An App to Consider: Stop, Breathe & Think
Stop, Breathe and Think, like other mindfulness apps, helps those take a few minutes out of their day to check in with themselves, and as the title suggests, stop, breathe, and think. Unlike most apps is that it’s incredibly customizable, taking in how you’re feeling and building activities that they think is best for you.
The app lets you determine how you’re feeling at that moment both physically
and mentally, then has you choose five feelings that you’re currently experiencing (each have their own emoji representing them too!). From there, they give a recommended list of activities for you to try for a bit, but you can always explore all the activities if the ones they suggest aren’t right for you. You aren’t limited to this list forever either; every time you check-in to see how you’re doing, SBT will give you a new list if how you’re feeling is different than before.
What also truly makes SBT stand out is its corresponding app made for kids between the ages of 5-10. If you have a younger sibling, cousin, or family friend, just to name a few, SBT for Kids may help them gain mindfulness and social-emotional learning (SEL skills). SEL skills are a part of understanding and being strong in emotional intelligence, that is, having more SEL skills helps people understand and process their emotions in a healthy way, and it also helps those understand how others are feeling and makes them more empathetic. The kids’ version includes games and activities that are developmentally appropriate – some of the games require movement, for example, to build up their motor skills.
Because of this, SBT for Kids works as a kind of early intervention (an intervention made to help protect those from issues they may be vulnerable to from happening, such as mental illness). That doesn’t mean that if you’re not under 10 years old that you’re doomed for life because you didn’t develop SEL skills like this when you were younger. Those even in adolescence can practice and learn about mindfulness and SEL, and it’d still be early enough for them to reduce the severity of certain things, like the more dangerous effects of mental illness and the snowball effects that can result.
Do you use mindfulness apps? What do you think about the customizable experience? What do you think about the idea of a mindfulness app for children?
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