Wednesday, April 29, 2015

With A Little Help From My ... Apps (and other stuff)

#HAWMC Day 30;  What’s your favorite health-related product? Share it with your community and tell them why you love it so much and how it has helped you on your patient journey.

I'm honestly not big on product reviews on my blog. It makes me feel like I'm trying to sell something, like people will think someone's paying me to give them a plug. But I'm going to try to complete this in a round about way by giving a few options that have helped me. I'm skipping over the obvious answer here, which is to say, my meds, because I'm not going to try to "prescribe" them or promote them to anyone. That's way too person a choice for each of us based on individual needs. 

  • Meditation oasis: Meditation is like exercise to me - I love the end result. I even enjoy it when I get going. But sometimes hypomanic me has a tough time being convinced to sit silently and "do nothing". When this happens, I find guided meditation helps. I like both the site/podcasts and the app (it costs $1.99 for the app, I think). 
  •  Coach.me app:   This is a goal setting app, in which you can create your own goals, join those set by others, and even have guided coaching opportunities. I've seen everything on here from "pray more" to "write daily" to "learn to do 100 push-ups" to "stop smoking so much pot" (yes, someone has actually vocalized this goal on the app and others seem to appreciate it, based on its popularity. It's not, however, one I require). The app helps keep me on track with daily tasks when my mind is messy. 
  • My Five Star spiral notebook. I'm totally serious on this. It's always one subject, always five star, and I try not to repeat a color twice in a row. It's what I write in every day. As you know by now, writing is ever so important to me. 
  • My Keurig: Totally not kidding here, either. I love coffee. Sometimes it's the only way I get through the day, especially when I wake up in a depressive cycle. I try to set up my coffee on auto-brew the night before, but sometimes I'm too tired to grind the beans and set up the coffee. That's right, I'm sometimes too fatigued to make coffee (this should tell you the seriousness of my fatigue). The ability to make a keurig cup in about thirty seconds, and to switch to my decaf pods when needed, instead of "just drinking another cup of caffeinated because it's already made and I don't want to waste it," is also very good for my health, particularly when I'm leaning towards hypomania. Sorry, environment. I'm usually very eco-friendly, but score 1 for Keurig on this one.
Can I review my dog? Probably not. Besides we already dedicated a whole post to her here in #HAWMC. So I think that's it from here. What products, apps, and other inventions keep you going? 

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