Weekly Wellbeing: There's An App For That
Hi everyone,
This week's wellbeing activity is about celebrating our favourite apps that have made life a lot easier for us!
There's no denying that technology has made some aspects of everyday life so much more manageable. Sometimes, I come across a good app and think to myself, 'Now why didn't I think of that?'
Whether it's a self-care app, a task managing app or an app that helps us towards a healthier lifestyle, feel free to share it with us if you found it useful!
Looking forward to checking out everyone's suggestions!
Comments
Some apps I've found really useful:
- Finch - a really cute and helpful self care companion that you take care of by doing journalling/reflection exercises
- Forest - a focus timer for productivity
- Habitica - gamified RPG todo list, very fun and motivating to use 😃
- Happyfeed - a gratitude journalling app
- Other people have mentioned Smiling Mind, another really good one!
Just wanted to share another app that I thought some people might be interested in. It's called Abridge and it lets you record conversations with your doctors that it then transcribes for you. I've downloaded it but haven't tried it yet. Hopefully it will save me from writing down notes after an appointment!
Hi @WheresMySquishy - great app idea! Super useful in the sense of remembering information! Although, we should probably also remind people that they need to ask people/drs if they can record conversations 😁
Haha that's true @Maddy-RO. I can see it being useful for families or carers or for remembering instructions.
I haven't tried it yet, but I'm planning on asking my doctors if I can use it. My ophthalmologists often record what they will write in front of me, so I think they'll be okay with it. I know a surgeon who even sent one of my family members a video of their surgery in the mail. 😂
Here are some other apps I've tried for mental health:
Worry Dolls
Deepstash
COVID Coach
Mind Ease
Woebot
Ooh cool thread! Here are some recommendations
- I like bearable- it's an app for tracking lots of different things like symptoms, mood, etc.
- Quizlet and khan academy are good for education stuff
- Study bunny can be helpful but I haven't used it as much lately
- Onenote is good notetaking
- Mental health apps that I've found helpful: beyond now (suicide safety planning), calm harm (managing SH urges), clear fear (help with anxiety), and there's also the classic smiling mind (for mindfulness)
Keen to hear everyone else's ideas!
Love these, thanks for sharing @WheresMySquishy !
One I've been using quite a lot is ToDoIst, it's a to do list type app, but it also syncs to a calendar type thing that my wonderfully geeky partner built for us so I can always see important stuff at a glance etc.
I've just downloaded Smiling Mind which is a meditation app, they do a lot of really interesting research around mindfulness, meditation and mental health as well
And this is not *directly* mental health related, but it also kind of is- there's heaps of research on the benefits of being out in nature, doing something prosocial and being involved in things that are part of a greater 'whole' - this app ticks heaps of those boxes for me!
It's called iNaturalist, you can take photos of things in nature you've observed (maybe you saw a cool blue banded bee? Different type of tree? So many things- you just get outside, observe an individual organism, and take a clear, full frame photo. Then it will automatically generate suggestions for what you've seen based on your photo/location, and you can also discuss it with the community if you're interested in that side of things. So it's been used to do heaps of cool citizen science type stuff, which I find super cool, but I also love how it encourages you to take a moment, get out in nature, and observe the world around you.
I'm realising this totally sounds like an informercial or something haha - I promise it isn't, just something I thought was super cool. I've also been reading a lot lately about the connections between nature and mental health so it was also on my mind there (very much recommend Phosphorescence by Julia Baird if you're interested in that kind of thing!)
Loving all these suggestions!
@Lost_Space_Explorer5 I've used Bearable too! At the moment, I am using Flexible Journal to track episodic symptoms. In that app, you can make your own custom templates or forms, so I've found it useful for recording certain types of symptoms. It can also graph numerical data such as pain or symptom scores and it can track moods. I've also used Notion to keep tables of all my medications and what they are for. I've also used it for symptom tracking, recording how often I use medications, and tracking medical appointments. Another good app for tracking illnesses or symptoms is Flaredown.
Here are some other good apps for scheduling, task management, note-taking, etc:
Journal It - This is my favourite journalling app and I paid to get the premium version, though the free version is quite generous and I used the free one for years. It has so many great features and it's great if you want to divide tasks, notes and entries between different aspects of your life, people, subjects or units, or work for a lot of different places.
TimeTree - We use this app in our household to share a calendar. It's good if you are caring for other people. There are a lot of similar apps too.
Google Keep - I love this app for shopping lists, sharing lists and setting reminders.
Pocket - A good app for saving articles, videos, etc.
Microsoft To Do - Another good free task management app. It's good if you have lots of steps in a task and for scheduling reoccurring tasks.
Kanbanflow or Trello - These apps are good if you collaborate with other people and prefer seeing your tasks visually. The free version of Kanbanflow even has a pomodoro timer.
