Jump Start: Self Care September: Day 18
Day 18 of our Jump Start is also Day 4 of Relax and Sleep Better Week, and today it’s a nice relaxing treat for you. Well, it’s Treat Time too, seeing as it’s Thursday.
Today’s simple, free activity is to find yourself a free version of a relaxation app, download it, and try it out for 10 minutes.
As everyone has different preferences and tastes, take your time picking the right one. You might like something that plays soft, relaxing classical music, you might respond well to nature sounds such as rain or waves, or you might prefer spoken word guided relaxation by someone with a particular tone of voice or accent.
You can have anything you like, apart from whalesong*. Whalesong’s bloody weird and irritating.
Some free apps you might like to look for:
- Relax Lite with Andrew Johnson
- Headspace (free 10-day course)
- Free Relaxing Sounds of Nature
- Relax Melodies Sleep Zen Sounds
There are loads of other ones – everything from white noise to New Agey stuff to plain speaking narrators – so hunt around if none of those in the list above appeal.
If you don’t have a smartphone, the Calm website has a pretty relaxation interface where you can take a 2, 5, or 10 minute break for free.
Also, if you feel like you’re half stressed out of your mind, try downloading one of the many free relaxation and wellbeing podcasts from the Mental Health Foundation. Listen to them via your computer or MP3 player.
*Okay, you can have whalesong too, if it makes you happy. Just don’t expect me to whistle along. Let us know if you have a favourite relaxation app that isn’t on the list…
I quite often use this website :
You can tweak different types of calming sounds to mix your own relaxation soundtrack – it’s ace! You can do it on the website or there’s an app too.
Hi Jackie – great idea, thank you for sharing.
I use SleepCycle on my phone. It records your sleep too but it has other great options. I can set it to play sounds to soothe me to sleep – there is a set selection and I have waves crashing on the shore, which I always find relaxing. Waking up is also wonderful with this app – instead of some horrible loud alarm blasting you into consciousness it wakes you slowly and gently over a 30-minute period. It uses the phone’s accelerometer to detect when you’re in a lighter sleep phase, which it then uses to start waking you. If you set the app alarm for say 7am, it will wake you any time from 6.30am onwards when it detects you are most likely to wake naturally. Again, the app comes with set alarm sounds but you can also set your own (which I did) – the alarm will start very quietly and gradually increase in volume as you start to wake. It’s brilliant.
Hi Louise, thanks for the review – can’t wait to try this one out. Wonder what will happen to the accelerometer etc when the cat jumps on my head at 5.30am 😉