Creative Solutions: Android Apps to Quickly Quiet Your Mind

We all get stuck in our thoughts, especially when things are getting busy and we have a lot on our plate. Being creative is a powerful stress reliever, so here is a list of android apps that can help you do just that.

Drawing, Designing and Writing

Writing things down is great not only for remembering ideas but for developing them. You can organize your thoughts with different categorizing and formatting tools with journaling apps like Diaro or Memoires: the Diary. Freely sketch with ArtFlow or get your color design juices flowing with a coloring book app by Apalon Apps. Photographs might consider Lightroom for Android, the world’s first end-to-end RAW mobile photography app. Adobe Suite apps allow you to create graphics and animated videos to post on social media. Behance Display allows you to create a customizable digital portfolio – which can be viewed online and off – of all of your creative work and is ideal for presentations or meetings.

Mindmapping and Inspiration

A variety of brainstorming and mind mapping apps are available to help you find inspiration and organize your thoughts. MindMeister and SimpleMind both allow you to connect your ideas visually in a diagram by linking words and images through boxes and arrows and rendering those into animations and/or presentations which can be exported to your computer or tablet. If you want to get a little exercise into your day, 7 Minute Workout gives you quick but effective exercise routines you can do in a small space without a change of clothes.  For direct inspiration, try TED Talks which gives you access to hundreds of short videos from the world’s leading thinkers and creators, including an ‘Inspire Me’ function which lets you filter videos by the type of inspiration you’re looking for.

Fidgeting and Mindfulness  

Stress or even just your mind racing can get in the way of creation. Sometimes you can destress or ride a negative emotional phase of the day out by fidgeting with a game like Temple Run 2 or a more creative game like SimCity BuildIt, but other times you need more calm and mindfulness. Simple calming noises and music, be it white noise (White Noise Free), the ambiance of a coffee shop (Coffity) or musical notes (Calm) can work, and there’s a huge number of these types of apps with dozens of different soundtracks. More focused mindfulness may be needed for certain situations, which is where apps for breathing exercises (Breath2Relax), guided mediation (Headspace), hypnosis (Anxiety Free Hypnosis) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Pacifica) help. For serious cases like anxiety attacks, another CBT-style app – Stop Panic & Anxiety Self Help – provides tips and tools for preventing and coping with panic attacks.

I hope you now have an idea of what’s possible in terms of planning, creating and getting in the right headspace for creative work. Do some exploring of your own if any of these suggestions tickled your fancy: you could find an even tighter fit for your needs.

Amelie Hale uses her creativity to wind down after a stressful shift at work. She enjoys sketching and painting, knitting and is also a keen baker.