These are stressful days. Some of us were living under tough circumstances in the best of times, and nowadays the daily news just ratchets it up.

There are two Department of Veterans Affairs smartphone apps that might be of help to you.

Tactical Breathing Trainer, or Tactical Breather: Created by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology, the phone app can teach you to get control over your responses to stress, both psychological or physiological. While initially created for soldiers in combat, the breathing exercises will allow you to stay in the moment, to relax and find peace. It includes exercises, practice and charts of your progress.

Telehealth Mood Tracker, or T2 Mood Tracker: This app is for anyone with anxiety, PTSD, brain injury or stress. Use it to monitor your moods and track them over time. Record medications and treatments, daily events — anything that can alter your mood. The information can be saved to help your medical professional help you, or just for your own knowledge to see how you’re doing.

The VA has a few other helpful apps as well. Look for CBT-I Coach if you’re battling insomnia. Try Stay Quit Coach if you’ve quit smoking and need help staying quit. MOVE! Coach is an app for weight management, with lots of information and places to store your results. See Life Armor for help on 17 different topics, such as relationships, PTSD, depression and more. Use it to track your symptoms.

Cruise over to the Apple store for Apple products or the Google Play store for Android and check the apps. You can find more information about them on VA.gov.

Meanwhile, if you’re hunkered down and feeling the stress of it all, take things slowly, one day (or even one hour) at a time. We’ll get through this and come out the other side, proud of how we handled things.

© 2020 King Features Synd., Inc. © 2020 King Features Synd., Inc.