4 Apps That Have Helped Me Find Peace During COVID-19

The pandemic has brought anxiety, grief, social isolation, lesser productivity, stress, sickness, and disappointment into our lives, to name a few. The list below has helped me find peace and helped me reduce stress, in the areas I can, during this time. I share this list with a hope that at least a couple of these apps can help you, or your loved ones, during this difficult time as well.

Okay it’s definitely not this picturesque at my house…

Down Dog

Down Dog is a yoga app. If you purchase a Down Dog subscription, you also receive an app suite that includes: HIIT, Barre, Prenatal Yoga, and Meditation. As part of the pandemic, Down Dog is free to all students and teachers, until July 1st, 2021.

Things I like about this app:

1. Each time you enter the app, Down Dog allows you to select the amount of time you would like to do yoga. This really serves me, as I find it easier to commit to 30 minutes over 60 minutes. I usually pick 30 or 40 minute sessions and I’ve found that, although shorter, they are still cohesive and challenging.
2. Each time you enter the app, Down Dog allows you to select the type of yoga you would like to do. If you’re like me, and you hate vinyasa with a burning passion, this feature allows you never have to do it. I usually pick Hatha and Restorative yoga types, but I have tried others. One type of yoga available is chair yoga, which is an excellent option for individuals with certain disabilities or for people who simply want to do yoga in their office chair.
3. Each time you select a type of yoga, Down Dog allows you to select an additional focus area. As someone who suffers from chronic neck and lower back pain, I love this feature and use it literally every time I use the app.
4. Down Dog allows you to change the loudness of music and loudness of voice. For people that often get distracted or have trouble hearing voices over music, this is a necessary accessibility feature. There is also an option to completely turn off the music!
5. The flow is different each time, unless you don’t want it to be. I enjoy learning new poses and doing a different flow every session… Down Dog somehow makes this happen. But if you like repeating the exact same routine, you can favorite it and do it again and again.

Things the app can improve on:

1. There is no way to exclude a pose you hate or simply cannot do. If you’re like me, there are at least a few yoga poses that are uncomfortable or disinteresting. Additionally, many people simply cannot do certain poses due to injury or disability. Down Dog really needs a feature to exclude certain poses, or poses that focus on specific areas of the body, for further accessibility.
2. The person who shows the poses in app presents as a white women, with very little body fat. This is not inclusive to many populations such as men or masculine individuals, non-binary folks, people of color, people with any other body type (and especially people with larger body types), and more. Yoga is pretty widely known for being intimidating and exclusive to anyone who is not a thin, white, middle class+ woman. Down Dog needs to address this and make the app more inclusive.
3. Yoga is derived from an ancient spiritual practice, but this somehow goes unmentioned in the app. I couldn’t find a single place in the Down Dog app or on Down Dog’s website, where they addressed this explicitly. This article goes into more depth about how the recognition of yoga’s origins is incredibly important and necessary for individuals partaking in a cultural practice that is not their own.

Down Dog became a part of my well being routine during one of the hardest periods of my life. I am so grateful I have been able to instill a yoga routine during the pandemic; moving my body has helped me feel more productive and practice self-care. That said, I’m not sure I want to financially support Down Dog, due to the reasons above, once my free student trial ends July 1.

Forest

Forest is a productivity app that acts as a specialized timer for task completion. Each time you successfully complete a timer, you plant a tree within your in app forest.

Things I like about this app:

1. The timers available start at 10 minutes and increase in 5 minute increments, until 120 minutes. I recommend starting at 20 or 30 minutes, if you have a harder time focusing. I have personally never used a timer longer than 60 minutes, but 90 minutes or 120 minutes might be useful for certain tasks, like cleaning.
2. You can label timers by type/color. This is a nice feature if you want to track how long you spent studying or working a specific project within a month or week.
3. It’s pretty. As a nature lover, I think the idea of planting trees is too cute to pass up.
4. Users can spend their in app “coins” to plant real trees. This is cool!

Things the app can improve on:

1. The app costs $10; there are no free versions or reduced cost versions of the app. $10, for an app, can be cost prohibitive for many individuals. Forest should allow free versions of the app for individuals with financial insecurity.
2. The app doesn’t allow you to save a timer template. If you follow a certain set of tasks per day (e.g. 40 minutes on email, then 15 minute break, then 20 minutes on a certain project) you cannot automatically populate these timers one after another.
3. The blocklist mode can be too restrictive. For example, I use Forest for my daily writing routine. When I’m being naughty and leaving the app to look up the weather, my tree should die. But for the times I genuinely need to leave the app to look something up for what I’m writing, I would love an “allow once” option to preserve the tree.

Forest has been a great addition to my COVID-19 routines because of the accountability. As the pandemic went on and on, my accountability decreased with time. This app helps me tangibly work through the things I need to during the day, while providing a satisfying interface.

Libby

Libby is an audio book and electronic book (e-book) app that connects to your local library, with your library card information. Through the app, you can check out, listen to, and read books from your library.

Things I like about this app:

1. This app makes e-books and audio books seamlessly available. You do not need to go in person to pick up audio CDs, you do not need to download another app to convert e-books… you just need to enter your library card information to gain access to the books. I cannot say enough how seriously this app can improve book access for people in rural areas, people with limited mobility, or simply people who do not want to come in contact with others for COVID-19.
2. The app has a “What’s Available” filter that shows you books you can instantly check out. This option is awesome if you finish something else earlier than expected, or if you don’t want to wait for your next hold to arrive to start another book.
3. The app has a “What’s Popular” filter that shows you books others are reading. I like this option because it shows bestseller and trending books that you may not know are available on e-book or audio.
4. The app has a “deliver after…” feature for holds. If you put a book on hold, and it’s your turn to read it, the app will make it available to you for check out. If you are not ready to read it, you can simply delay the electronic delivery of the book, keeping your place in line. SERIOUSLY! This feature has saved me oodles of wait time because I don’t go to the end of the hold list each time I am unable to read something promptly.
5. The avatars are relatively skin tone inclusive. You can personalize your Libby account by a skin tone. Although there are only 4 skin tones available, they do range from white to dark brown.

Things the app can improve on:

1. The app is dependent on the books available to your library system. If you have a library card for a low-resource library system, your selection will not be as good. I would love to see Libby provide certain materials, like classic novels, across libraries so content availability can improve.
2. The avatars could be more inclusive. For some people, this feature does not matter, but I would argue libraries are for everyone and thus, the avatars should be representative. For example, including more hair types and selection of facial features.
3. More filters would be awesome. I would love to see Libby add filters for award winning books, book rating, series, and more. Libby has certainly added more filters over time, but it would be great to see more.
4. If you search for a specific book and it is not available in e-book or audio format, you return no results. It would be more helpful if Libby allowed you to request those books or to generally provide more information about why it is not available. Tons of books aren’t available on audio, but you wouldn’t know that for certain unless you left the app to Google it.

Books have always been a form of escapism for me during difficult times in my life. Using Libby to listen and access books throughout the pandemic has helped me cope with the stress of COVID-19. If you’re like me, this is a great app to support you during this time (and for many years to come).

AnyList

AnyList is a list app that combines list, meal planning, and recipes. For example, I use it to save online recipes to access from the app. As I add recipes to my weekly meal plan, I can add specific ingredients to my grocery list. Within my grocery lists, I often document prices of items, so I know which store has the best price.

Things I like about this app:

1. This app has streamlined the process between choosing recipes, adding ingredients to a grocery list, and meal planning for me. I no longer have 15 cookbooks, 100 recipe cards, and a Pinterest board to go through. Everything is in one place!
2. You can share lists with others. In my household, I make the grocery list, but my partner does the shopping. The sharing feature in this app makes this easy; I update the grocery list and my partner uses it when shopping. No paper necessary.
3. You can reduce the scale of the recipe. Only have 1 cup of flour or cooking for just 2 people? Use the scale feature within a recipe to recalculate all of the recipe measurements.
4. Rating your saved recipes is a dream. If you’re an active Pinterest recipe browser or someone who likes to add recipes by certain ingredients, it can be helpful to rate the recipes you try. This will ensure your favorites are noted for future cooking!
5. If you love color coding, icons, and folder organization, this app will be your happy place. This app is constantly adding features for further organization; you can really personalize your lists, if you desire doing so.
6. The meal planning feature allows you to document a non-recipe. Sometimes I cook a recipe on Sunday, but I need to marinate something on Saturday. This feature allows me to note the Saturday prep on the meal planning feature so I can remember to do so!

Things the app can improve on:

1. The full app costs $10 annually (individual) or $15 annually (family). Although there is a free version available, the full app unlocks the time-saving features many or most would like to use. As the full app could be cost prohibitive for many, AnyList should allow alternative pricing for individuals with financial insecurity.
2. A conversion feature would be helpful. I often save recipes from abroad, which use metric measurements. It would be great if these could automatically convert in AnyList.
3. I would love to purchase recipes directly through the app. As a person with a vegan diet, there are vegan cookbooks I love to use. Ideally I could add these electronically to the app, and still pay the authors for their work. I currently manually add recipes from cookbooks to the app, as the recipes are only available through cookbooks (and not online).

I love AnyList because it has saved me so much time. I have found it especially helpful during the pandemic as being at home means more meals at home. Additionally, we want to reduce our number of unplanned trips to the store; AnyList helps me plan each grocery item so we can mitigate COVID-19 exposure. If you are a student, a person who works multiple jobs, a generally busy person, and/or someone who wants to reduce food waste, AnyList a great tool for you.

None of the links in this post are affiliate links; I have received no incentive to include brands or companies in this post.