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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?

#231
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…

I've always thought of the phone as a digital Swiss Army knife. It's a tool to get various things done when I'm away from a proper computer. I carry an iPhone mini which helps with this, as it's a palm sized device that has some utilities on it vs an expansive 2-handed canvas for consumption.

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

#232

Tumblr, for me and a couple friends atleast, is an app that we can use without feeling like garbage afterwards.

I think Tumblr, just like Twitter, Facebook, etc is all about who you follow. Keeping any of them to just friends you know and care about in real life is going to make them dramatically better than following a bunch of "influencers" or meme accounts.

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

#233
This might be a bit different from what you're looking for, but I highly recommend Dynalist.io; it offers every conceivable option for viewing anywhere any way you can imagine and offers 99% of the features for free (subscription plans are for duplicate backup versions as SimpleText on Dropbox or Google Drive, but I've never had any problems with their Amazon Cloud default).

The reason I say this is because I've read quite a few articles in the past on brain science stuff and apparently, the majority of brain anxiety most people encounter is from the brain running repeating cycles to simultaneously address/prioritize things that are on it's periphery radar that "can't be addressed immediately" ...

The simple act of quickly jotting everything down then acts as a sort of "Sudo Purge" and allows the brain to stop wasting cycles subconsciously trying to to address everything you have to deal with.

As an alternative, I find Cultured Code's "Things" app wonderful too.

Both of the services are as intuitive to use as a piece of paper with the option of dragging-and-dropping everything where-ever you want instead of endlessly copying-and-pasting and can be set up to either remain as simple as you wish or in the case of Dynalist.io (it was created by former Workflowy users who's versions they considered had become too full to easily navigate with Workflowy's "1-page is all you need" approach). To that end, Workflowy is great too, and both Workflowy and Dynalist not only allow for weblinks to interesting stuff you find/want to view/research later but Dynalist/Workflowy also have "save to" browser extensions so you can create your own private bookmarking service; in Dynalist you can pre-designate one of your pages as an "Inbox" where everything you clip is automatically saved to along with URLs and brief descriptions.

Dynalist in particular would be an "if I could only have one application" sort of deal ... you can use it for EVERYTHING from an organizer with due date reminders to project management to math (it has mathematical notation) to I believe music notation to coding projects to project management (you can designate pages for collaboration) to writing projects (it has a "word processing view" mode) to keeping notes/lists/recipes/images/whatever.

One of the reasons I would say it's invaluable for mental health purposes is that as you learn things that work for you, whether they be watching certain motivational videos or exercise routines or meditation routines or routines for taking whatever supplements/nootropics/whatever you find useful for your personal mental health, you'll more than likely want to have these routines written down and handy for days when "your brain doesn't feel that great" ... which is where an outliner-type list comes in handy for rapid reference.

Nirvana (sort of an online version of Things) is also pretty good, and if you find that too complex, "TeuxDeux" is great for clearing your head and making minimalist routines/shopping/to-do lists/weekly agendas in a very intuitive way.

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

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, what benefit do you get from using grayscale?

Notification badges (the red number) seem less urgent when viewing the Home Screen. Content in apps (octal, Apollo) seems less engaging. I spend less time on my phone when it’s all shades of grey.

I've been trying this. It really helps cut down on the distraction!

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

#236
post #115
post #98

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…

> Put some ebooks on your phone and read those. This was the biggest improvement I did to improve my "phone time". I realized I was only kidding myself if the actual goal was zero screen time. Being unproductive and just killing time by yourself isn't a bad thing, but if you spend that time reading something substantial instead of news and Twitter beefs you don't hate yourself afterwards.

I made a rule with my phone - only read content that was created > 1 year ago. This immediately rules out Facebook, Twitter, and (usually) WashPost/NYT. I am left with academic papers and books. (Podcasts and audiobooks are ok.)

Sometimes more of a guideline than a rule. I make exceptions for new works from authors I enjoy, or longform recommended web articles.

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