Trying to find some apps for helping/monitoring with brain stuff, figured that I'd ask for recommendations, and make a list so its easier for other people to find too. ETA: all apps are for IOS unless otherwise stated, unsure if theyre available for android but will include that if anyone confirms them! Memory issues - Remind Me Free app that allows you to create simple reminders. You type a short description, set a time, and choose whether you want it to notify you hourly, daily, weekly, etc. When its time to do something it sends a push notification(so remember to turn those on! I dont think itll send you adds or anything), gives a pretty gentle and non-alarming chime, and leaves a red dot on the app button for if you dont catch the push notification. You can set your list to show different sets of reminders, such as incomplete tasks, reccuring tasks, etc. and you can also just mark things as complete rather than just deleting things outright, so you dont need to worry about forgetting having done something. Calming games Number 2048 - Free app, a classic stimming game where you swipe matching numbers together to create larger and larger numbers just to see how high you can get before you run out of space. There are a few variations, but I use Number 2048 specifically because there are options for timed drops or not. - Viridi Free with in app purchases. Just a little succlent garden to check on from time to time to water and weed. Very pretty, with soft music. You can buy special plants, but the basic sets are free and you get a free random plant every week. Nice to know you have something to take care of, and for the first week or so for each plant you can watch it grow up. You also get to name your garden c: -Jigsaw Bug Free app with in app purchases. You can buy extra packs of pictures for a few bucks a piece and you get like 30+ more with each pack. This isnt really necessary so far, as there are a fair amount of free puzzles available. You can choose the piece shapes and the number of pieces up to 300 when starting a new puzzle. Pieces are stored in a side scroll, and there are options on the other side to start with the edges completed, have a lightened version of the full image in the background, among other options. I really like this one because its very laid back and doesnt have any ads on it- the store button is there but super unobtrusive. Communication apps -Statement Just a free program you can write things out on and have them displayed in large white text on a dark background. You can also save phrases to use for later. Very simple and easy to use. Sleep Tracking -SleepBot(android) A free app to track sleep cycles including measuring how deeply you sleep. Also keeps track of sleep debt and can record sounds(seems like a very useful feature if you know or think you talk in your sleep). Sleep monitoring does suck battery though so be sure to plug in at night! Mood tracking apps Breathing/meditation apps Crisis chat apps .... Im still looking for some good ones! Please feel free to suggest some, as well as anything else for any category(created or not) that you feel is helpful. I would prefer to keep this masterlist to free apps, but I'll make a paid apps section if people write the reviews and such. For all the free ones I'll probably try them myself before adding to the list
I use SleepBot to track my sleep patterns. It's free, and it can detect how you're moving to try and wake you up when you're lightly sleeping instead of heavily sleeping. It can also record sound if you need to track that. It also keeps track of your sleep debt. It's pretty handy. The only thing I'd want to warn about with it is it needs your phone to be plugged in if it's detecting vibrations, because that's a huge battery drain.
@Salted Earth that sounds amazing o: i had no idea that phones could detect vibrations like that! Also right now i could really use a thing to track sleep debt lol, im so, so behind. So much sleep to catch up on. Hm.... Looks like its an android app. I'll put it up on the list for android users, and try what looks like a few similar apps for ios. Sleep tracking apps seems like a really good thing to include!
Of course there's miracle modus for pretty colors and a nice little chime. There are different little modes you can choose. I like spiraling shape when I just want to stare, and painting hexes when I want something to do. There's a bunch to choose from though! Sometimes done of the sounds can be overwhelming so you should pick the ones you like at a time when you don't need the app for calming down purposes. I like puzzle games to calm me down. There's logic sketch 2 nono gram picross. It hasn't actually worked well for me lately, but I'm sure there's another similar app. I like 150 solitaire card game pack because there are lots of different ways to play solitaire done requiring more luck, some requiring more strategy. And there's a little goal of trying to win ten games in each of the variations to unlock more. Twenty is a game like 2048 meets Tetris. So a little less calm, but I like a little bit of urgency when I'm playing games. Starts out nice and slow though. Montezuma puzzle is a tanagram game. Pretty much any mahjong app, the one I use is from magma mobile. Blendoku is a color game where you have two colors and you have to line up the shades in between to make a spectrum from one to the other. I also like the Microsoft Solitaire collection because I can connect it to my Xbox live and get achievements. Also there are daily challenges you can do. Hmm I probably have more (i love puzzle games to calm me down) but that's probably good for now. Oh I also recommend Medisafe for meds reminders and tracking. All of these are free on Android, Idk about ios Edit: typo
I use SAM it stands for Self-help Anxiety Management. It has a couple features the main menu has a bunch of little icons you can use such as "help with anxiety now" that has some activities you can use to calm down. It has a breathing exercise with dial that tells you when to inhale and exhale and you can set it yourself. And it has a thing where it takes a picture in black and white and you have to drag your finger across to bring color. You can also rate your anxiety and it keeps track of it incase you need to know later. It has other features I dont remember off the top if my head, but it's really useful and has helped me with my anxiety freak outs a lot. I have android but I think it's also for ios?
I use Booster Buddy for mood and symptom tracking - it's made for teens/young adults so the interface might be a bit not for people who don't want a cute mascot. It also has you make a crisis plan when you first start the app, and it's good for motivation because it gives you self care type tasks to do (normally 3 a day) that vary in difficulty depending on what you log your mood/spoons as. It's also got a lot of legit, science backed coping methods for anxiety, insomnia, psychosis, mania and depression. I really love this app overall. It's available on ios and Android. Fabulous is an app that bills itself as a habit builder, but I use it as a self care reminder - you can set it to tell you to drink water, eat a thing, meditate, journal, exercise, etc. at a certain time of day. It doesn't chide or shame you for not doing the thing, either, although the language used is a little crunchy granola. It does emphasize slowly building good habits, which is nice, and it has built in exercise routines if you set it to tell you to exercise. It's only available on Android, though.
For mood tracking, I personally really like Moodnotes! You can either use the "quick add" feature to log basic mood stuff really quickly, or you can add more details and stuff if you want to. And there's also a little built-in flashcard thing if that's your jam? I haven't really used that feature much, but it has been useful on a couple of occasions where I've got stuck in catastrophising spirals and whatnot! Sadly, iirc it's not free, but I don't recall it being too expensive? For games, I really like Six! which is a really simple physics-based puzzle game that I find really soothing if I need something repetitive to occupy me. And idk for some reason I find it the noises really satisfying.
MY3 is a very simple, free app that's good to set up if you've ever been suicidal. There's a one-touch button to call the national suicide hotline, and you can also set three of your own contacts to call. You can also fill in a safety plan, resources and self-care strategies, etc.
Hey, thank everyone for suggesting things but just. Things are happening again and i dont have the spoons to go through and check everything out and add them to the list. Please continue suggestions if you want but the actual masterpost isnt happening anymore. Im sorry.
i use iMoodJournal for mood tracking! i think it was $2 or something, but it has a very pleasing (to me) graph, and you can give your moods custom names, and take notes for each entry. i have it set to ask me randomly 3 times a day. for calming games, can't beat infinite mode on Bejeweled.
Just downloaded this and I'm really hoping it works well for me! I have a lot of sleep issues, and recording sound might be kind of helpful (and possibly amusing, since I apparently talk in my sleep sometimes). Fortunately I have my phone plugged in at night all the time anyway. :P
So I tried SleepBot for the first time last night and holy shit, you guys. The alarm system is SO much better than just my phone alarm--loud enough to wake me up easily, and the gradual alarm thing was super helpful! Also, looking at the sound tracky thing, I am apparently a VERY loud sleeper. :P
I like to use the youtube app and SleepBot for bedtime. I watch ASMR videos with headphones to relax and start falling asleep, then switch to SleepBot to help me track my sleep because I'm terrible at doing that on my own. (Also I love the sound and movement recording features. I had a really still, quiet night yesterday.) I want the regular mic while I'm asleep for the sound activated recording feature (and also to extend the life of these ridiculous fragile earbuds a little by not sleeping on them every night), so I need to unplug the headphones when I switch apps. I don't want to do that until I'm already falling asleep in case I end up being unable to sleep without whatever video I was watching. On the off chance that anyone has this same problem, here is how I have learned to manage: Spoiler: tl;dr: dropping shit wakes me up First I set up my SleepBot options and alarm, then close out of the app and open youtube. While playing videos I hold my phone my hand and make sure it's elevated a bit. I may lean my arm against my pillow or use my other arm to help support it. It's all fine as long as the phone is at least slightly in the air. When I start falling asleep, the loss of muscle tension will make me drop the phone. It's got a protector, beds are soft, and I'm not launching it, so it's perfectly fine, but it will land on my arm or hit the bed near my head with enough of a thump to startle me awake just a little. I can usually let myself almost drop the phone or drop it completely a few times before I feel like I'm good to go. (Dropping it on my face is super effective but slightly painful. Would not recommend.) Then I unplug the headphones, put them out of the way, switch apps, make sure the correct boxes are still ticked before I press the big blue button, and set the phone near my pillow so it can do the movement and sound recording things.
just started using sleepbot, and can confirm it is also available for iphones. have not tried out any of its features besides sleep-tracking (well, i was gonna test the smart alarm, but i woke up early.) still, it seems potentially useful
Question about SleepBot. Does anyone have a sense for how much the movement tracker is or isn't thrown off by large dogs who sleep on the bed?
Depends on your mattress and whether the dogs sleep at the head or foot of the bed. When I had an inner spring mattress my boyfriend getting in and out would make the motion tracker spike, but now that I have a foam mattress, it hardly registers. It was never a really significant difference unless boyfriend was super restless, though.
I've been really liking Nomie for habit/mood/everything tracking lately! Very customizable and very data-based. Doesn't feel like it's judging me at all if I miss something or don't bother logging stuff, but more like I'm doing A Science. Lets you look at pretty graphs of trackers over time, and lets you pull up multiple ones at once to compare them.
Stop, Breathe and Think is the best for meditation. It's absolutely free, with a couple of different meditation packs available for purchase, but there's a LOT of variety in the free ones so there's no need to worry about purchasing anything if you don't wanna. It has a mood tracker before and after meditation, a list of guided meditations and you can also run a self-meditation timer. My favorites are the self-meditation timer, Body Scan and those that just focus on mindful breathing. You get cute reward stickers for stuff as well as mood tracking graphs, but overall the interface is very no-nonsense and simple. You also get a drawing of a trophy saying "great!" when you finish a post-meditation check-in, even if you say you feel like crap, and to me that always cheers me up so much and it drives home the nonjudgemental aspect of the thing.
Can I just say that I love this app? It's gonna come in SO HANDY at cons! Here are my statements, btw!
