Headspace is a mindfulness app which I have found really helpful in learning how to manage stress and cope with anxiety. It has different courses to help you understand mindfulness as well as SOS sections and bits to help you sleep.
I started doing the Basics course and this is 10minutes a day where they talk you through what you need to do with your breathing, what you should be focussing on and where your mind should be. I worked through to the third Basics course every day (before the wheels fell off everything). I found that the daily sessions gave me a host of strategies that could be employed in order to keep my head in situations that made me anxious. Taking the time daily to do this was really good for me and overall I felt that my anxiety levels dropped when I was taking the time every day.
The only negative thing I have to say about this part of the Headspace App is that it records how many days in a row you have engaged with the app. I personally found this in itself a little bit stressful. As someone who like to keep things going, if there was ever a day when I didnt manage to do it, it would really annoy me that I had lost the streak and then sometimes I wouldnt do the most effective mindfulness because I was only doing it to please the streak on the app. Probably just my personality on this one but thats my negative.
Another major part of the app that I really enjoyed and got a lot of use out of was the part that is for night time. They have a number of different things to listen through at night and I found that these were great and sent me to sleep incredibly quickly. Some of them are designed for helping you to sleep, not sending you to sleep, while others are designed to listen to while you sleep. I have tried quite a few of them and really found that they work for me.
The final part of the app that I have used every now and again is the SOS part. This is for when you are really struggling. Luckily I have only had to use this once or twice but it was effective in those moments.
Overall the Headspace app has been great and has really helped me, especially with my sleep which was causing issues for a while. This was another part of the Highway to Health and I would highly recommend that you give it a go!
