As summer draws to a close, it’s becoming that much more important to hone in on that personal connection to stay warm as colder, gloomier months make their way to us. One way is to give yourself a reset is by looking at your self-care routine and thinking about how well it’s been treating you. If you’ve been looking for ways to refresh your self-care, we’ve got you covered. We’ve found four apps that will help you in recentering and refocusing on yourself, as well as in keeping your mind active and helping you cultivate your interests.
I Am I am is an app that sends you affirmations by notification throughout your day, reminding you of the things that always feel great to hear: you’re doing great and you’re doing your best. But that’s not all–the app’s affirmations are focused on holistically building your self-esteem and self-confidence by giving you affirmations that’ll uplift you when you’re feeling low. You can choose how often to get notifications, but it’s guaranteed to give you an emotional lift each time it pops on your screen! It’s available for free on the App Store and Play Store.
Forest Struggle with putting your phone away when you need to hunker down and get things done? Through Forest, you can keep yourself in check by creating a literal forest on your screen. The app grows a forest on your screen, starting with just a small tree and the only way you get more is to put your phone down. Pick up your phone for even a minute, and your forest will die! If you want your digital jungle to stay healthy, the only thing you’ll have to do is leave your phone alone. It’s available for download on the App Store and Play Store for $3.99.
Lumosity When it feelslike your brain is slowly falling asleep when you need it to be awake, you know it’s time to take a break. One way to wake your mind up is by playing a quick game on Lumosity! The app has a collection of short games you can play to train your mind on its memory and agility. It’s a daily workout for one of the muscles we use the most every day but might forget to train. Taking care of yourself also means challenging yourself to grow and get better! Lumosity’s games are energizing and stimulating, but not taxing. It’s available for free on the App Store and Play Store.
SHLF We’re always giving movie, music, book, and article recommendations to each other. And when we’re getting recs, we always throw it on our hypothetical mental list and forget all about it. SHLF is an app that you can use to avoid that. It’s a virtual library of digital bookshelves that you can fill with all kinds of content. Create a different bookshelf for movies, TV shows, books, articles, journals, magazines/zines, and music that you have been wanting to watch/read/listen to but haven’t gotten around to just yet. Bring your mental library to your phone by organizing your bookshelves based on format, genre, or in whatever way that feels right to you. It’s available for free on the App Store.
How does digital advocacy intersect with civic engagement? And how do you best advocate for social justice online? And how do you mitigate a crisis as it unfolds in real-time?
The Webby Awards and NAACP have teamed up to unpack voting and civic engagement in this digital age with our latest series, UNPCKD. The series will talk about how to transform online advocacy into civic engagement IRL –especially with the midterm elections being just around the corner. It’ll also cover the essentials of advocating online and the best practices for responding to a crisis. We’ve seen major growth in online engagement with local and national politics within the past two years. That makes it important that we ask if this online engagement is creating real change or if it’s stopping at reposting and retweeting. The UNPCKD series will have three events, all focused on diving into what civic engagement and advocacy look like once they’re digitized.
