This article is all about my favorite self care apps. In this world of social media and only seeing the perfect part of everyone’s lives, it can leave us in a place of inadequacy and self doubt.
In the beginning of this year, I made it a goal to only follow accounts on social media that inspire me and to read content that provides me with information to make my life better. That’s when I started my search for the best self care apps that left me feeling great.
#1. Shine Texts
Shine Texts is one of my favorite self care apps because of how personal it can feel. It’s nice to be able to wake up every morning with texts cheering me on, letting me know to put myself first and thats it’s ok not to be perfect.
Daily Texts
If you are sticking with the free version of the app (which is still worth it!) the daily texts are where you will get the most value. Monday through Friday you can check in with shine and get daily texts telling you to take care of yourself!
After they send you uplifting text messages, you’ll have the option to check in each day. You’ll answer questions like, “What are you grateful for today?” and “What are you doing to feel good today?”.
This is a good option for anyone that has wanted to start a Gratitude Journal. You can look through all of your old check ins and instantly start to feel grateful, all right on your phone!
Shine Articles
Another one of my favorite parts about shine is the articles they share in the daily texts and on their website. All of their articles range from giving yourself grace when something doesn’t go quite your way to being more productive and knocking things off of your to-do list.
Here are a few of my favorite articles on their site:
Shine Meditations
On the app you can also access meditations and recordings of inspirational stories. Most of these you can only access if you are a paying member, but there are still options you can listen to in the free version.
What you get with Shine Text
Free Version
- Daily Shine Texts and Check Ins
- Access to all 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. This is where you can focus on a certain area of your life you would like to improve on (like self-care, beating burnout, productivity, etc) and listen to their advice on the topic for seven days.
- Listen to the full library of meditations.
- You can listen to the full library of “pep-talks” and “stories” where different guests will share inspirations tales of their lives and advice for others.
#2. Sanity & Self
There are so many things to love about Sanity and 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” or sleep stories to help you fall asleep, 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 the app to get the full effect:
Community
A unique part about Sanity and Self is the “Community” section. This is where you can post questions or start a conversation based around what you need in your life.
They call this #SelfCareTogether and I love it. A lot us feel pressure to always have our lives together all the time and to not talk about the imperfect parts of life. I love how there is a section in this app that welcomes and celebrates talking about our concerns and imperfections.
They break this up by sections:
- Encourage
- Love Life
- Love Stinks
- Beauty
- Lady Parts
- Girl Boss
- Fitness
- Moms
- Just 4 Teens
- College Life
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 pretty open for you, so you can write what ever you want. A good idea would be to write your daily intentions and your to-list so you have access to it all day. Or you can write about whatever you’d like!
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
I used the ritual reminders throughout the day to remind me to drink water and when to exercise.
I also created one to have a “Mindful Minute” when I close my eyes and for one full minute just focus on my breathing. I love that there is a portion of the app where I can add that in.
I feel like 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 one of the simpler self help apps that remind you to take care of yourself, then you’ll love Aloe Bud.
This is an retro, 8-bit style app that is absolutely adorable, but very simple, stream-lined and user friendly.
For being such an adorable simplistic idea, they have resources on the website for anyone that needs help. You’ll see resources like the suicide prevention hotline and lists of groups to help with depression, anxiety, eating disorders and more.
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:
You can have as many or as few as you want and you can customize each activity.
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.
Sometimes, I would chose to check in with activities like Hydrating or Breathing, because I didn’t feel like I needed to explore those further.
On the other options like Motivate or Stimulate, though, I did set it to reflection. This was a good way to really think about if I was doing things throughout the day like motivating myself or others.
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.
Conclusion
With so much turmoil in our world and the pressure we can put on ourselves, finding ways to take care of ourselves is important.
With how busy a lot of us are, sometimes that might take a few self care apps on our phone reminding us to do simple things like breathe or drink a glass of water!
I hope you find these self care apps to be as helpful and impactful in your life as it has mine!
Have you used any of these apps to treat yo’ self? Or are there other apps you use? Let me know in the comments!
Kate Findley says
November 19, 2018 at 8:10 amGreat 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!
mindfullymonica says
November 19, 2018 at 1:29 pmI 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