If you’re anything like me, you constantly feel overwhelmed by your busy schedule. This can lead to further feelings of stress and anxiety which really takes a toll on your mental health. That combined with constantly being on the go can cause you to feel like you never have any time for self-care. This is why I have fallen in love with self-care apps! These apps are perfect for college girls that need something they can fit in the small blocks of time they have available in their schedule. Here are my top 5 apps for balancing self-care in my own packed day.
- Youper
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I’m kicking this off with my favorite app by far, Youper. I love this app so much because it feels like I’m talking to a professional with the AI that sends messages in a text message style convo. You then respond and fully evaluate your feelings which feels like combining a personal journal entry and a conversation with a friend. It has many other features such as evaluating what are the factors leading to your feelings, checking to see if you’re falling under “mind traps” (which I usually am), guided mindfulness practices, and also provides different mental health check-ins to see if you may need further professional consultation.
- Headspace
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If you are a fan of practicing mindfulness, Headspace is perfect for you. While Youper offers guided mindfulness practices, Headspace is completely dedicated to offering a wide variety of different sessions for any needs. Do you have a specific thing you want to focus on such as stress, personal growth, physical health, or falling asleep? Headspace is the best app for pinpointing these issues and working on them in a matter of minutes.
- #Selfcare
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Do you ever wish you could stay at home and take a mental health day when you can’t? #Selfcare lets you take one digitally in their beautifully designed game. Every part of this app is relaxing from the peaceful music to the delicate artwork. You have a variety of minigames to choose from each time you get on including reading your tarot card, picking up the room in a matching game, a breathing exercise, and even petting a super cute cat.
- Thisissand
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This is another game that has such high ratings for how therapeutic it can be. The only thing you do is create sand art, but it’s surprisingly relaxing! The visual element of watching the sand fall combined with the soft sounds of the sand pouring out adds to this experience. In the free version, you can change the color palette and adjust the number of colors that change, but you spend most of your time just holding down on the screen and watching the process take place.
- Eve
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Eve by glow is a period tracker app that lets you log when your period took place, your sexual activity, your feelings, symptoms, and any other factors you may want to look back on to see what patterns may be occurring on your period. This is SO important to mental health as we all know periods can put a real damper on our mood. By being able to keep track of what moods and behaviors we go through at certain points in our cycle, we can account for them later on and avoid getting in such a funk. On top of all this, keeping track of your sexual activity is tremendously helpful in knowing what’s going on with our body and having peace of mind. This is not to mention all the other wonderful feature of this app such as discussion boards, quizzes, and a prediction based on past logs of when your next period and ovulation cycle will begin.
I hope you all check out at least one of these apps because I use at least one of them on a daily basis. I can say will complete confidence that these apps help me have a balanced mind and feel more confident in my ability to take care of myself despite my busy day. However, these apps are not a replacement for professional help.
Here are additional resources available for students at Oklahoma State:
Call SAM, 1-855-225-2726 (Student Assistance by Mercy)
OSU Police, 405-744-6523
Wings of Hope Crisis Line, 405-624-3020
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 800-273-8255
Military OneSource (service members, veterans & families), 800-342-9647
Oklahoma Mental Health & Substance Abuse Crisis Line, 800-566-1343
Therapy Assistance Online: https://ucs.okstate.edu/scc/tao/index.html
Walk-in Clinic located in 320 Student Union open Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Reboot Center located in 320W Student Union