The picture of college that we get from Hollywood is usually one where everyone is happy, carefree, and laid back, giving no thought to tomorrow. If only college were actually like that. While university days should be some of the most exciting and enjoyable times in a person’s life, there’s no getting around the fact that there is immense pressure to achieve academically.
Maintaining good grades to keep scholarships or to secure high-quality job offers can be extremely stressful, especially with the specter of a bad job market looming beyond graduation. With the prevalence of smartphone use, there’s no excuse for not taking responsibility for your own stress management with the help of these apps.
- Stress Tracker
If you’re looking for ways to minimize your stress in college, identifying what exactly stresses you out is the first step. Keep track of your behaviors, moods, and stress levels with this app, and manage your stress with its guided relaxation feature. - Relax: Stress and Anxiety Relief
Take a timeout with Relax. The app’s guided breathing exercises use peaceful music to help you relieve tension or combat insomnia. Use the quick start feature at the first sign of a panic attack, or use the skills you’ve learned in your yoga practice. - Cleveland Clinic Stress Meditation
Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute brings you this $.99 app to help you fight stress and improve your overall well-being. The app features eight meditation exercises, including “Letting Go Meditation” and “Self Confidence Meditation,” read to you in a narrator’s soothing voice. - Health through Breath – Pranayama
The conscious breathing exercises of pranayama are useful for treating a number of health problems, including migraines and asthma. This app helps you use the techniques to handle stress in your daily life by counting time for you so you can concentrate and progress through the different breathing levels. It also has visual and audio cues. - Relax Melodies
Allowing you to make a custom mix of 82 of your favorite sounds from its library, Relax Melodies makes counting sheep a thing of the past. Create a mix, set the timer for when to shut off the audio, and save creations for later playback. Don’t lose any more sleep over school. - SweetBeat
Used in conjunction with a compatible heart rate monitor, SweetBeat measures your heart rate variability (HRV), which falls when you are stressed. College athletes can use this app for determining how hard to work out on any given day, and all students can use it to gain insight into what exactly is causing them stress. - Angry Birds
You could go with Angry Birds Space, but frankly some of those levels make us nauseous. This free version is set in the much more chill environment of surf and sun. Pull that slingshot back, blow up those pigs, and feel the stress melt away. - Sleepmaker Waves Free
Is school stress affecting your sleep? Take back your Z’s with this app that delivers the calming sound of real ocean waves rolling onto the beach. Don’t worry, these beaches have no kids or seagulls. There’s also a pro, paid version, but stick with the free one. - Stress Check by Azumio
For Android users, Stress Check is another HRV measuring app, only it doesn’t require any additional hardware. Instead it uses the camera to measure your stress level and give you a score from 1-100, so you can gauge how stressed you are from anywhere, from class to the dorm. - Breeze
The phrase “I really hate those wind chimes” has never been uttered in human history. With the power of technology, now you can de-stress wherever you are by running this app on your iPhone and picturing yourself enjoying a cool breeze on the back porch to this pleasant sound. - iShatter Stress Relief: For certain types of stress, the sound of breaking glass is the last thing you want to hear. But if you’ve got some bad-grade aggression built up you need to vent, this app lets you destroy light bulbs, TV, fine champagne glasses, and more.
- Workout Trainer
One of the best stress relievers is exercise. Take your workout digital with Workout Trainer, a free app that offers thousands of workouts with no equipment needed, including crossfit, tabata, and high intensity interval training. - My Daily Journal
Getting your thoughts out of your head and down on paper can be a powerful stress relief tool. My Daily Journal is at the top of the list for iPhone journaling apps, with its automatic saving, easy export, and attractive interface. - Relax Completely
This app from leading hypnotherapist Darren Marks will not turn you into a murdering zombie. What it will do is help you sleep, with calming audio and video clips to help you relax and overcome the stress that’s keeping you awake. - ColorNote
A good deal of stress can be avoided with proper planning. This popular Android app makes it easy to write notes to yourself about important dates and assignments and share them via email or the cloud so that you’re never caught off guard by school work. - Naturespace
Plug in your headphones and be transported to a scene of a Hawaiian sunrise, or into the middle of a mighty thunderstorm. Naturespace uses “spatially accurate,” 3-D outdoor sound that will make you swear you’re really there, far from school and whatever is stressing you. - Anti-Stress Quotes
Let the wisdom of intellectuals and the wit of comedians ease your stress by reading one of their quotes a day through this free app. When you find one you like enough to share, use the app to post it to Twitter or Facebook. - iDestroy Free Wicked Sick Guns
The iPhone version is called ” iDestroy – wicked sick stress relief with lots of guns,” so apparently stress management is this game’s intended purpose. Practice stress management by crushing bugs and blowing stuff up. - Funny Jokes
Laughter may not be the best medicine for a chainsaw accident, but it’s just what the doctor ordered for stress. Funny Jokes has a library of thousands of “yo momma,” Chuck Norris, and blonde jokes to give you a chuckle and lighten your mood. Brighten a friend’s day by texting or posting a joke that tickles your funny bone. - Breathe2Relax
When you don’t have time to get to your yoga mat, use this app to help you in diaphragmatic breathing. Breathe2Relax is recommended to soldiers by the Pentagon to help them handle stress. Hopefully nothing you encounter at school is as stressful as war, but this app can help you cope.
