Staying Sane This Christmas With Your Phone by Your Side

OK, Christmas is pretty awesome. There’s food everywhere, people live like they’re permanently in a state of Friday evening, and you get to sit around all day watching movies on television. Life could be a lot worse. Yet there’s no getting around that there’s another side to Christmas, too: that’s the part where you’re getting nagged by your family, your successful cousin is bragging about his latest venture, and all your friends are tied up with their own family dramas. You need to stay sane somehow, but how? By putting your faith in your old trusty sidekick, your phone, to ensure you’re happy, relaxed, and having fun. Here’s how.

Making Notes

You’re going to be a pent up ball of emotion this Christmas (we’re sorry), and that all needs to come out somehow. Enter a notes application on your phone. No, we don’t mean the pre-installed Apple ‘notes’ on your iPhone. We’re talking real notes, ones that can’t be read by anyone else. Getting close to the edge of how much you can tolerate your family? Put it all in Evernote. Months later, it’ll be a good source of laughter!

Dreaming Big

Your phone is capable of doing just about anything and everything, so don’t waste your time scrolling through Facebook. Instead, use your device to plan all the awesome stuff you’re going to do next year. There are plenty of amazing travel applications that’ll inspire you to treat yourself to a flight abroad this Christmas. Not that you necessarily need to travel to feel the power of something else: you can just look up at night. Download the Star Walk app, and you’ll finally be able to put a name to all those stars you’ve been looking at all this time.

Gaming Options

There’ll be plenty of new gadgets and toys floating about on Christmas Day, but you’re going to have to get involved with all the family goings-on if you want to play with them. To stay sane, you need to have your own personal retreat away from the crowd. Download a game onto your phone, and you’ll be able to spend an hour lost in another world. When you’re finished, you’ll rejoin the clan feeling refreshed and ready for social fun. One of the best games is the Final Fantasy 15 real time strategy game. It’s a new version of a game you already know and love and will take you to somewhere completely new.

Quick Reading

Who says you have to stop learning just because it’s Christmas? Every day is a school day! If you have the Kindle app, you’ll be able to transport yourself to another time, another place just by reading what’s on your smartphone. If you can’t decide what to read, make it something festive. There are a lot of free books available for the Kindle, such as those out of copyright – which includes A Christmas Carol. It’s short and will teach you the true meaning of Christmas. Perfect!

A Moment of Calm

Of course, not everything can be solved just by distracting yourself for a while. Sometimes, you really will need to get help that’s a bit more spiritual, help that will help you connect with your inner self. Luckily, your phone can help in this regard too. There are plenty of meditation and yoga apps, which will help calm you down in no time. Alternatively, you could just install Spotify, load up some of your favourite tracks, and relax for thirty minutes in the comfort of your own mind.

Learn Something New

We tend to think of our phones – and the internet in general – solely as entertainment devices, but that’s not true: they’re also great ways to learn something new. Go to the app store and look up the education apps; you’ll find that there’s one for just about every subject! One of the best ways to use your phone is to learn a foreign language. If you have to spend time at home, you may as well practice a language that you can use to travel the world! If you know English, French, and Spanish, you can go all over the world, more or less.

Quitting the Small Talk

You don’t want to feel under interrogation, but that’s just what happens at Christmas when relatives ask who you’re seeing, what you’ve been doing, and so on and so forth. Have a remedy for this by download group games that everyone can play. When the questions get too invasive, you’ll have a go-to escape route – having fun!

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