In these trying times, it’s helpful to have things to fall back on to help you calm down.
Meditate
- Calm.com is an excellent service for meditations, music, and even bedtime stories to help you relax and… be calm. They have a daily calm meditation that is updated every day with a timely thought or theme, and many specialized meditations to help you meet your goals. Also available on YouTube.
- Bettersleep: For those who have trouble sleeping, this website/app has completely custom soundscapes with individual sliders, bedtime stories, even relaxation routines called “Sleep Moves” to help you get better sleep. This is my absolute go-to of all my recommendations, I am particularly fond of their hypnosis tracks and cute stories. Also available on YouTube.
- Medito: Volunteer run ad free meditation app. A solid choice with no commitment required!
- Deep Meditate: Another stellar app with personalized meditation plans and bedtime stories to help you any time of the day. Available only on an app.
- Headspace is another good meditation app, and also available on YouTube.
Yoga Nidra
The Yoga of sleep takes you through several practices to take you on a voyage through yourself to help you relax and fall asleep at night
Listen
Music/Sounds
- myNoise.net is a website filled with many sound generators which can help soothe you and transport you to different places with hundreds of custom top quality soundscapes.
- Moodist a simple open source website where you can listen to relaxing sounds with minimal fuss!
- Another favorite is Liquid Mind, an excellent series of albums of very slow relaxing music.
- Atmosphere is a free app with a solid selection of sounds you can mix and match to suit your tastes.
- If you enjoy the calming lofi style of music, check out Walking Dog, a DMCA free record label available on Youtube (or wherever you prefer to get your music from)
- If you prefer something more open ended for your meditations the Meditative Mind Youtube Channel has all kinds of nice background sounds.
Polyrhythm
- Polyrhythm Relaxation: Racing Thoughts
- Infinity Vibes
ASMR
Hypnosis
Stories
- Pzziz is an excellent app of sleep stories, soft sounds and is set up for a full night’s sleep or if you just want to take a nap! See also their spinoff apps:
- Doze A spinoff of Pzziz with a different UI.
- Mesmerize Another highly recommended app, it has many pre-sets so you can relax faster with less thinking. The visualizations are engaging and the hypnotism is very effective.
- Loona is an excellent app that has special interactive sleep stories where you color in a scene while the story unfolds! They also have regular bedtime stories and music to enjoy as well. Also available on YouTube.
- Similar to Bettersleep, Slumber has a huge library of bedtime stories and several relaxing sounds you can customize to help you drift to sleep.
Podcasts
- The Sleep with Me podcast is always available if you need someone to drone on until you fall asleep. Scoot’s quirky personality and creaky voice will lull you to sleep.
- Similar to Sleep with Me, Sleep Whispers is a recorded session of ramblings in a quiet almost ASMR like tone designed to give you something to listen to while you drift off.
Watch
Pluto.tv
Pluto TV has several excellent relaxing channels.
- My favorite is Naturescape: (it is unfortunate it can be interrupted by ADs but the view is nice for being free)
- There are other channels if you just need something mindless on to have in the background making noise. You’ll also find Bob Ross there too!
Twitch.tv
Twitch has several streams I find relaxing to watch.
- More often than not Bob Ross is painting pictures with his almost ASMR like voice.
- Twitch also has Cooking Shows running 24/7 which are surprisingly relaxing and 100% drama free.
- One of the more odd streams called Nothing, Forever is a seemingly AI generated sit-com in the style of Seinfeld which never seems to end…
Youtube
There are a variety of youtube channels which I’ve broken down into different categories to watch. There’s something slightly mesmerizing and relaxing about watching craftsmen put so much into their creations.
Restoration Videos
- Odd Tinkering: Electronics restoration with no sponsors or commentary. Just the sounds of repairwork.
- Old Things Never Die: Another silent restoration channel. No nonsense, just the magic of watching something old become new again.
- TysyTube: Restores various items, a good sense of humor in the text only commentary.
- MountainRugCleaning: No commentary, just the sounds of carpets being scrubbed. Satisfying seeing something being cleaned.
- Rescue Restore
Craftmaking
Cooking
Misc
Do
- Breathe. Really, just pay attention to your breath. It’s the most basic of tools you have anywhere and anytime to help control anxiety. You’ll find this a recurring theme in nearly all of my other recommendations.
- Physical Basics:
- Have you eaten?
- Are you thirsty? Tea is super relaxing if you need to get some hydration in.
- Don’t forget, have you slept?
- Writing down what’s on your mind can help dump out everything onto paper so you can come back to it later while focusing on relaxing in the here and now.
- Coloring something either digitally or on paper can be very diverting and make you feel like a kid again <3
- Talking with friends and loved ones can help you express what’s on your mind and together you can try to solve what’s bothering you.
- A warm bath or a shower can be relaxing. Consider adding scented candles or bath salts enhance the effect!
- Stretching or a short walk can also help clear your mind!