by Tad Coles
Aren’t we all looking for ways to improve our wellbeing? Well, there’s an app for that! In fact, there are quite a few apps for that. I’ve used the free elements of the following phone applications (available for iPhone and Android smartphones) and solidly endorse them:
Way of Life | Headspace | Calm | Insight Timer | Provider Resilience
Way of Life: Improving wellbeing always involves making a change. Need help establishing a new routine, reinforcing a new wellbeing plan? Way of Life is billed as the ultimate habit builder and breaker!
You can setup a reminder for weekdays, weekends, or specific days of the week; add a custom message and choose whether the reminder includes an alarm. You can also view charts to see how you are doing over time. Tracking change is an important reinforcement and takes less than a minute a day to accomplish with this handy app.
A few months ago I used the app to track how I was doing at practicing yoga before bed, getting to bed on time, and establishing a morning walking exercise program. With two out of three of those behaviors I’ve dramatically improved, in fact, I have established a new routine regarding my bedtime and walking in the morning. The yoga in the evening didn’t take, but two out of three isn’t bad!
With Way of Life you can track three habits at no charge; more will cost you a one-time fee of about $5. That premium gets you multiple reminders, backup capability, and no ads.
Meditation Apps
If you’ve never meditated, want some help getting started, or you’re an experienced meditator looking to try something new, then Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer are excellent apps to try.
Headspace has made its founder, former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe, into a multimillionaire. Andy’s catchphrase, “We all need to get a little head space,” has become a mantra of sorts for millions of meditators.
You can try Headspace daily for 10 days for free and go back to those free introductory meditations over and over again. I have! There are other free single sessions such as their sleep and fear of flying exercises, which are 10 minutes each.
Every few days there is an animated video that you’ll likely enjoy. They’re really cute and insightful. They’ll stimulate your motivation.
If you want to get their sleep, stress, focus, and other series packs you’ll need to become a member and it will cost $13 monthly, $95 annually ($8/mo), or $420 for an eternal membership. To see everything they offer, it is best to login to their website. As an example, with subscription you can also access an in depth meditation section for kids ages 5 and under, 6-8, and 9-12 years of age on calm, focus, kindness, sleep, and wake up.
Calm is a free phone app with three main sections: breathe, meditate, and sleep. The breathe bubble guides you to mindful breathing with options like holding your breath between inhale and exhale or not. This is another really good app for beginners or those of us who have been meditating for a long time.
Try out its free options, which you can reuse over and over again. There is a free seven days of calm program that introduces meditation with sessions that are about 10 minutes each. There are also free guided meditations (body scan, lovingkindness, calm light, forgiveness, and newly released sleep stories) in which you can select duration from three to 30 minutes.
If you like it and want to become a member so you can access their seven-day programs on managing stress, focus, calming anxiety, sleep, happiness, gratitude, self-esteem, it will cost ~$13 monthly, $60 annually ($5/mo.), or $300 for a lifetime membership. With membership you can also access their suite of guided meditations including their calm kids program and a number of other programs on sleep, walking meditation, returning to now, non-judgement, etc.
Insight Timer is available on your computer via the Internet or on your smartphone. It is rated as the top free meditation phone app. It offers several bell and duration options for silent meditation and more than 4,000 free guided meditations, music tracks, talks and courses by more than 1,000 teachers in more than 20 languages, with offerings increasing steadily.
You can see how the various offerings are rated and bookmark your favorites. Also, a social networking component let’s you join groups, read posts, and make comments. I have especially enjoyed the Healing the Healer and the Healthcare Professionals groups.
I highly recommend this app for guided meditations on lovingkindness. Lovingkindness meditation involves acknowledging or praying that you, a loved one, an acquaintance, and a person you find irritating all want to be happy, healthy, useful, and at peace. I have found this type of meditation improves my self esteem, compassion for others, awareness of unity, ability to stand up for myself in a loving manner, ability to maintain boundaries without rancor, and achieving a feeling of being on an equal footing, rather than feeling superior or inferior to others. There are a plethora of guided Insight Timer meditations on lovingkindness in a variety of durations from a few minutes to over an hour.
In addition, I have found many of the sleep meditations quite helpful when I wake up in the middle of the night and am trying to settle down and get some rest.
Provider Resilience
Last, but not least, is Provider Resilience. It is the one best app I’ve found for monitoring compassion fatigue and burnout. It was developed by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology (T2).
The main screen is a dashboard with a Resilience Rating gauge to show you how you are doing regarding your resilience to compassion fatigue and burnout. It is based upon the data you input via:
• Resilience Builders/Killers quiz – recommended daily;
• Burnout toggle chart – recommended weekly; and
• Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) test – recommended monthly, which is a 30-question, five-point-Likert-scale test that takes about five-minutes
You can keep track of how you’ve done by checking on charts that display your burnout and ProQOL scores over time.
This is a very functional, well thought out app with lots of features. There are cartoon jokes to help you keep your sense of humor, simple physical exercises that can be done in the office, and alphabetically sorted “value cards” for contemplation or use as a daily devotional.
Improving your personal wellbeing is good for you and it will improve your relationships with family, friends, co-workers, clients, and patients. Guaranteed!
