I think the key to happiness is a little different for everyone. But I think it’s universally true that you can be happier if you unplug from technology regularly. It’s just something everyone should add to their self-care ritual. It’s good for your mind, body and soul to just be.
But there are some parts of technology that can actually help us take better care of ourselves through meditation, mindfulness, creating healthy habits and increasing self-awareness, productivity, focus and ultimately happiness and raising our vibe.
Here are my favorite 5 apps to help you find the key to happiness.
1. Simple Habit
Simple Habit has helped me meditate 186 days in a row! This is my longest streak ever.
I’ve been using the Simple Habit app for meditation since early 2017. I’ve tried lots of meditation apps and this one I’ve stuck with the most.
Not only do they have a great selection of meditations, but they’re constantly adding new ones for just about every topic you can imagine. And if you don’t see the topic, you can request it.
I really like that they have meditations of varying lengths, most are 5 minutes but there are 10, 15 and 20-minute meditations too. There are single meditations and also lots of really great 30-day meditation series that build on each other each day to help you create consistent practice and keep you interested.
This app has great meditation instructors, my favorite is Cory Muscara. I love the little stories he tells at the beginning of his meditations about his time as a Buddhist monk in Southeast Asia.
There’s gamification to this app as well. You get badges for streaks and completing monthly challenges. You can also see how many times you meditated and your total number of minutes meditating. The streaks and badges keep me motivated. I’m close to getting a badge for meditating 200 days straight with my streak as well.
Connect with friends in Simple Habit and send them a nudge if you see that they haven’t been using the app. View your overall rank in terms of your streak and total minutes and sessions compared to other Simple Habits users and you can get badges based on your rank too.
The meditations themselves are really high quality and you can use nature sounds with any meditation or not based on your preference.
There are around 50 free meditations but a lot more available with a premium membership at $11.99 a month,$95.88 per year or $299.99 for unlimited (paid once). It’s available in the App Store, Google Play and the web.
If you’re a beginner, looking to build a meditation practice, give Simple Habit a try.
2. Insight Timer
Insight Timer is another awesome meditation app. While there is a premium option, which is still really affordable at only $59.99 per year, you certainly don’t need it to still get a lot of value from this app.
There are 15,000 free meditations of varying lengths and you can also buy courses on a wide range of topics at an affordable price.
You can enable/disable the journal feature too. This feature is cool if you want to record any experiences you have immediately after you’re done meditating. You can also track your progress.
Like Simple Habit, you can work towards milestones for meditation streaks.
The ability to find and add friends or find new ones right within the app is kind of cool, too. You can see a map of all the app users and see how many people are meditating in real time. If you have it selected in your setting, you can receive a “thank you for meditating with me” message from your friends and also send them one too (the app does this automatically for you, but you can customize your message).
Insight Timer is available in the App Store and Google Play.
3. Fabulous
I used Fabulous to create a solid morning ritual. Rituals are a must to find the key to happiness I think for most people and they give you more manifesting power. 🙂 I knew I wanted a morning ritual but it always felt overwhelming as to how I could make that happen. Fabulous helped me start small and keep adding new habits on as I made progress, not all at once.
If you’re ready to get serious about creating healthy habits and rituals in your daily life, the Fabulous app might just be a key to happiness for you.
You can definitely increase happiness by being productive and creating healthy rituals in your life.
Fabulous is a science-based app created by Duke University’s Behavioral Economics Lab. It helps you track habits and create healthy rituals, but it’s more than that. It’s also like having a life coach who helps you beat procrastination.
You complete journeys in the app by taking small actions you decide on. Over time, as you make progress, habits are slowly added until you have full rituals in place.
In creating a few full rituals for myself it’s surprisingly gratifying being able to check each habit off. The app is fun to use and has tons of helpful challenges, tips and lessons to keep you interested and motivated.
Fabulous is available in the App Store and Google Play from $9.99 per month or $7.99 per month for the year (billed annually).
4. Forest
I don’t know about you, but procrastinating and mindlessly playing around on my phone has been a real problem at times. Here’s what I found though, if you set a timer during your work sessions, you’ll get a lot more done. Even as little as 15 minutes of focused work can be HUGE!
A key to happiness, at least for me, is being productive and following through what I said I’d do. You know what I’m talking about…that gratifying feeling of accomplishment after you’ve crossed a few things off your list?
For me, productivity involves planning my day the night before, using a timer while I work and setting the timer for 15-minute increments.
So now back to Forest…
Forest is a timer but a lot more too. When you set a timer, you plant a tree. As long as you stay in the app while the timer is running, your tree will grow. But if you leave the app you’ll be given the warning to return to the app or your tree will die.
You’re able to set the timer for up to an hour, create tags to track what you’re working on for each session and you can leave a short journal entry after completing a session. I created tags for business tasks, working on my Akashic Records Certification (services coming soon! 😊), reading and for chores.
You can choose to have nature sounds while the app is running which I’ve found helpful because it reminds you the timer is running and helps with focus. There are reminder messages on the app interface while the timer is running like “get back to work!” and “stop looking at me!”
Over time you can see your progress and you’ll have a forest of trees. You get points within the app that you can use to pay for real trees to be planted. Cool, right?
I’m finding this app to be really helpful for productivity, Focus and tracking my progress and I’m finding new ways to use it every day.
Forest is available in the App Store for only $1.99. Give it a try if you want to feel more gratified with what you’re getting done…which is always helps to increase happiness, right?
5. The Tapping Solution
I’ve been tapping for years for anxiety and depression and it has always made me feel better. It’s definitely a key to happiness for me. If you aren’t familiar with it, put very simply, it’s tapping your fingers on meridian points on the body while reciting phrases about what’s bothering you. While it sounds pretty weird, there is actual science behind it. Visit The Tapping Solution website to learn a lot more about it.
I was completely sold on tapping last summer after I developed some lower back pain. I was going back and forth from the chiropractor every few days and struggled to get out of bed each morning because the pain was so intense. Things got especially bad on a Friday night. I knew I couldn’t go to the chiropractor until Monday so I was on my own to manage the pain.
I found a few tapping meditations for pain from The Tapping Solution and decided to try it; I had nothing to lose at that point.
I tapped for about 10 minutes and it relaxed me enough that I easily fell asleep. The next morning I woke up expecting the extreme pain that had been there for weeks, but nothing. It was completely gone.
I know that sounds crazy, but it really happened.
I thought maybe it was a coincidence, but I’ve used it for back and neck pain since then, cluster headaches and most recently, a torn tendon in my knee.
If you’ve never tried Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or tapping, you’re probably going to think it’s pretty weird and far fetched at first, but I promise; it works.
It works to increase happiness and to reduce stress, anxiety, negative thoughts, pain and even helped a lot of people manage cravings and emotional eating so they could lose weight loss.
The Tapping Solution app is available in the App Store and in Google Play. There are some free meditations and premium subscriptions run from $11.99 per month or $94.99 per year (renews annually).
I want to hear from you! Did I miss anything? What apps help you find the key to happiness? Share your favorites in the comments so we can learn from you.
