April marks Stress Awareness Month. Although it has been held each year since 1992, after the strains of the last couple of years, there has never been a greater need for awareness of how stress can impact people’s wellbeing.
The Stress Management Society (SMS) has set up a 30-day challenge, encouraging people to choose one positive action to carry out each day for their physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing.
With this in mind, we’ve rounded up some ways that you can use your tech to help keep your mind positive.
1. Meditation
Instead of allowing negative thoughts to churn your mind up, why not shut the world out for a moment and try a short meditation? You can use an app such as Headspace to guide you.
Headspace is one of the most popular apps for meditation. Because it contains free content, you can try some short exercises to see if meditating suits you.
If you find you’d like to learn more, there is a subscription option to access the vast catalog of guided meditations and mindfulness activities. It’s an extensive app with exercise, sleep, and focus tools also included.
Download: Headspace for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
2. Journaling
Keeping a happiness journal is a popular way to keep your mental state positive. By writing down things that make you happy and that you are thankful for, you will improve your self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
Having an app to make the process easy will aid you in making journaling part of your daily self-care routine.
There are many excellent apps for journaling, but why not start with Delightful, which is free and straightforward to use. It provides you with an inspirational quote and prompts you to write three things you are grateful for each day. You can even set a reminder to help maintain the habit, and there’s a calendar to revisit past entries easily. It’s a beautifully designed, simple app to get you into this positive habit.
Download: Delightful for iOS (Free, premium version available) | Android (Free)
3. Breathing
Learn a new breathing technique with an app such as iBreathe. This beautifully designed app is free, and its simple interface enables you to take a moment out of a busy day quickly. You can counter feelings of anxiety just by opening up the relaxing blue screen and following the on-screen instructions.
The app will lead you through breathing techniques such as 4-7-8, box breathing, and ujjayi, or set your own custom pattern once you’ve learned what works for you. You can set push reminders to schedule time out if you’re likely to forget, and you can also send exercises to your friends.
Download: iBreathe for iOS (Free)
4. Coloring
For a quick activity to de-stress you, why not try taking a moment to do some coloring? The action of coloring has shown to de-stress and calm adults and children alike.
You can download a Stress relief coloring book from the Stress Management Society.
Or try a digital coloring app such as Colorfy. This is an easy-to-use coloring book, designed to relax you wherever you are. Just download one of the vast range of pictures, choose a color palette, and tap or brush to color. You can download and share your images.
Download: Colorfy for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)
5. Sleep
Sleep is vital to good mental health and reducing stress. While you should minimize screen time just before bed, there are numerous apps to help you fight insomnia and improve your sleep.
Some are designed to track and monitor your sleep cycle. Others, such as Bettersleep, help you relax and unwind with a wide variety of sounds and music, from tropical birds to the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop. You can even mix them together to create your own unique sleep-inducing soundtrack.
There is an extensive catalog of sleep meditations, bedtime stories, and something called Sleepmoves, a series of relaxing body-mind exercises designed to prepare you for a good night’s sleep.
Download: Bettersleep for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
Use Your Phone as a De-stress Tool
With so many apps available, there are numerous ways to use your tech to make you more aware of your stress levels and develop strategies to counter the effects of stress on your daily life.
Reaching out to others when you feel stressed or overwhelmed is also essential. Be sure to seek professional advice and to learn from the experiences of others to keep your own mind healthy.