1. For making keeping up on good habits feel like a game, try Habitica.
This app is kind of like a bullet journal...if your bullet journal was an old-fashioned RPG game. Basically, you input the habits you want to keep up on, your daily to-do list, etc., and level up and unlock features such as armor, pets, skills, and quests by accomplishing them.
2. For gentle reminders to practice self-care throughout the day, try Aloe Bud.
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Through lovely and encouraging push notifications, Aloe Bud brings awareness to the little important ways to take care of yourself, such as drinking water, eating, and reaching out to friends. With its cute no-frills approach to self-care, it's perfect for people who deal with depression or other mental health issues that make looking after yourself difficult.
Get it for free for iOs.
3. For creating a personalized self-help toolkit for your mental health, try My Possible Self.
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After an initial assessment, this app suggests a personalized self-help plan designed to help you work on whatever you need most — such as stress and anxiety management, coping with loss, confidence building, and dealing with irritability. All the guided ~learning modules~ are based on established forms of therapy, so it's kind of like having a pocket therapist.
4. For avoiding products with potentially toxic ingredients, try Think Dirty.
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With this app, you can scan the barcode of products (such as beauty and skincare products or cleaning products) to analyze the ingredients list with pretty much no effort. Then, it breaks down the potential risks associated with various ingredients so you can make a choice as an ~informed consumer~.
5. For healthy meal-planning help, try Mealime.
Keeping up on healthy eating habits can be a chore, but this app makes it pretty much as easy as possible. After you put in your personal preferences (such as how much meat you eat or what foods you dislike), it gives you recipes you can make in under 30 minutes, plus a grocery list.
6. For help shutting up your brain so you can fall asleep, try Pzizz.
Best for people who have a hard time falling sleep, this app uses "algorithmically remixed sounds" such as music, voiceovers, white noise, and sound effects to induce sleep. Over time, the app learns what "dreamscapes" work best for you and personalizes your experience. Not saying it's like hypnosis, but it's kind of like hypnosis.
7. For an extremely accessible introduction to meditation, try Headspace.
Headspace is a guided meditation app that can teach even skeptics the benefits of taking a few minutes to be mindful every day. It bills itself as a personal trainer for the mind and offers general guided meditations plus ones that are specifically for things like sleep, work performance, grief, creativity, and relationships.
8. For the cutest motivation to hydrate ever, try Plant Nanny.
9. For dealing with stress, anxiety, and depression, try Pacifica.
Based on cognitive behavioral therapy, this app lets you rate and track your mood over time and record your thoughts in order to identify thinking patterns and discover and track possible triggers. It also has guided deep breathing and muscle relaxation exercises, daily anti-anxiety experiments, and a place to track health goals.
10. For finding the perfect time to wake up feeling refreshed, try Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock.
11. For making sure your late-night phone usage doesn't hurt your sleep *or* your eyes, try Twilight.
It reduces the blue-colored light in the screen — AKA light that can interfere with your quality of sleep — and starts dimming your screen around sunset, depending on when you set the timer for.
Get it for free for Android.
12. For connecting to a professional when you don't want to deal alone, try Talkspace.
Most people can benefit from therapy, but not everyone has access to it — or the desire to do it face-to-face. Talkspace, a text-based therapy app, is convenient and discrete way to deal with depression, anxiety, stress, chronic illness, and more.
By the way, these apps might help you, but they're not a replacement for professional help, so always make sure to consult with your doctor about your personal health and wellness.
