My life feels existentially crushing lately. Between my waking nightmare of a country and personal struggles I won’t get into for now, I am wildly varying levels of stressed, (socially) anxious, probably malnourished, sleep deprived, and exhausted both physically and mentally.
Some mental health tactics help. I have meds, I exercise more regularly, and I can deep breathe and meditate. Something else I have found to help lately is Reddit. No, seriously, hear me out.
For all its (gradually improving) faults, I think Reddit has some redeeming qualities, one being a hyper focus on topical subreddits. I can go to r/AnimalsBeingBros or r/ImaginaryLandscapes and know that I will see nothing but cute animals being awesome and gorgeous fictional art—I know that I can get a respite from near-daily mass shootings and Trump’s barrage of hate and racism.
I subscribe to quite a few subreddits, but I recently decided to look into MultiReddits, a way to group multiple subreddits together. Then I experimented with creating a MultiReddit of nothing but happy things—stuff like cute animals, beautiful art, and whatever r/BeAmazed is. I use Apollo on iOS, but I think you can make these on the official site too. See the gallery below if you could use help with getting started.
In Apollo, click the (+) button, then Create MultiReddit 
Give it a WikiWord name (no spaces) 
Click Edit in the upper right, then the (+) button to add subreddits
Sure, it isn’t a therapist-approved emotionally centering 20 minute walk or relaxed breathing exercise, but I’ve found my little MultiReddit to be… helpful? Relaxing, in its own right. Now, when life annihilates my calm, it’s nice to have a ‘happy place button’ as an option.
