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Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#91

Post by raintrees »

Calibre, for me - And then choice books to read. Finished quite a few in the last 6 months, topics ranging from Linux internals, to philosophy, to financial management, to health...

I choose to invest my electronic time in learning more skills or relationships in why something seems to be the way it is.

Recent kick has been practicing the Roman Trivium, then I will tackle the Quadrivium.

And I use an Amazon Fire that my wife bought for me, permanently in airplane mode, as well as night-time (easier on the eyes). I transfer content via USB.

YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#92

Post by Swizec »

NalNezumi wrote: post #68

Not apps but things that have helped me: * remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps. * condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too. * (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e…

+1 to this. Getting a reMarkable has improved my “Actually read interesting papers” metric by infinite%. I went from bookmark and forget to reading at least 1 paper per week on average.

Turns out published academic papers, even the bad ones, are infinitely better than even the most insightful twitter threads.

Years ago I replaced podcasts with audiobooks for long runs. Podcasts started feeling too short. That’s been a huge improvement as well.

This week I stopped listening to podcasts on my way to the gym. That’s 20 minutes of thinking time per day. Fantastic so far. I feel a lot more relaxed.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#93

Post by sph »

stareatgoats wrote: post #54
sph wrote: post #27

Extremely unpopular opinion from a software engineer on a tech forum but: mental health is as far away from the Internet as possible. The more you can integrate the slower pace of nature and natural life, the better your mental health. Your physical presence is optimised for long days of doing fuck all, sitting in the grass, waiting for a deer to pass by. Still struggling with this, but my long term life goal is livi…

> waiting for a deer to pass by We don't know everything about the era that shaped our bodies, there are a few contradicting narratives: One being that we were mainly scavengers during the time that our brains grew to this size, especially savoring the marrow of the large bones of the large animals that used to roam the earth before we finished them off and had to look for other sources of highly nutritious foodstuff…

> the larger point is if we would be mentally more healthy if we stuck to the old ways of hunting mammoths

Certainly, if me and my buddies could hunt a whole mammoth our entire tribe could afford to do nothing for a month, as meat lasts a while in cold latitudes.

Sadly, nowadays one can't work very hard for a week and ask the boss to take the rest of the month off.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#94

Post by edu »

I love Medito[1], it's a free app to learn and practice meditation. It offers a ton of packs ranging from first guided meditations to beginners to very focused topics (i.e. sleep, manage pain...) from research collaboration with universities.

Ah, and it's available for Mac and Android.

1. https://meditofoundation.org/medito-app

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#95

Post by princevegeta89 »

NalNezumi wrote: post #68

Not apps but things that have helped me: * remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps. * condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too. * (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e…

Exactly. Notifications are such a waste of time. And from apps you don't care about, I've always disabled them. No more Google Maps asking for surveys, random apps throwing promotions, or spamming me about some recent activity of mine.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#96

Post by idoh »

Anki - jam everything into here. Various work facts, chess mate in X move puzzles, watched movie plots, every time I make a mistake I add it, etc.

BrainHQ - train your brain every day, get sharper. I found out about it after reading that Tom Brady uses it to be a better QB. After using it for a couple weeks I could notice a difference.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#97

Post by crimsoneer »

Swizec wrote: post #92
NalNezumi wrote: post #68

Not apps but things that have helped me: * remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps. * condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too. * (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e…

+1 to this. Getting a reMarkable has improved my “Actually read interesting papers” metric by infinite%. I went from bookmark and forget to reading at least 1 paper per week on average. Turns out published academic papers, even the bad ones, are infinitely better than even the most insightful twitter threads. Years ago I replaced podcasts with audiobooks for long runs. Podcasts started feeling too short. That’s been…

How easy is it to get papers on? Do you email the PDFs or similar?

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#98

Post by rchaud »

Delete every recreational app on your phone. Also delete anything that gamifies passive consumption, e.g. Duolingo.

Put some ebooks on your phone and read those. Stop mentally associating the phone with the infinite novelty generated by algorithmic social and YouTube feeds.

Do not open your web browser unless you have a specific search query in mind.

Disable all notifications except for the calendar and clock.

Treat your phone as if it had no online connectivity. When you open the phone, use it to organize your notes and structure your thinking, or to look at photo gallery. Begin thinking of it as an extension of your brain instead of a bottomless anti-boredom device.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#99

Post by joe5150 »

falcolas wrote: post #65

Lots of good app recommendations - let me suggest something slightly different that can help: Disable notifications. ALL notifications (barring - maybe - email and IM), including the little red counters on the icons. Move all non-essential apps off of the front page (perhaps even off of a "page" entirely). This does wonders for making using a phone a pleasant experience. The "engagement" apps no longer have automated…

iOS "app library" has been a huge improvement to the iPhone experience for me for this reason. I don't keep any apps on the home screen anymore, just widgets for the weather, quick contact buttons, etc. (I also have a widget to show my 'Today' mailbox from Mail.app, but it never updates properly, so I'll probably get rid of that.)

For a long time I've had notifications turned off for all social media apps using their internal settings, but the newish "notification summary" feature has helped to cut down on noise from other apps that like to send stray notifications.

Re: Ask HN: What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

#100

Post by em500 »

LeonB wrote: post #22

As a thought experiment, imagine you had a smart phone without internet access (but it was somehow able to download apps). Apps you would want on that device might include a lot of healthy apps. For example — It would replace many of the devices we used pre-internet. A compass. A calendar. A guitar tuner. A pedometer. A notebook. A recipe book - where you place recipes. A recording device - and a bank of guitar effec…

You've hit the nail on the head. The problem is not the phone, it's unlimited internet. You can waste almost as much time on a laptop with unlimited internet as on a smartphone. OTOH, it's pretty hard to get into unhealthy smartphone usage without (or with serverly rationed) internet access.
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