First and foremost, this article is not meant to nor focused on advancing anyone’s addiction to technology. I think we are all aware that most of us spend way too much time on our phones, but we might as well take advantage of how we use this time. Whether you struggle with anxious tendencies or are struggling with your mental health at the moment, these apps can help give you some peace. Nevertheless, if you are struggling with consistent and harmful mental health issues, please focus on getting help from professionals or loved ones first!
1. Pacifica (Apple & Google Play)
I, personally, used this app all throughout my high school life and it was a huge help. The pressures of school work, socialization, and trying to maintain healthy sleeping and eating habits can be really overwhelming. Pacifica is sort of an all-in-one app that is extremely easy to use for organizing your mental state. It opens with asking you how you are feeling, giving you the option to choose a general mood and add more specific feelings after. Then the app has multiple ways of offering suggestions to help you, such as meditation, journaling, goal setting, and health tracking.
(Photos courtesy of Pacifica app)
The health and goal pages are my favorite. The health page allows you to track your day-to-day water intake, exercise consistency, sleep quality, frequency of social interaction and more. You can personalize it to prioritize whatever you want to focus on. Having this helped me realize how important all of these aspects are to my mood changes. For the goals, Pacifica provides you with options of what goals you want to pursue, such as “reduce my daily negativity” or “improve my mood” and allows you to pick or input the small steps you can reach to achieve that main goal. Overall, it helps with calming, planning, and reflecting.
2. #SelfCare (Apple & Google Play)
I recently discovered this app and I am so glad that I did because it has already helped me in my day-to-day life. This app has an aesthetically pleasing look of being in a bedroom (which you can personalize to an extent) and having different objects you can reach for in order to do different exercises for being mindful or calming down. For example, one object is a plant that you can click on for breathing exercises.
(Photos courtesy of #SelfCare app)
As a fairly anxious person, I have experienced many occasions where I am in class or waiting for an appointment and I can feel myself hyperventilating. When this happens, I open the app and use the breathing exercise to catch my breath before I spiral. Calming down your breathing may seem like such an easy thing to do, but sometimes it’s a lot harder than it looks. When I feel stuck, looking at the app and following its lead is a huge help. Other exercises that are included are journaling, slowly filling the screen with colors, and petting a cat. This app is great if you want that feeling of a safe space available quickly on your phone at any time.
(Photos courtesy of What’s Up app)
3. What’s Up (Apple & Google Play)
What’s Up is one of the best apps for quickly and easily helping with anxiety. During anxiety attacks or episodes, one can feel completely disoriented and helpless. This app opens with affirmations like “You are not alone,” then leads you to a menu page offering different aspects of help. The best part of this app, to me, is the “help right now” button. When you click this, it leads you to a wide range of options for coping and grounding yourself at that moment. It can guide you through breathing and being self-aware about what is happening. It can also help distract you with games, like “name 5 things you can see that are white.” These easy naming games can help quickly de-escalate panic attacks. If you are alone and don’t feel like you can contact anyone for help at that moment, this app is an easy and safe way to help yourself as best as you can.
(Photo courtesy of Vent app)
4. Vent (Apple & Google Play)
Compared to the rest, Vent is not specifically self-care oriented. It is more like a less known Twitter where everyone goes to vent. However, this can be extremely beneficial in times where your thoughts are getting the best of you and you don’t want to share them with anyone else. Most people choose random usernames which allows everyone to remain anonymous if they wish, making it a great place to share random or consuming thoughts. You can follow and interact with others, using the buttons like “hug” or “HFY” (here for you) and more. But, you can also keep your account private and use it as a personal chronicle of your thoughts. When you go to post, the app gives you a themed few pages of emotions that you can use to describe your current mood then gives you a tweet format to type whatever you like. This simple release of thoughts can really help get some weight off your shoulders or help you recognize your emotions before taking them out on anyone else.
If you feel like any of these apps could help you, try them out. Some may surprise you and become a way of coping. Not to mention, all of these apps and the features mentioned are free! Use these apps to better yourself, but not to avoid life. If they can be a stepping stone to getting further help, by all means, use them to work toward that. No matter what, they can’t hurt to try!