Self-Care Apps

There are many ways we can take care of ourselves. We can journal, meditate, read books, learn new hobbies, and even light some scented candles. Now, we can use self care apps since we all use our cell phones on a daily basis. There are really cute apps for self care out there. Not only do the graphics look nice but the sounds are relaxing too. I like to go on YouTube to see what self care apps people are using. I watched YouTuber SANNGITV and Jem for inspiration there are some apps I recommend. 

Fav Self Care Apps from YouTuber SANGGITV Headspace

 This is a meditation app and helps with mindfulness training. You can get this app for free but only the basics course is completely free. You can gain access to the full Headspace meditation library by subscribing. There are also sleep meditations and sleep sounds to help you rest. With this app, you can use features such as the 2-3 minute “mini meditations” for a quick mental rest, headspace animations to teach you new skills and answer your mindfulness questions and a new topic everyday for the daily meditations. There are two subscription pricing, $12.99 per month and $94.99 per year. 

Calm Harm 

This app is designed to help manage the urge to self-harm. Dr. Krause, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, has developed this app for a teenage mental health charity stem4. There are four categories to help control the urge. ‘Distract’ helps you learn self-control, ‘comforts’ helps you care rather than harm, ‘express yourself’ gets your feelings out in a different way and ‘release’ provides a safe alternative to self-injury. There are many people who self-harm but would never tell a soul. They wouldn’t want to tell a therapist, a friend, or even family because of the fear of them not caring, or worse, wouldn’t want to help them. Creating an app such as this is great because, then they wouldn’t need to talk to anyone but can try to control their urges in private. This can also be used if you’re stressed as well. Since this app is free, I decided to try it out myself. You can create a password and type a memorable word, something you won’t forget. I did use the breathe tab and it tells you when to breathe, hold, and breathe out. It’s silent though so you can listen to your breathing.

 Youper

You can rate how grateful or sad you’re feeling on this app. Youper helps improve and monitors your emotional health with quick conversations based on therapy techniques. Basically, it’s like you’re talking to an online therapist. Can you help understand yourself as well. This app was created by a team of doctors, scientists, and engineers led by Dr. Jose Hamilton. Youper utilizes artificial intelligence to help personalize various techniques based on your needs. On this app, you can use a mood tracker, write your feelings out in a journal, personality tests, and quick conversations that can change your day. This app is free to download but has an option of a monthly charge of $12.99 and a yearly charge of $59.99. 

Podcast

 If you have an IPhone, this app comes with the phone. It’s free, you can listen to any type of podcast such as true crime, sports, politics, and even story-telling. You can listen to affirmations, topics about love, toxic friendships, and how to celebrate your small wins. A couple podcasts I recommend are The Affirmation Pod, Kalyn’s Coffee Talk and Perfectly Imperfect. I recommend listening whenever you can, in your car, while you’re getting ready for the day or when you’re eating. I can guarantee, this’ll help change your mood to feeling more confident or entertained when listening for advice. I like to use this app on a daily basis. 

Eternal Sunshine

 This app’s vibe is very boho chic and hippy-like. It’s all sunshine and sunflowers, which is great and very cute. This app has daily mantras, essential wisdoms, inspirational talks, meditation exercises and morning mindfulness. This app is completely free. The daily mantras are slideshows of quotes you can screenshot and post on social media or use as a wallpaper. The daily mantras are fast paced so hold your finger on a mantra so you can read it at your pace. The essential wisdoms are also quotes on a page. There are topics such as love, faith, beauty, healing heart and philosophy. That way, you can read them at your pace. There are no pictures in the background with the essential wisdoms tab like the daily mantras do. The inspirational talks are like podcasts you can listen to. A couple of inspirational talks include, “You are here to play,” “The art of letting go,” and “You are the sunshine.” The meditation exercises are guided meditations for anxiety, bedtime journaling, affirmations, and self-love. The morning mindfulness helps you focus on daily tasks. It’s like a podcast with advice and helps you change your perspective on life such as detachment and gratitude. Out of all the apps YouTuber SANGGITV suggested, this is probably my favorite one. 

Self Care Apps Stoic 

This video was made by Jem. One of the apps she used was Stoic. You can track your mood, journal, meditate and reflect on your day. This app is simple and minimalistic and free. You can use the meditation feature to have sounds of the wind or fireplace as background. When your time is up, you can hear bell chimes. Another feature people might benefit from is the fear setting. You locate where your fear is, prevent the fear and repair it and see how you can minimize it. 

#SelfCare

I’ve been using this app whenever I need to de-stress. The color scheme is so beautiful, it’s blue, pink and purple. There is a new quote each time you open the app. One of the quotes was, “#SelfLove is unconditional. If you turn on the sound, it’s a calming instrumental. Also, if you listen closely, you can listen to the rain. For this app, there are various games. For example, You can clean your room, select a tarot card and follow the patterns of the glowing crystals. On the top off the screen, everytime you play a mini-game, the sun comes up and you’ll receive objects such as different crystals and the meaning of the objects. 

Mend

Are you feeling heartbroken? This is the app for you! This app guides you through a breakup and take the world day by day. Everyday, you’ll listen to an audio clip, help you with the breakup and complete a guided journaling activity. You can also track your progress and read advice articles. You can purchase a monthly and yearly subscription. 

Endel

This app allows you to create a soundscape to help you relax and sleep. There are four modes. The relax mode helps calm your mind, focus mode boosts productivity, on-the-go mode adapts to your busy schedule and the sleep mode helps you go into a deep sleep with soft and gentle sounds. You can use this app for soundscapes and you can use YouTube for soundscapes as well. I like to type in stranger things asmr ambiance, harry potter asmr ambiance and library asmr ambiance. I like to use these ambiances and place my mind there. It could also help with productivity and relaxing your mind. 

My Recommendations Jour

If you don’t want to waste money by purchasing a journal, look no further than the Jour app. Under the daily tab, you can set a time for when you want to journal about your day. Each day there’s a different prompt so you can release all of your feelings on the app. The journeys tab guides you on what you need to know about facing your fears, or write a letter but not sending it to someone. It’s like, writing an angry letter but never mailing it. At least your feelings will be released and you’ll feel so much better. 

Tide 

Each day, there’s a new quote for morning, afternoon and evening. You can use the focus tab for meditation. There are sounds such as cat purs, umbrella, and a fan. You can select how long you want the sounds for. For the sleep tab, you can sleep while there are soundscapes to help you fall asleep. The sound will end if it detects you’re fully asleep. You can select the time you want to wake up. Mind you, if you to select 8:00 a.m., it might wake you up 15 minutes earlier with the sounds you choose. There are also guided meditation for when you’re eating, falling asleep and waking up. Another tab would be the breathing portion. This can help you inhale and exhale while de-stressing. The sound I chose was the river because I feel at peace when I’m imagining myself near the ocean. You can choose how long you want to relax. There are many different self care apps but you need to explore to see what’s right for you. I would rather use an app that’s totally free without worrying about subscriptions. I love using the Tide app, #selfcare and Jour app on a daily basis.