Digital Wellbeing

There are a wide range of apps and online tools which can help you with many aspects of digital wellbeing.  Have a look at the suggestions below to see if any of these might help you.

If you find other good tools not mentioned here - please let us know!

There are lots of apps which can help with anxiety, relaxation and mental health.  Those listed below are highly rated and you may find these helpful.

Please Note: These are third-party apps and are not affiliated with Staffordshire University in any way and we take no responsibility for the content of these apps. All of the below apps are free, we provide no endorsements for paid versions of the below apps as per university guidelines.

Breathe

Breathe is a mindfulness app that helps you stay calm and battle anxiety by sending you gentle deep breathing reminders throughout the day.

Calm

Calm has some gorgeous backgrounds that are very calming to look at, and a series of meditations that can be completed from 10-20 minutes. Voted App of the Year in 2017, it has some lovely 3-minute sleep stories, and a lots  of other mindfulness content.

Headspace

There is growing evidence supporting the positive health benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Headspace offers guided meditation and mindfulness with specific focus on stress, anxiety and sleep.

Mindshift

Mindshift is aimed at young adults and aims to get those suffering from the adverse effects of anxiety to change their habits regarding their anxiety. If you feel that anxiety is controlling larger portions of your life then this app may be suitable for you. Mindshift will enable you to use more helpful ways of thinking, teach you to relax and give you the ability to identify what steps you need to take back control from your anxiety.

Relax Melodies

If your anxiety is stopping you sleeping your sleep Relax Melodies may be helpful. This app lets you select sounds and melodies of your preference and tweak the different sounds in terms of volume and time. You select your playlist, relax and drift off to sleep.  It comes with 52 ambient sounds, 4 Brainwave beats and you are free to include music from your own library.

Self-Help Anxiety Management (SAM)

SAM will help you to understand what causes your anxiety, monitor your anxious thoughts and behaviour over time and manage your anxiety through self-help exercises and private reflection. This app has been developed in collaboration with a research team from UWE, Bristol

Worry box

Worry box is a great guide to self-control and solution-oriented approach to your worries. Its main idea is to encourage you to categorize your worrying in specific ways that can help you deal with them more easily.

There are also audio exercises that teach you coping strategies or invite you to use Worry Box imagery and self-talk to learn how to put your worries away.
Device: Android, Apple

If you feel you are too dependent on your digital devices and are easily distracted by this, then there are a few tips which might help you to manage this, become more productive and change your behaviour.

Take a break

This is crucial when it comes to getting rid of digital distractions.

Our brains work in 90-minute rest-activity cycles, so have a digital-free break after this time. This break should be for at least 10 minutes.  Some activities that help include:

• go for a walk or do some exercise
• do a different activity - reading or craft work for example
• get some food or drink

You’ll be surprised what making this small change can do for your productivity and concentration.

Wean yourself off devices

One of the best ways to eliminate digital distraction is to wean yourself off (at least some!) apps or devices – or at least change your behaviour around these.

For example, increase how often you check your phone – aim to do this no more frequently than every 15 minutes, and aim to get up to an hour or even more!

Create boundaries

Keeping boundaries with technology is important. Creating clear boundaries for when and where you use technology can reduce distractions and give you time and space for other things you need to do. Aim to develop a habit of using your devices only at certain times and in certain places during the day. An app which can help you build an effective habit is FocusMe for Android.