own pace with unlimited access to its courses while allowing you to set learning goals.

Even though the length of time needed to learn a new skill, like a programming language, can vary with individuals, you can challenge yourself to set aside a fixed amount of time every day for this purpose until you complete the course.

Download: Khan Academy for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Practice Gratitude

Although it might seem like a trivial task, journaling every day can help you take stock of your life and find peace. It's an opportunity to clear your mind by removing anything bothering you and leaving room for the positive.

Journaling is very straightforward: you can write down what you're grateful for each day and let it be your reminder to focus on all that you have rather than what's missing. It helps make gratitude a regular part of your routine while encouraging self-reflection.

You can use a tool journaling app like Diarium to get started. For the next 30 days, challenge yourself to write three things you were grateful for during the day, targets for the day or short-term goals.

Download: Diarium for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

5. Get Enough Sleep

Let's face it; you are probably so busy that the thought of finding more time for sleep is as realistic as walking on water. However, by skipping sleep or staying up late, you're only hurting your performance and jeopardizing your health.

But, what if you could produce your best work in less time by getting enough sleep?

So, if you want to do yourself a favor and gain more energy throughout the day, you should aim to sleep around eight hours each night. Doing this will ensure that you are well-rested and prepared to take on your day.

Need some help? Sleep as Android is a fantastic app that you can leverage for bedtime reminders, tracking your sleep cycle, evaluating the quality of your sleep, and more.

That said, for the next 30 days, make sure you get at least seven hours of sleep every night. It might not be easy (it's a challenge, after all), but you might notice the difference in how you feel throughout each day.

Download: Sleep as Android for Android (Free)

6. Learn How to Dance

Dancing is an incredible way to unleash your creative self while enjoying a great workout. It is also a great social activity, as you get the opportunity to meet people with similar interests while having fun.

For the next 30 days, commit yourself every day to taking a new step forward towards mastering some sweet dance moves with an online platform like learntodance.com. Depending on your taste, you can choose from its long list of dance types, including hip-hop, tap dance, breakdancing, tango, and more.

For the most part, you won't need fancy equipment or gear. All you need is a good pair of shoes, a smartphone, laptop, or TV to get started. You could even turn this into a group activity for more fun by meeting up with some friends to go dancing.

Start a 30-Day Wellness Challenge to Improve Your Overall Health

A month is a reasonable amount of time to take on a new challenge. By sticking with it for that long, you're committing yourself long enough that it becomes ingrained into your daily routine. Once you've finished the challenge, it'll be easier for you to keep doing this new activity independently.