Ever since I’ve put my self-care as a priority, I’ve been looking for a way to make it easier. Why not work smarter, not harder! Right? I’ve been LOVING a few self-care apps recently that have made my self-care routine so much easier. These are just a few of my favs!
#1. Shine Texts
Shine Texts is one of my favorite self-care apps because of how personal it feels. It’s nice to wake up every morning with texts cheering me on and reminding me to put myself first.
Daily Texts
If you’re sticking with the free version (which is still worth it!) the daily texts are where it’s at. Monday through Friday you get daily texts telling you to take care of yourself.
After they send you uplifting texts, you can go deeper. You’ll answer questions like, “What are you grateful for today?” and “What are you doing to feel good today?”.
This is great if you want to start a Gratitude Journal, but just never got around to it. You can look through all of your old check-ins and instantly start to feel grateful.
Shine Articles
You NEED to check out the articles they post on their website. They range from giving yourself grace when something doesn’t go your way to knocking things off of your to-do list.
Here are a few of my favorite articles on their site:
Shine Meditations
On Shine, you can access meditations and inspirational stories. Most of these you can only access in the premium version, but there are still options you can listen to for free.
What you get with Shine Text
Free Version
- Daily Shine Texts and Check-Ins
- Access to their self-help and inspirational articles on their app and website
- Limited access to their meditations and recordings.
Premium Version
You can test their premium features for 7 days to see if you like it. After that you can either choose to do the yearly subscription at $47.99 a year (which is $3.99 per month) or their monthly option at $7.99.
Here’s what you can expect with the premium version:
- Listen to shine articles if you don’t have time to read them.
- Participate in their challenges.
- You can listen to the full library meditations and “pep-talks” and “stories” where different guests will share inspirational lives and advice.
#2. Sanity & Self
This app goes way beyond meditations!
In this app, you’ll find ways to help with every aspect of your life like fitness, love, sex, “Sleep Visualizations”, beauty tips, and more.
Home Page
I’ve been exploring the fitness categories as I work out at the gym or at home and I also really love the “Self Care Categories”.
The pictures below actually don’t show all of the different categories you can explore, so make sure to explore it more!
Community
The most special part is the “Community” section. You can post questions or start a conversation based on what you need in your life.
They call this #SelfCareTogether and I love it.
We feel pressure to always have our lives together all the time and to not talk about the imperfect parts. I love how there is a section in this app that welcomes and celebrates talking about our concerns and imperfections.
Private Journal
I am a big advocate of journaling. I do it every morning with my daily intentions and my to-do list, so I love that there is an option for this.
They leave this open for you, so you can write whatever you want. A good idea would be to write your daily intentions and your to-list so you have access to it all day.
By the way, if you’re looking for a new morning routine to help you on your wellness journey or examples of daily intentions, then check out my post “8 ideas for a healthy morning routine.”
Ritual Reminder
Part of starting a new healthy routine is to make sure you’re consistent. But sometimes, I feel like my memory is so bad, it’s hard to remember to even eat! So, the fact that Sanity and Self had an option to remind me when to do my healthy routine has been SO helpful!
We get reminders, emails and all sorts of things that distract us, but we don’t get a lot of notifications to take care of ourselves. With Sanity and Self, you can do that and make it very personable.
What you get with Sanity and Self
Free Version
There is a lot of this app that is only available for premium subscribers, but you can still find a lot of great uses if you stick with the free version like:
- the Private Journal
- Community Group Discussions
- and Limited access to mediations and fitness videos
Premium Version
There are a lot more topics they cover in Sanity and Self than I’ve seen in any of the other self care apps.
Sanity and Self is a more of a pricier option, but you definitely get more bang for your buck.
You can test Sanity and Self premium with a 7 day trail. After that you can choose a yearly subscription at $59.99 a year or monthly at $9.99 a month.
Here’s what you can look forward to with the premium version:
- Full access to the library of meditations, videos and audio clips
- Access to their new content they release weekly
- Ability to download your sessions so you can access them offline
- Full access to their challenges and multi day videos.
Aloe Bud
If you’re looking for a simpler self-care app to remind you to take care of yourself, then you’ll love Aloe Bud.
This is a retro, 8-bit style app that is absolutely adorable, but very simple, streamlined and user-friendly.
Home Page
On the main page, you can check in with the type of activity you want to remind yourself to do. I have 6 activities the app reminds me to do or check in with.
On my page, I have it reminding me to:
- Breathe
- Stimulate
- Move
- Hydrate
- and Motivate
I had all of these set at different times throughout the day. Like with Hydrate, I had it set at every hour during the workday because it is really easy for me to get into a groove at work and forget to do something as basic as drink a glass of water.
Checking Your Progress
Something I love about Aloe Bud is it keeps track of everything you do throughout the day so you can go back and read through your activities like a journal.
If you click the image on the home page at the top center you will see everything you’ve done for the day like:
Customizing Aloe Bud
There are different options you can add to your Aloe Bud homepage! Check out all the options you can choose from:
Under each activity you can either choose to “Check in” or to “Reflect” on it.
It’s nice that you can be able to choose if you want to simply check in or reflect. If you want to reflect and dig in deeper with the activity you can answer an open-ended question each time you do it.
What you get with Aloe Bud
Free Version
You really get almost everything on the app for free. There are only a few things on here you would need to pay to unlock!
Premium Version
For $4.99 (you only have to pay once) you can unlock everything on this app. You are also able to customize what your reminders say when they pop up on your phone.
What about you?
With so much turmoil in our world and the pressure, we can put on ourselves, finding ways to take care of ourselves is sooo important.
Have you used any of these apps to treat yo’ self? Or are there other apps you use? Let me know in the comments!
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xo,
Monica
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Great resources! I like that the list goes beyond the “usual suspects” of bubble baths and manicures. I also enjoyed the article about not feeling guilty for unfinished to-do lists because that’s a big one for me!
I agree! I think there are a lot of great benefits to bubble baths and manicures, but sometimes we need to go a little deeper, right?
Thank you so much, Kate!
xo,
Monica