Feeling a little stressed about returning to our busy life after the Holiday season? We bet you’d love to prolong the blissful, relaxed state you enjoyed during the mini-holiday and the good news is that you most certainly can.
If one of your New Year’s resolutions has to do with living a more stress-free existence, here are some useful apps to keep you take life a little easier in 2018.
Loop
At the onset of a new year, everyone is busy making a new list of goals to achieve. But it’s not always easy to form a new habit. That’s where Loop steps in.
Once installed on your smartphone or smartwatch, the app can be configured to send reminders for each new habit (like drinking water), as well as provide detailed graphs that showcase your progress over time. The app is completely ad-free and open source and benefits from a clean, minimalist interface.
Pacifica
Feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety and even depression? Pacifica is built on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy methods, as well as mindfulness, meditation and relaxation principles to help you througher tough times.
The app includes a mood tracker tool which lets users rate their moods and feelings, as well as a psychologist-designed thought analysis tools that teaches sufferers how to by-pass distorted thinking patterns which contribute to their anxiety and sadness.
The app also has a social media component, as you will be able to share your stories via Pacifica’s peer-support community.
Insight Timer
Insight Timer is one of the most popular meditation apps out there, as it comes packed with up to 8,000 guided meditations.
You can follow 1,600 mediation teachers and 500 topics, as well as join one or more of the 5,000 discussion groups. In that sense, the app acts as a sort of social network for meditation students.
The app is free for download, but if you want to use it offline you’ll be required to pay a monthly fee of $2.99/month.
MindFi
Meditation is a deep relaxation method that stills the mind and stops the constant chatter in your head. When this never-ending internal dialogue ceases the mind settles. But what if you’re a really busy individual who just can’t find the time to sit in a quiet room and concentrate on a mantra?
MindFi aims to solve this problem by incorporating meditation into your busy schedule, without interfering with your activities. The three-minute meditation sessions can be done with your eyes open, while you work or do other tasks. It’s pretty handy!
Relax Melodies
You can’t be at your best if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. Relax Melodies helps you achieve just that. Beat insomnia by listening to the app’s collection of soundscapes which includes over 50 free relaxing sounds like white sounds, meditation music, and nature sounds.
Users can also add a guided meditation to their sleep sounds to help them combat stress and anxiety or tinnitus.
Recolor
Coloring books for adults have really taken off in 2017. Advertised as an anti-stress method, many adults have taken to coloring in order to channel their anxiety into a creative process.
Recolor takes the healing power of a coloring book and brings it to your Android smartphone. The app features over 2000 unique pictures including portraits, mandalas, animals and flowers for your coloring pleasure. Finish off your masterwork with unique style effects to make your creation stand out.
Peak
Concentrate your attention on something productive while using your phone, instead of using it for scrolling mindlessly on social media or playing random games.
Peak offers a collection of games to challenge your memory, attention, problem-solving, emotion control and more. The app also includes a personal trainer for your brain, to help you track progress and improve the current state of cognitive function.
7 Cups
Can’t seem to shake off the post-Christmas blues no matter what you do? Maybe you need to talk to someone about it.
7 Cups provides emotional support and counseling from active trained listeners who are available for you 24/7. The app also provides 300 mindfulness exercises to calm your nerves, as well as simple activity prompts to boost your mood.
HelloMind
HelloMind is an app which aims to help you overcome specific issues like weight gain or low self-esteem, not just stress. Choose a treatment of 10 sessions and listen to them in your headphones to break and eliminate the negative patterns you’ve engulfed yourself in.
Or choose a Quick Fix if you crave immediate relief from a craving, stress or panic or simply 5 minutes of complete relaxation. Also learn how to reinforce good emotions, as opposed to negative ones that lead to never-ending loops.
