🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕 Moon Child

― Speeches for Dr Frankenstein, Margaret Atwood

Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies 

Arborists often claim that all-male plants are “litter-free” because they shed no messy seeds, fruits or pods. In the 1949 USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, which focused on trees and forests, this advice was given to readers: “When used for street plantings, only male trees should be selected, to avoid the nuisance from the seed.”  In the years following, the USDA produced and released into the market almost 100 new red maple and hybrid-maple-named clones (cultivars), and every single one of them was male.

It took a number of years for these new trees to mature enough to start to bloom, but eventually they did and with them came more city pollen and the “epidemic of allergy and asthma.” Many of these same trees are still alive and well and getting even larger, and the bigger they get, the more pollen they shed.

Allergies are rarely triggered by small amounts of an allergen; they are initiated by an overdose. Small amounts of pollen exposure are actually good for us, but if we have highly allergenic trees or shrubs in our own yards or lining our streets, we will soon enough be over-exposed. In order to put the brakes on America’s allergy epidemic, we need to reverse the trend toward male-dominated landscapes and stop selling and planting any more of the most allergenic trees, shrubs and grasses in our cities.

and the kicker:

Thought I’d share my favourites from a few different categories for the year. The social media categories are great for inspiration/motivation while the other’s have just made an impact on me or made my year a little bit better.

Instagrams: 

Lifestyle, Self Care, Journals, Books

Kalyn Nicholson 

Aileen Xu - Lavendaire

Lovely Threads - Self Care Threads 

Selfcareslut 

Alivia D’Andrea 

Anna - Alukewarmmess

Penguinteen

YouTubers: 

Lifestyle, Self Care, Self Growth, Bullet Journal, DIY

Kalyn Nicholson | Koze

Alivia D’Andrea 

Adeline Morin | Camera Roll 

Lavendaire 

AmandaRachLee 

Bargain Bethany 

Beauty/Skin Care Products

Humphrey’s Witch Hazel 

Garnier Micellar Water 

Valjean Labs Glow Serum 

Freeman’s Tea Tree Oil and Manuka Honey Face Mask

Nature’s Bounty Hair Skin and Nail Gummies 

Elf Oil Control  Blotting Powder 

Benefit Bad Gal Bang Mascara 

Books 

The Little Book of Skin Care by: Charlotte Cho

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by: Marie Kondo 

Hush, Hush Series by: Becca Fitzpatrick 

Caraval & Legendary by: Stephanie Garber 

The Princess Saves Herself In This One by: Amanda Lovelace

Apps

Evernote

Trello 

Google Keep 

Unroll.me (condenses all your emails in your inbox) 

Google Photos 

Sworkit

Choices 

I am always interested in good mental health apps. The thing is, I could never really find ones that tickled my fancy beyond Calm Harm.

But alas!! I found one by accident that has done a better job guiding me than 6 months of therapy. (Note: this is not to say that you shouldn’t go to therapy, or that this app is a therapy replacement. My therapy experience just wasn’t extremely helpful, and this shining star filled in the gaps. But go to therapy and take your meds, folks.)

What’s Up?

What’s Up? Can guide your thinking, help ground you, and provide you with comprehensive information on anxiety, anger, stress, depression, and self esteem. You can also track your good and bad habits as well as your mood from day to day.

The information section tells you what common symptoms of each illness is, what your thinking probably looks like, and dozens upon dozens of easy to comprehend ways to guide your thinking to a better path (I’m using these as prompts for a mental health journal I’ve started) Here’s a single screenshot from the self esteem portion of guided thoughts; the list is much longer than this:

I absolutely adore the grounding game. REALLY hopeful when, like me, you can’t remember the grounding steps.

All in all, a superb app that has been so very beneficial for me. There’s many other features that I recommend you try to navigate when you’re doing ok, so you know right where to go when things go south.

hey everyone! it’s been a while since i made a masterpost, and i recently found some good health-related apps on the play store that i thought to consolidate into a post.

all these apps are available for both ios and android users! i’ve also grouped similar apps together.

fyi: these apps are not intended to replace your therapist/counselor – they only act as an aid. the apps listed here are those that seemed credible enough and had good ratings on the play store. some may help you and some might not. since i don’t have depression or panic attacks, i can’t speak for the efficacy of some of the apps here.

For stress, depression, anxiety, or panic attacks:

Rootd: exercises to help with anxiety and panic attacks, as well as lessons understand anxiety. it also includes emergency contact if you need help and a personal stats page.

Self-help Anxiety Management (SAM): exercises to help you manage your anxiety. you can also build your ‘anxiety tookit’ and chat with other SAM users.

PanicShield: for those who have panic attacks. it has a breathing tool to calm you down, information about panic attacks, and two techniques to train your mind to have fewer panic attacks (based on two types of therapy). 

MoodSpace: short, interactive mood workouts that may help treat depression.

InnerHour: a self-help app for stress, anxiety or depression. it has small daily tasks, helps you deal with distressing situations, helps control your stressful thinking patterns, and has a relief box.

Moodpath: an interactive two-week depression and anxiety screening program that tracks your emotional and physical wellbeing and generates a personalized mental health assessment that you can discuss with therapists.

Calm Harm: tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm.

To generally improve your life:

Youper: conversations with a bot to improve your mood and emotional health. it also has mindfulness and meditation exercises, a mood tracker, journal and symptoms tracker.

Wysa: similar to Youper, Wysa is a chatbot who reacts to the emotions you express to help with anxiety, stress, low mood, anger or sleep issues.

Primed Mind: a life coach to help you reach your personal goals and improve yourself. it can help you build habits, calm down, fall asleep quickly, and study effectively.

Headspace: meditation and mindfulness exercises

By: Uplift Connect | Pic by: Corlyce Olivieri

french: :)

english: oh boy

french: :)

english: oh no

french: :)

english: oh geez

english: :)

french: don’t

german: :)

english: oh dear

spanish: :)

english: no don’t

spanish: :)

english: oh lordy

polish: :)

english: i changed my mind

UK english: ladybird!

american english: ladybug

french: weird

dutch: :)

french: …what

dutch: the good lord’s little animal

french: …ok

irish, polish and russian: *giggling*

french: …just tell me

japanese: :)

english: //lies down for an eternal sleep