For many of my friends, technology might be helpful on occasion, but it carries an offsetting factor of the stress it adds to their lives. Early in the pandemic, Dr. Broadwater wrote an article, Self Care: Some Suggestions. His first three recommended strategies were: Meditation or Prayer, Physical Exercise, and Communing with Nature. One activity that can incorporate all of these strategies is Yoga.

In case you’re continuing to look for ways to reduce stress, you can join the millions of people who practice yoga on Monday. June 21st is celebrated as International Yoga Day each year. For some, yoga is their exercise; for others it is more spiritual and for many it helps reduce stress and anxiety.

During the peak of Covid, many yoga studios were forced to close. As a result there was a tremendous growth in Yoga and Mindfulness Applications for phones and tablets.  Almost thirty million instances of these apps have been downloaded so far this year. Here’s a breakdown of the most popular:

Calm, by far the most popular app with about 1/3rd of the downloads, comes in a Free version and a Premium version. Click on this link to read healthline’s review of Calm.

Yoga Go doesn’t fare as well in reviews. This Beauty and Well-being review and customer feedback are not so good, so you might need to be more cautious with this app.

Headspace focuses more on meditation and Healthline also has an extensive review of this app. If you are interested in the topic of meditation the review will give you extensive information on both the app and, depending on your objectives, key issues to consider.

Finally, Best Meditation Apps has a thorough review of Meditopia. The only “con” they found was, “The app is a perfect one and it is hard to find any flaw in it. At times, however, there might be some minor technical issues.”

The objective for these apps is for technology to work for you to lower stress and anxiety in your everyday life. More importantly, they are designed to help you build the habits that you choose for improving your state of mind. With the uncertainty of life today, this is a welcome concept!

Call us if we can be of help.

Rick Adkins, CFP®, ChFC, MBA

© 2021 The Arkansas Financial Group, Inc., All rights reserved.

Written in honor of the great Otus the Head Cat and Owner’s award-winning column of  humorous fabrication  which appeared in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. My life hasn’t been the same without them.

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