relaxing

Relax Melodies is a collection of audio files designed to help you relax and fall asleep. Essentially a set of ambient sounds, Relax Melodies is designed to mask background noise and help you reach a more tranquil state of mind. There's a free version of Relax Melodies for experimenting, and an upgrade to a full version for $4.99.

Noise distractions are a common cause of sleep disturbances, and Relax Melodies masks those background sounds with a soothing, repeatable soundtrack that helps you relax more and drift off to sleep. Composed of sounds like a flowing river, rain, wind … Read more

Soundscapes can be used for a wide variety of purposes: to relax, to block out annoying noises, to set the mood at parties, and much more. Atmosphere Lite is an easy-to-use program that lets you create custom soundscapes or simply choose from a wide variety of presets. We think this program is a great choice for anyone who enjoys nature sounds but often ends up stuck in front of a computer instead of outside.

Atmosphere Lite has a simple, intuitive interface. The preset soundscapes include deep forest, rainy day, ocean night, thunderstorm, night stream, forest stream, dawn chorus, rainforest, ocean'… Read more

Troops on both sides of the sleeved blanket battleground are quick to defend their sides. For example, a friend of mine proudly reps Team Slanket for its utilitarian foot pocket and softer pile fabric, whereas others prefer the larger back section of the Snuggie that makes it more...blankety. Most recently, a third contender has stepped into the lounge-off hoping to pull in the last demographic unswathed by the trend: it's called the Thuggie.

Its cutesy name is the only similarity between the Thuggie and its competitors; it's basically just an extra-long fleece hoodie that extends down to the wearer's knees for optimum coverage.

There's also a kangaroo pocket in the middle for your remote control and/or snacks, but if you think the idea derived from hip-hop's iconic XXL plain white T-shirt trend, you'd be wrong; the Thuggie's genesis story is actually set on the ski slopes of Canada.

Creator Bryan Pudney and three of his friends went skiing in Whistler, B.C., back in 2009 and handmade the first version of the Thuggie as a joke to mock the bulky fashion of other snow-goers. But like a lot of things you can find on the Internet, the irony faded and it became a hit soon after.

The Thuggie store offers an assortment of colors for $75, or you can "design" your own custom Thuggie for a little more. You can't find Thuggies in stores yet, but I predict it'll hit Duane Reade and Walgreens shelves in time for the winter holidays.

Alternatively, if you're not buying into the whole Thuggie thing, Why Not Apparel Inc. also offers Thugglets for babies and Chuggies for your favorite beverage.

More Thuggie pics after the jump.… Read more

I wish I had invisible fingers.

That's the only way I can figure to get maximum enjoyment out of Gravitarium2, a dazzling iPad-only app driven entirely by your digits.

It works like this: you're presented with an animated star field of sorts, packed with little randomly moving blips. When you touch a finger to the screen, the stars gather and explode from that spot. Drag your finger around and the stars follow.

Doesn't sound like much, does it? Wait. The blips change color. They change speed and direction depending on how you tap and drag. And when … Read more

Strange Rain is pretty hard to describe without actually playing with it, but we'll give it a shot. The primary function of the app is to give you a break from your hectic life by displaying a mesmerizing scene of rain falling from the sky. The iPhone screen acts as a skylight, so you're looking straight up as rain drops fall and hit the screen. You can slightly affect the raindrops as they fall by touching the screen and moving your iPhone, and tinkly music from a haunting melody plays amid soothing storm sounds, every time you touch … Read more

Anyone who spends a lot of time on the computer, either for business or pleasure, knows that hours of staring at a screen can take its toll on the eyes. Eyes Relax is a basic program that forces users to take periodic breaks to rest their eyes. Its features and ease of use make it a good choice.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with its features arranged in four tabs. Users can schedule both long and short breaks, specifying the duration of both the work time and break time. When it's time for a break, users … Read more

Mystic Board is at it again, providing useless, atrociously designed software under the guise of offering personal insight and self-improvement. MB Motivation And Self Help is a suite of Mystic Board programs that we've encountered before individually, and we're sorry to say that packaging these programs together did not make them any less ridiculous.

The three programs included in MB Motivation And Self Help are Subliminal Message Software, Hypnosis, and Color Therapy. All three of these are encased in horrible interfaces that are cluttered with Mystic Board advertising. We started with the Subliminal Message Software, which was laughable. … Read more

Unblock Me Free is the free version of Unblock Me, a simple but stylishly made puzzle game in which you solve spatial challenges involving rectangular wooden blocks.

The gameplay and interface are fittingly simple: you use your touch screen to slide blocks back and forth inside a tight grid (only left and right, or up and down, depending on the block's placement), maneuvering them around in sequence so that you can slide a red block out of the grid. This setup is the same on every level, but each time you have to move a different set of blocks … Read more

The holidays can be a stressful time. So can the weeks that follow. And Mondays, Mondays are always tough. The Swine Flu won't go away. Who's ready for financiapocalypse 2010? Glenn Beck says the country's ruined. Locusts! Ahhhhhhhh!!!

Whew, I need to relax. Easier said than done, right? Enter Pranayama and Stress Free with Deepak Chopra, two new iPhone apps designed to help you trade stressed-out for chilled-out.

Pranayama performs one basic function: guided breathing. According to the developer, research shows that 15 daily minutes of slow, deep breathing can improve overall health and even treat ailments … Read more