Anxiety & Stress Relief Resources
Apps
Calm (offers in-app purchases)
Calm is the perfect mindfulness app for beginners, but also includes hundreds of programs for intermediate and advanced users. Guided meditation sessions are available in lengths of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes so you can choose the perfect length to fit with your schedule. Sleep Stories, breathing programs, stretching exercises, and relaxing music. Calm is recommended by top psychologists, therapists, and mental health experts.
“The app is fantastically well-rounded and has everything you could be looking for and is the cheapest meditation I've been able to find.” - Avery, KSU student
Daylio Journal (free and offers in-app purchases)
Daylio enables you to keep a private journal without having to type a single line. Pick your mood and add activities you have been doing during the day. You can also add notes and keep an old school diary. Daylio is collecting recorded moods and activities in the statistics and calendar. This format will help you to understand your habits better. Keep track of your activities and create patterns to become more productive.
Gratitude - Daily Journal (free and offers in-app purchases)
This app is the perfect place to start if you want to start practicing journaling or gratitude. The app provides daily personalized guided journal prompts and affirmations through notifications to keep you in the mindset of gratitude throughout your day. It allows users to create vision boards on the app to inspire them to achieve their goals. The app also provides some “daily zen” with inspiring quotes, relaxing images and articles to leave them happy, grateful and inspired.
Happify (offers in-app purchases)
Happify’s science-based activities and games can help reduce stress, overcome negative thoughts, and build greater resilience by providing effective tools and programs to improve emotional well-being. The techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who've been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy for decades.
Headspace (offers in-app purchases)
Headspace is your guide to health and happiness. It’s a simple way to let go of stress and get a better night’s rest. Learn to relax with guided meditations and mindfulness techniques that bring calm, wellness and balance to your life in just a few minutes a day. Plus, Sleep by Headspace helps you create the ideal conditions for a good night’s rest.
"While it does cost money to access more than the 10 free meditations, it is well worth your money. The library they offer of meditations is vast. As a student, you can get the meditations for a full year for at a really good discount." - Chelsea, KSU student
IntelliCare Hub (free)
Understanding how you are feeling is an important part of making progress towards feeling better.
Mindshift (free)
Targeted to help adolescents, teens, and young adults gain insight into and basic skills to manage their symptoms of anxiety disorders, including GAD, social anxiety, specific phobias, and panic attacks. It’s also useful for managing worry, performance anxiety, test anxiety, and perfectionism. The skills taught may be applied to individuals with physical, emotional, cognitive, or behavioral manifestations of anxiety, providing users with more helpful, balanced ways of thinking about feared situations.
Moodfit (free and offers in-app purchases)
Moodfit provides a comprehensive toolbox to take care of and work to improve your mental health. Moodfit helps to set and work daily towards mental health goals by providing mood and gratitude trackers, reminders for self care and by building skills daily that can help shift your mindset. Moodfit also provides meditations and breathing exercises to help calm down and destress from everyday life.
Sanvello (free and offers in-app purchases)
Sanvello provides a truly personalized guide for improving mental health. The app allows you to set goals, big or small, and provides the tools to help you attain them. Along with their mood tracker and guided meditations, they also offer many educational resources where you can learn more about mental health topics and issues. Sanvello is also developed around community and peer support, allowing users to connect with various communities and people like them to find understanding and support in their struggles. Users can also connect with licensed mental health professionals for an additional fee that is covered by some insurance providers in the US.
Stop, Breathe & Think (offers in-app purchases)
Meditation & mindfulness to help you build the emotional strength and confidence to handle life's ups and downs. Stop, Breathe & Think, the app for daily meditation & mindfulness, has a unique approach that allows you to check-in with your emotions and then recommends short, guided meditations, yoga and acupressure videos, tuned to how you feel.
“If you have money to spend on a meditation app then this is definitely one of the best apps you can buy.” - Avery, KSU student
Books
Declutter Your Mind: How to Stop Worrying Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking by Barrie Davenport and S. J. Scott (2016)
Available via University Libraries
Dealing with Anxiety and Related Disorders: Understanding, Coping, and Prevention by Rudy Nydegger (2012)
Available via University Libraries
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
Available via University Libraries
Other
Meditation Across Campus
For more information, visit https://www.kent.edu/KSoW/meditation
One Mind Psyber Guide
Website that reviews apps and digital health resources reviewed by experts, visit https://onemindpsyberguide.org/