8 Self Care Apps That Will Help You Stay Healthy & Human Through It All
Like it or not, phones are an essential part of our wellbeing and apps play a major role. When we’re down in the dumps about something – no matter how small or significant – what do we do? We grab our phones!
We often go for the usual suspects: Instagram to DM our friends, Spotify to play some mood-boosting music, Pinterest to look up comfort food recipes.
But there’s a bunch of other apps that helps us breathe and reminds us that we are not alone when we’re feeling sad, anxious or stressed out.
Noom
If you're looking to lose weight without giving in to diet culture, Noom helps you develop a better relationship with food so you don't have to cut any of your favourites out. It's like having an on-call nutritionist and personal trainer! The program also lets you connect with other like-minded people so you can build a strong support system.
Take their introductory survey to have a custom plan built just for you!
Optimity
This app lets you earn rewards for hitting your daily step goal or completing exercises. It can be 10 squats, 20 jumping jacks, really anything that takes two minutes or less to complete. Eventually you can turn your points into real prizes like Amazon gift cards!
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
The Mindfulness App
This is super helpful if you’re new to meditation and not sure where to begin. It starts you off with a five-minute daily meditation so you can learn to be more present. If you’re finding it hard to concentrate at work or having trouble falling asleep, stick with the plan and see if you notice improvements in a couple of days.
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Exhale
This is the first emotional wellbeing app created by and for the BIPOC community. It inspires self-care and mindfulness through a series of positive affirmations, coaching talks, guided visualizations and breathing exercises.
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Calm
Remaining cool, calm and collected is easier said than done. With over 1.5 million five-star reviews, Calm helps you sleep more and stress less through a series of bedtime stories (often read by celebrities like Harry Styles), nature videos and exclusive music. Just take a deep breath and hit play.
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Breethe
No matter how busy we get, we all have to cram a little self-care into our schedule. Breethe makes it easy to fit in five-minute stress-relieving sessions that are ridiculously relatable like “My Family Is Driving Me Nuts”, “Coronavirus Anxiety” and “Tax Season: Adulting Is Hard”. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Streaks
Building a good habit (or breaking a bad one) is really, really hard. It takes a lot of patience and willpower to succeed. Say you want to floss your teeth every day or avoid junk food after dinner. Just as the name suggests, the app (currently only available for iPhone users) keeps tracks of your goal, and resets to zero if you break your streak. It’s such a clever way to track your progress and stay motivated.
You can download it from the App Store.
Headspace
Similar to Calm, this app is designed to help you destress, sleep better and improve your general outlook on life. It’s full of cute, cheerful graphics that you can’t help but smile at. It offers guided meditations that covers things like cravings, grief and work-related stress.
You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.