No matter the time of the year, life can sometimes be overwhelming. With the rhythm of work, exercise, appointments, family, friends, and personal obligations, it can almost feel like there’s no time or space for yourself.
Reading, painting, and playing games are all activities that will help ease your anxiety. Unfortunately, these activities also take up a lot of your time. Thankfully, there are other options.
Here are the happiest sites on the web that will instantly cheer you up.
1. 100,000 Stars
Sometimes—when everything else in life feels like it’s going wrong—you just need some perspective to understand that your bad day is not the end of the world. Fortunately, there’s no better way to find perspective than zooming across the galaxy to see how big it is.
100,000 Stars is a visual, interactive website that catalogs the known stars in our “stellar neighborhood.” Through this website, you can click on individual stars to see how they appear up close. Additionally, you can collect information on these stars, including their naming conventions, color, size, distance to Earth, age, and temperature.
2. Looking at Something
Looking for happy places on the internet that can give you a soothing background screen? Try Looking at Something, a dead-simple webpage where you look at rain falling. By moving your cursor around the page, you can change the “time of day” for the rain, the direction, and the intensity.
Warning: This website has flashing graphics.
3. Recommend Me a Book
Recommend Me a Book is a perfect website for when you’re feeling antsy for something to read.
Choosing the right reading material is important, and Recommend Me a Book helps with this process by letting your browse through the first pages of published novels. The aim: to find a style of writing or genre that suits your mood.
There is no author listed at the bottom to influence your decision; no recommendations by other users, or GoodReads reviews. Just you and the first page.
If you like the book, you can click on the button at the bottom of the page to find out the title and author of the book, then buy it. You can also press the Next Book button at the top of the screen to select a new one.
If you’re looking for other ways to find something to read, here are some tips to help you find Kindle books for your vacation.
4. Rainy Mood
Looking for an easy-to-use website that will immediately calm you down? Visit Rainy Mood.
To operate it, simply press the play button in the center. Instantly, you’ll be assuaged with soothing rain sounds and distant thunderstorms. It plays on a loop while you rest, relax, or focus on your current task. It’s also available as an app.
Download: Rainy Mood for Android | iOS ($2.99)
5. The Quiet Place
The Quiet Place website is perfect for meditation exercises. Indeed, like the intro says, “emails can wait.”
The Quiet Place was originally part of a larger platform with four different rooms, each of which was devoted to a specific function. It’s all-time favorites—The Thoughts Room and The Dawn Room—no longer seem to be functional. However, a version The Quiet Place Project is still in operation. It offers you 90 second meditation exercises.
For additional peace of mind, check out these mobile app meditation lessons.
6. A Soft Murmur
Whether you’re a relaxation guru, or someone who finds it hard to stop and think, A Soft Murmur helps you strike meditation gold.
On the website, simply pick your noise effects and mix them. Choose the right volume, then press play.
Instantly, you’ll hear ambient sounds that will help you focus, calm you down, or let you feel peaceful. You can create different tracks for relaxation, sustained focus, or restful sleep.
Even better? A Soft Murmur is now available on Android and iOS.
Download: A Soft Murmur for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
7. Do Nothing for 2 Minutes
Looking for websites like The Quiet Place Project? Do Nothing for 2 Minutes is similar, as it’s designed for a short meditation break. The webpage consists of a counter in the center that rolls back the clock to zero, and not much else.
While that timer is counting down, the website encourages you to let your thoughts wander. There’s no browsing and no scrolling allowed; if you touch your mouse or keyboard before the timer is up, it automatically resets.
8. Flame
One of our favorite happy websites is called Flame, created by the new media artist Xiaohan Zhang. Through typing letters or words into the search bar, you can create beautiful patterns of light and sound that change positions when you move your cursor.
Each letter of the alphabet has a different shape and color associated with it. While this website is not exactly the same as the Thoughts Room, it can function as an alternative by typing into the void.
Overall, Flame is capable of some truly astonishing patterns.
9. Silk
Silk is another universal website that will help you train your imagination, find inspiration, and do some art. It’s perfect for thoughtless, soothing drawing.
When you open the website, simply click and drag your cursor across the screen to create a pattern. Needless to say, this platform’s stylish interface combined with its interactive, neon lines is more than pleasing to the eye. Best of all, Silk is also available for iOS.
Download: Silk ($2.99)
10. Biomes
Want to try another website that will instantly fascinate you? Click on Biomes, an interface that will allow you to create 3D, alien-like landscapes by adjusting a set of values along an axis.
Through Biomes, you can change the colors on your grid, experiment with different wave combinations, and download your creation once you’re done with it. It’s simple, efficient, and beautiful.
11. Ribbons
What if you need an interactive wallpaper for your desktop, especially if you want to look at something soothing while cleaning the office?
Try Ribbons, an interactive experiment where “colors and geometry are procedurally generated.” Through it, the website creates beautiful, abstract art that floats across your screen. Once you open Ribbons, just click on the OK button to get things started.
12. BlahTherapy
BlahTherapy is perfect for when you need to find someone to talk to, but you don’t know where to reach out.
If there’s something on your mind that you don’t feel like sharing with someone you know, this site will assign you to a random person. You can also choose to be a listener to help someone else out.
Best of all, chatting to strangers on the website is completely free. BlahTherapy also offers professional counseling services for a fee.
13. Pinterest
Last on the list, we’re going to include a social media heavyweight that we’re pretty sure most of you have at least heard of. If you want to get lost in a world of beautiful pictures and amazing landscapes, try Pinterest.
By clicking on individual images through your home page, or by searching for specific subjects, you can continue down an endless rabbit hole of amazing imagery. It will make you long for cakes, comfortable reading spaces, virtual travel, and the great outdoors.
Visit These Happy Places on the Internet
Even when you’re feeling perfectly fine, it’s nice to know that there are tons of stress-free websites out there that you can turn to whenever you’re feeling sad or lonely. Hopefully, one of these places will become a refuge against the negative thoughts that can build up during a daily routine.
If you’re looking for other ways to relax, check out our list of the most relaxing movies on Netflix.
Image Credit: Stock-Asso/Shutterstock
Read the full article: Need a Pick-Me-Up? Here Are 13 of the Happiest Sites on the Web
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