Women Ask Wednesday: What apps can I use to manage anxiety?

Happy hump day!

Want to hear a little birth tradition? Have you ever heard of lighting a candle when a mama is in labor? The idea is that you see the light of the candle and send warm, encouraging thoughts or prayers to the mama through her labor and birth.

Anyways, one of my friends is in labor and I’ve had a candle burning all day…

These are the things that make me fall in love with the midwifery profession all over again. Okay, moving on.

Today is a short post but an important one. I got the idea for this post from a visit to my babe’s 6 month well-check. The pediatric clinic we used to attend in Alaska had these FANTASTIC check out sheets in the clinic. They had all your baby stats that the mamas love – you know, the baby weight 17.4 pounds and is 67%. I think mamas are secretly proud of every number and decimal related to our babies (infant or football player) because we birthed that little 17.4 pound cherub.

Anyways, the checkout sheets also went over what to expect and the routine care for the upcoming well checks. They also listed a number of resources, all of which were helpful and utterly refreshing to see on a checkout sheet from a pediatric clinic.

What caught my attention were the apps to manage anxiety. I asked the provider why the apps were on there and she said the number of pre-teen and teenagers that had anxiety issues in the pandemic was off the charts. The team was recommending anxiety apps to just about everyone in an effort to help manage the hurricane that was 2020.

In my experience, I saw the same thing. The difference was my patients were pregnant with anxiety.

If you haven’t had anxiety before, it’s hard to explain the fear and the heart racing and the worry. It’s something I struggled with after my first daughter was born and something that I continue to struggle with when I stare at Category 2 fetal heart rate tracings for 18 hours straight (this is a baby that looks okay on the monitor but you constantly worry you’re going to have to take the mama back to the operating room for a cesarean section).

Apps to manage anxiety improved quite a bit in the pandemic. And these are the ones I would recommend to anyone – pregnant or not – to manage their fluttery stomachs, racing minds, and hot potato questions, concerns and worries.

Calm

#6 in Health and Fitness and touted as the best app for sleep, meditation and relaxation. The app offers guided meditations, sleep stories, breathing and stretching exercises and relaxing music. One of the sleep stories is narrated by Matthew McConaughey – yes, please!

Mindshift

Produced by the Anxiety Canada Association. Available in French and English. The app also offers a place to put your goals and coping cards for when are having anxiety.

Stop-Breathe-Think

Aimed at kids, teens and young adults to improve meditation, relaxation and sleep. I love the idea of helping younger generation learn coping skills early as well as helping them use words to describe their feelings.

Calm Harm

This app is aimed at aiding individuals through resisting or managing urges for self-harm. It’s private and password protected. It’s divided into four categories: distraction, comfort, expression and release. As the app states, it’s an aid for treatment but does not replace treatment for people struggling with thoughts of self harm.

What do you all use to manage anxiety? Running is my first go to. Then journaling, prayer, and chocolate. And then I repeat as needed. But I also like some good white noise. And sometimes I just need to read some things that tell me everything is going to be all right.

Whew. Sometimes mental health and mood discussions are heavy even when we’re not struggling with anxious feelings!

The 16 week template is almost done…here’s a sneak peak. I’m someone who gets caught up in the details and constantly move things back and forth, and back and forth….until it’s appealing, useful and pretty.

Hopefully it’ll be done by next week for free use!