4 Apps to Help You Reduce Anxiety While Social Distancing
By Brittany Villegas
I don’t need to tell you what’s going on right now. You’re well aware. As Millennials, we get to wade through the shit of a global pandemic and, yet again, try to survive another global recession.
I was raised by my great grandparents who survived the Great Depression and World War II. Their resilience, their ability to adapt, and their generosity and kindness towards everyone - despite growing up starving while picking cotton, then dedicating their lives to the war front - was triggered by their struggles.
I see those same traits shaping us despite the tough cards life has dealt us. We look out for one another, we truly talk and listen to one another, we don’t care for superficialities. We make sure our loved ones are feeling okay.
However, we must look out for ourselves too. Since we are stuck indoors for the unforeseeable future, we must adapt our expectations of what healthcare looks like to receive the support we need. Here are some ways how.
Headspace
This app gave me immense relief when I suffered from postpartum depression last year. During my darkest time, I was fixated on both mine and my daughter’s pending mortality for several months. My fear of her and I dying one day suffocated me, and I felt like I had zero control over our lives. I was also plagued with guilt because I couldn’t be happy during the present, especially while raising such a happy, chunky, silly, beautiful little girl. Worse, I was convinced that I would never know how to be okay, nor feel like myself again.
I probably hadn’t set foot outside our home in three weeks. The thought of putting effort towards doing anything terrified me. When I finally downloaded Headspace after seeing an ad for it on Instagram, I was anxious about trying something new.
However, the free basics exercises were short enough to make me feel less overwhelmed, yet long enough to make gradual changes within me on how I perceived death, my overall lack of control, and my purpose as a human and as a mother. After several weeks of repeating the 10-day meditation basics series (your girl’s on a budget), I felt like I could breathe again.
Mentally, I felt less confined by my grief because I began to focus on being thankful for mine and my daughter’s lives. Physically, the breathing exercises helped me recognize the importance of taking deep breaths, and how to manage my anxiety, anger, and sadness with breathing.
The app is free to download and offers limited access with its free membership; however, a premium membership costs $69.99 (698sek).
Currently, Headspace is offering a collection of mindfulness activities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic called “Weathering the Storm” free to both members and nonmembers within the app. The collection includes calming meditations, at-home workouts, advice on how to handle life crises, help with sleeping, and more.
Shine
When I first started working at Endometrix, I regularly used Shine’s Facebook extension to do daily check-ins on my mental well being and to spark a positive, motivating intention for my day.
While the former Facebook extension is a guided discussion with a Shine chatbot (I’m pretty sure Shine no longer offers this feature, please correct me if I’m wrong), the app has tailor-made self-care programs that include meditations, motivations, sleep aids, and access to support through their digital community.
I’m thoroughly impressed with the cheerful interface and interactions of the app, its free exercises, and meditations, and most importantly, Shine co-founders’ and co-CEOs’ Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey commitment to improving the self-esteem of women and people of color.
The app is free to download. Currently, an annual membership costs $53.99 (540sek) including a 7-day free trial. They are currently offering daily deals, some as low as $28, for annual memberships, and are also providing premium memberships to healthcare providers free-of-charge.
Shine has also developed a digital toolkit to help those who are feeling distress due to Coronavirus find some relief.
Ten Percent Happier Meditation
Ten Percent Happier began as a book written by ABC Nightline and Good Morning America weekend edition co-anchor Dan Harris. After having a panic attack on live television, Harris began to practice meditation to help reign in his erratic inner voice.
Like Dan, I was originally a skeptic to most things spiritual. Also, as a fellow journalist, I respect Dan’s drive to confirm the benefits of meditation by going straight to the source and speaking directly with professionals like neuroscientists. These scientists were able to provide Dan with evidence to back up the claims that meditation can lower blood pressure and even rewire the brain.
His quest for knowledge eventually led him to take a week-long meditation retreat consisting of near-absolute silence, zero access to the outside world, and veganism. Here, he ended up having an emotional breakthrough that, in turn, led him to become a daily meditator.
From these experiences that he outlined in the book (which I would HIGHLY recommend reading), came the Ten Percent Happier app. The app and its meditation exercises are described as no-nonsense, and they are led by some of the best in the meditation business like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg.
Although a premium annual membership isn’t cheap ($99/980sek), you will get access to world-class teachers, more than 350 guided meditations, personal coaching, daily inspirations, and help with sleep. Free memberships include basic guided meditations, stats and performance tracking, and daily reminders.
Because of the corona pandemic, Ten Percent Happier has curated a free guide consisting of podcasts, meditations, blogs, and talks to maintaining sanity. The guide can be downloaded here. They are also offering free access to their premium services for healthcare workers. Just email them at care@tenpercent.com for instructions on how to join.
Smiling Mind
Although I’ve yet to try this app, I’m downloading it as soon as I finish writing this blog (one thing at a time, Brittany).
Smiling Mind is data-driven (I like to think of it as the Endometrix of mindfulness), customizable, and tailor-made. From the beginning, it prompts you to input personal information like your meditation experience level or what you’d like to accomplish through meditation. From there, it will create a list of guided meditations that suits your needs. It also includes exercises like body scans and daily check-ins.
The app is absolutely free. It was created by an Australian not-for-profit dedicated to providing accessible, life-long tools to nurture healthy minds for everyone.
They even offer an indigenous languages program that provides accessible and relevant mental health resources for Aboriginal people of the NPY region. These meditations have been scripted and recorded by senior Anangu women in Pitjantjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra.
They have also created a Coronavirus support page with resources on how to use mindfulness to cope with the uncertainty and unpredictability that this global health crisis can cause.
Today (29 March) one of my old colleagues and dear friends posted a guided meditation passion project that she’s been working on for several weeks now. The purpose of these video resources are to show the depth of a full meditation practice. “Hint: it’s not just sitting on the floor with your eyes closed,” she says.
“The idea for ‘Modern Meditations’ came when I was looking for free meditation resources to send to my friends and family. I realized that there were not a lot of free resources out there for beginners. There are lots of apps like Calm and Headspace (which are awesome) but the costs can be prohibitive.”
Lauren Ritchie, Modern Meditations
The three newly uploaded meditations on their Youtube channel were created for beginners and they work to help manage stress, improve focus, and boost creativity. They include guidance that is delightfully narrated by Lauren and calming music that was composed from scratch by Modern Meditations co-creator, binaural beat maker, and sound healer Chelsea Garcia.
Upcoming meditations include a coffee meditation, a wine meditation, meditations for productivity and increased empathy, and (hopefully) even some sound baths and Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep)!