Positive affirmations are phrases you say or think to yourself that reaffirm the positive things in your life. For example, if you feel like your voice was skipped over in the meeting, you might tell yourself, “I’m an intelligent, capable professional and my voice deserves to be heard.” Or if you feel bad after cheating on your diet, you might tell yourself, “I’ve made a lot of progress toward building a healthier lifestyle and it’s okay to indulge occasionally.” Positive affirmations work because they eliminate your thread of negative self-talk, and give you something inspiring, motivating or confidence-building to focus on.[1] If you expose yourself to these positive distractions consistently enough, you’ll walk away with higher self-confidence and a more positive attitude that can help you accomplish almost any goal. But for most of us, calling up positive phrases and images on a consistent basis isn’t easy; not only do we have to wrestle with the negative thoughts and experiences that surround us, we also have to make time to re-center our thoughts. That’s why these 10 uplifting apps exist. Each of them has the power to make you feel good about yourself no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Give these apps a try if you want to include more positive affirmations in your daily life:
1. ThinkUp
First, there’s ThinkUp, recognized as the best motivation app of 2017 by Healthline. Once you download the app, you’ll be able to start recording your own positive affirmations in your own voice. If you’re feeling confident and good about your place in life, you can come up with some positive statements about yourself and record them for posterity. If you’re feeling less creative or don’t know what to say, don’t worry—the app also has a list of generic positive statements that you can peruse and choose from. Once you have a selection of recorded phrases, you can start listening to them however you’d like; for example, you can have them randomly mixed into the music you’re listening to, or set a schedule so you hear your affirmations at regular intervals. Make it a point to record a handful of new affirmations every day, so you’re always hearing something new. The app is available for iOS and Android devices. It’s completely free.
2. Kwippy
Positivity can come in many forms. In many cases, affirmations that come from other people can be more powerful than ones you utter to yourself. That’s where Kwippy comes in. Kwippy is a new kind of social media platform that will send you random challenges throughout the day, prompting you to take a photo of something in your nearby environment. For example, a challenge could be “take a selfie with the nearest living thing.” Users can view photo submissions from every other user (as all Kwippy users receive the same challenges at the same exact time), and are given a chance to vote on the photos they think best capture the theme (or the ones that are the most entertaining). You can also comment on other images. If you’re having a bad day, the prompts can be your chance to re-center yourself and be mindful of the present moment, and the affirmations from other people when they see your contribution can be exactly the motivation you need to keep going. The app has a positive, lively community focused on fun, while keeping negativity out. Kwippy is entirely free to use and you can find it on the iOS App Store and Google Play.
3. Shine
Shine is a text messaging service based on the idea that sometimes, you need some external phrases to guide your internal positive thinking. Visit the website, and you’ll have the ability to sign up to receive a daily text message—all you need to provide is a first name and a phone number. Then, Monday through Friday, you’ll receive one message per day with inspirational quotes from successful people, links to research-backed articles you can use as motivation, and tips on actions you can take to feel more positive in your daily life. According to their site, 93 percent of people who use Shine texts feel more confident and have seen a significant improvement in their daily happiness. On top of that, you can get a referral code you can use to invite friends to the platform. If you refer 10 friends, you can get free Shine swag. There’s also an app available for iOS devices where you can listen to “Mindful Moments”—meditations for your world.
4. Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind is a nonprofit organization that’s attempting to make the positive experience of mindfulness meditation available for everybody. Because the organization was founded by and is currently operated by psychologists and educators, everything they do is backed by scientific evidence, so you can make sure your new habits and affirmations are guiding you in the right direction. In the app, you’ll find a selection of different guided meditation options, which can help you eliminate your negative thoughts and focus on the positivity of the present moments. There are different programs for different age groups including children as young as 7 years old to adults, and programs for specific applications, such as meditation for sports, education, and the workplace. You can also track your progress since the app records how long your sessions are and when you’ve participated in those sessions. The app is free to use but you can make a donation if you want to continue supporting their efforts. The app is available for Apple and Android devices.
5. Louise Hay Affirmation Meditations.
Louise Hay has been a leading mind in the world of positive philosophy, and published multiple bestselling books throughout the 70s and 80s before launching an app in the modern era. Hay passed away in 2017, but her hundreds of positive affirmations continue to live. Hay’s philosophy that positive affirmations have the potential to physically heal the body may or may not be something you agree with, but there’s no doubt that these short phrases can help you turn around an especially stressful day, or break a cycle of negative thoughts from interfering with your mental health. With the app, which is available on the App Store and Google Play, you can listen to some of Hay’s most powerful affirmations whenever you need a boost. You’ll also find meditation exercises, guided with animations, to help you relieve stress and reset your mind when it gets to a negative place.
6. bmindful
bmindful doesn’t have the beautiful interface that many of the apps on this list do, and it exists only as a web app. But while it lacks in design or mobile functionality, it makes up for with an enormous and ever-growing list of affirmations you can use to introduce more positivity into your life. When you sign up for free, you’ll have the ability to build a list of your own personal affirmations, curated from massive topic-based lists written by the community. Categories include things like health, love, life, wealth, money, relationships, abundance, confidence, success, work, strength and creativity. You can organize them how you see fit, and write your own affirmations—either for your private use or to share with other community members. Soon, you’ll have a list of hundreds of affirmations that make sense to you, and specifically, you can turn to that list whenever you need a break from your negative thoughts.
7. Instar Affirmation Writer
Instar Affirmation Writer is an app for people who want to take charge of writing and managing their own affirmations, rather than relying on those written by other people. Within the app, you’ll have the ability to schedule alerts and reminders for yourself, so you write new positive affirmations on a regular basis and the app will notify you when it detects key criteria being met in your response, including a focus on the present moment and an overall “positive” emotion. You can record your own voice reading these affirmations, and improve the affirmations you write with ongoing tips. On top of that, you can categorize all your affirmations and pay attention to how often you affirm by monitoring your writing patterns. The app is available on the App Store.
8. Grateful
Gratitude journals are a popular way to practice positive affirmations since they force you to slow down and focus on the positive things that are already in your life. Then, once recorded, you can go back and look at positive experiences in the past for inspiration. Now, you can use an app to make the process of gratitude journaling easier and more enjoyable—not to mention more consistent. Grateful is an app that gives you daily prompts; every day, you’ll be met with a question like “what made you smile today” or “why was today a good day?” Answering with even a single word can be a positive affirmation in its own right but the app allows you to write as much as you want or even include a photo. Grateful makes it easy for you to browse through your past responses to prompts so you always have something positive to see. Right now, the app is only available on the App Store. It’s free to start using but you’ll need to pay for advanced features in-app.
9. Calm
Calm is technically more of a meditation app than a positive affirmation app but it’s designed for the same purpose; to help stop your bouts of negative self-talk and replace them with a positive experience. The main function here is a wide selection of different types of guided meditation sessions, which focus on different goals. For example, there’s a guided meditation for relieving anxiety and one to support loving kindness. There are also deep breathing exercises that are perfect for encouraging relaxation. When using the app directly, you can set a specific time for the meditation to last and you can use a “motivation calendar” to give yourself prompts to be more mindful, or start a meditation session at regular intervals. Calm also has paid features, which include multi-day programs that help you manage stress and improve your sleep. It was named the Apple App of the Year in 2017, and is available on the App Store and Google Play.
10. Happify
No matter what your goals are for establishing more positivity and better emotional wellbeing in your life, Happify has something that can help you. In their own words, “Happify is the single destination for effective, evidence-based solutions for better emotional health and wellbeing in the 21st century.” The main perk here is that the app helps you measure your subjective feelings of happiness over the course of weeks and months, so you can see the patterns in your emotions and (hopefully) notice a pattern of improvement. While using the app, you’ll find tools designed to break up negative thoughts, reduce your stress, and build confidence, including positive affirmations and activities meant to help you relax. You’ll even find guided meditation sessions, helping you make the most of the present moment, wherever you are. Happify is available on the App Store and Google Play, or you can use the web version. It’s free to use the basic features, but the advanced options and statistics will cost you $11.99 a month.
Practice Affirmation Consistently
Using at least one of these apps on a daily basis can help you fight the negativity in your life, feel more confident, and develop the resilience you need to overcome life’s toughest challenges. The more consistently you practice affirmation, the easier it’s going to become. Soon, you won’t have to rely on apps alone to break the cycle of negative self-talk; you’ll simply be a more positive person!
More About Positivity
10 Simple Ways To Make Positive Thinking Your Habit 10 Positive Affirmations for Success that will Change your Life How the Power of Positive Thinking Can Change Your Life 10 Negative Thoughts We All Have And What We Should Think Instead
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