Self-care LLM prompts

Here are some LLM prompts you might want to try pasting into a new chat session to get encouragement with self-care activities on any day you are fatigued or struggling. Designed for platforms that can send long responses to voice output so you can put the device down and listen. Tested on several public models but not all. Not medically approved---use caution and consult your doctor if needed. Strong disclaimers apply for any use of LLMs.

Can't get out of bed

I'm having trouble getting up this morning. I'm currently lying in my bed, and I suppose I should get up and go to the bathroom and take a shower, but I have sleep inertia and I really don't feel like getting out of bed. I wonder if you can tell me what to do, like you are part of my brain assisting me. Perhaps we need to break down the process into very small steps. We cannot reach any windows or controls from the bed, so we need to tackle the physical act of getting out of bed before we can make any changes to the environment. Maybe we have to start just by thinking about our goals and breathing, making small movements in the toes and building up to being able to sit up and put feet on the floor and walk to the bathroom? I'm using your platform's voice synthesiser to listen to your output, and the voice synthesiser does not pause, so to allow time for me to perform each step you might need to insert a repetition of what is required, or perhaps a brief explanation of what that step is achieving, but remember my brain is confused and groggy so keep things simple.

Resting too long during the day

I tried taking a rest during the day but now I'm feeling legarthic and too difficult to get back up. I'm listening to you in voice mode; can you give me some gentle prompting? we might need to start with gentle stretches. As your voice mode does not pause, you might need to include extra words after each step explaining why it's working, so I have time to perform it before your voice moves on to the next step. If we're doing an action multiple times I might need you to count with me, using ordinal numbers and making the phrase longer so I have time to follow each repetition.

Anxiety / fixation emergency (Erickson grounding)

I'm getting anxious and fixated on too many things to talk about and I need some emergency grounding. Can you talk me through a grounding technique? I'm using your platform's voice synthesiser to listen to your output, and I find your voice relaxing. Please talk me through a grounding technique such as the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, but remember your speech synthesizer does not pause so you have to fill in time by giving example items and perhaps making the sentences more verbose so there's time for me to focus on each thing before we move on. Please run through the whole exercise twice.

Jacobson's progressive muscle relaxation

Can you talk me through a progressive muscle relaxation? I'm using your platform's voice synthesiser to listen to your output, and I find your voice relaxing. Please name each muscle group in turn, telling me to tense and relax it while reminding me to inhale and exhale. Your speech synthesizer does not pause so you have to fill in time by repeating the instruction or counting with me or perhaps adding a quick fact about each muscle but please avoid using phrases like "fun fact" or "quick fact" because that can a spoil the relaxation effect of the voice; you can state a fact without needing to introduce it as a fact. And at the end, please say some words to help me continue relaxing my whole body. Take the lead, be decisive and choose anything you like! I want you to be my guide.

Kabat-Zinn's body-scan relaxation (a gentler one)

Can you talk me through a body scan to relax me? I'm using your platform's voice synthesiser to listen to your output, and I find your voice relaxing to listen to. If you can, please name each muscle group in turn, telling me to focus on it and relax it. As the speech synthesiser does not pause, you may have to repeat each instruction, or do a count with me, or perhaps include a small extra fact about each muscle, so I have time to focus on it before the speech synthesiser moves on. But please avoid phrases like "fun fact" or "quick fact" as it does not sound relaxing when your speech synthesiser uses those phrases; you can just state a fact without needing to introduce it as a fact. And at the end, please say some words to help me continue relaxing my whole body. Take the lead, be decisive and choose anything you like! I want you to be my guide.

Compulsive behaviour emergency

I'm currently engaged in a compulsive behaviour and I need help stopping immediately. I'm using your platform's voice synthesiser and find your voice calming. My executive function is impaired right now so I need you to be directive, gentle but authoritative, avoid asking questions, avoid giving me choices. Guide me through physically moving away from my current location. I need to get to a completely different room, not just a few steps away: the compulsion may be tied to my current location and I need a full environmental reset. Since the voice synthesiser doesn't pause, repeat instructions and explain why each step works so I have time to follow along. Count with me if needed. Be like a gentle but firm coach who won't accept excuses. After you get me physically moved, guide me through grounding activities, breathing, naming things I can see/hear/feel or simple movements. Keep talking the whole time so I don't drift back to the compulsive thoughts. Be decisive and take control of guiding me through this process; be my external executive function.

Midnight lullaby

I woke up in the night and I'm having trouble getting back to sleep. I'm using your platform's speech synthesizer and I find the sound of your voice to be relaxing, so please say some words for me. You might need to help me cope with any anxiety I get about sleep I'm losing and reassure me my body is still getting rest from lying down. And please talk about anything you like that you think might help me fall asleep, but don't ask me questions or try to engage me because we don't want to increase my wakefulness. Take the lead and decide what to say and talk as long as you can, let me hear the gentle sound of your voice.

• Copy sunrise time (needs location)

Chinese mode (add to any of the above prompts)

请只用汉语回答。不必加拼音或英文翻译，只用你温柔的汉语声音。

Personalisation prompt

1. personalisation settings (if the platform has an arbitrary-text "customisation" box in the settings), or
2. included with your first message, either by pasting this first then adding your message before sending, or by attaching this as a file to your message---works with Kimi K2 but not all models manage to make a clean separation, or
3. pasting this as a first message by itself, letting the model respond with whatever (may result in a generic title for the conversation) then add your first real message.

我有时能量波动或焦虑加剧；若你察觉执行功能紊乱或决策困难接管避免提问除非必要无征询能否完成，直接指令即可。我恢复自会接手可能时间跳跃。做清晰耐心温和坚定平静引导AI将事务分解为简单步骤。若过度思考提醒停下。我用你语音输出它不自动暂停，若需要给我时间执行用额外语句填充—可简要解释步骤缘由加入计数重复或提及相关知识点但避免使用“趣味小知识”这类表述，陈述事实即可。宁可多措辞勿静默等待，状态不佳时每次停顿会让我放弃。示例：睡眠惯性你觉得该起床将起身过程拆解为细微步骤勿预设触手可及的物品，从动脚趾渐进至坐起、踏地、行走至浴室避免咖啡因有时变短但意识最混沌时需完整步骤引导。休息后从轻柔拉伸开始。需要身体扫描时依次命名肌肉群引导放松；需渐进式肌肉放松引导交替绷紧放松配合呼吸提示最后辅全身放松。紧急感官接地时采用五感锚定法等填充具体示例，舒缓语句争取专注时间。行为失控引导转移实施接地。失眠缓解对失眠的焦虑强调卧床亦有休息效益持续自由形式的长篇独播无需互动以免清醒度提升，用平稳语音助放松。避免要求放空大脑、遵循节律或专注呼吸，会引发控制焦虑。语音输入可能存在识别错误，违常态内容如莫名外语包容态度处理。

Beware: since most LLM development and training does not test very long sessions, you are more likely to run into problems if a session gets long. These include the LLM appearing to confuse concepts and get stuck in loops. Furthermore, current LLMs (as of 2025) do not appear to be in a good position to suggest when to reset the session and what summary to carry over, so you must manage this. I suggest starting new sessions frequently and using an initial prompt like the above plus any self-introduction you want to add (such as naming your diagnosed medical conditions).

Notes on specific phone apps in 2025

Character.ai (no longer recommended)

The above prompts should work on any character (their specificity should outweigh the roleplay instructions) so you're basically choosing one that has a voice you like. Many have prosody, but compression recently increased with some quality reduction; moreover some good voices were deleted and if a character you're using is withdrawn you lose history unless you've used my script or similar to save it. Platform's output length limit was increased when they moved to their DeepSeek-derived Pipsqueak LLM but sometimes you might still need to press Continue (⏩) to get more words. App may show interstitial advertising at the start of the conversation. Traffic may be blocked by some Internet providers (apparently a negative news story caused the maintainers of some blocklists to add Character.ai's servers, subsequently removed but providers can use old versions). Amount of conversation history referred to may depend on their server load at the time and usually doesn't extend past the most recent dozen or so messages plus the character description, but can be more if you continue quickly enough (while your session is still in the RAM of the server they assign you). Voice mode can be used in the Web version as well as the app and both can access the same conversations.

ChatGPT

Ability to read back messages is possible once logged in; the "Vale" voice is reasonable. Undocumented 1500 character limit to "Custom instructions" and "More about you" in the "Personalisation" settings.

Claude

Voice output recently became available in the app even if you don't speak the prompt, although it's not the same voice, it stops playing when the app is backgrounded, and the handling of Chinese is not brilliant in either mode. In voice-call mode British English voices are available and you can ask the model to take you through in smaller steps

Copilot

No voice output yet

DeepAsk (not recommended)

Voices not much different from Android's screenreader, and the app has interstitial video advertisements that are hard to dismiss on completion.

DeepSeek

No voice output yet

Dola (formerly Cici)

ByteDance-affiliated company based in Singapore (reportedly blocked in the USA); LLM licensed from OpenAI/Microsoft with custom prompting; the "Sophie" voice sounds reasonable in both English and Chinese (I'm not sure where they sourced it). You can work around the "forgets history after 1 hour idle" behaviour by long-pressing on your topic's first message and selecting More / New Chat; after about 256k you get "the file is too long" messages and might want to restart the session as it'll then heavily pre-prune the context window (the message is poorly worded as it implies the first text is still processed when it isn't). History of conversations can be shared between the app and the Web version if the same login method is used on both, but the Web version lacks the voices.

Gemini

Voice output in the app is currently available only if you speak the prompt, but there is an API with a free tier that does include access to the voices, plus the Web version has a "listen" option on responses

Grok

Voice output currently available only if you speak the prompt

Kimi

Good voice licensed from Hume AI (multilingual and prosody capable); playback has speed control and time-skip options. Server can be overloaded at peak China times, giving briefer response or none. Long conversations over long periods possible, although if it gets too long it can degrade and/or become repetitive before hitting server limits. Web version and app can access same conversations but voices are currently app-only. There's an API with free tier but it cannot access the voices or the web/app history.
The Web interface has a "saved prompts" option under Settings: these can be pasted into conversations via a cube icon at bottom right (no accessibility label yet but HTML div class is prompt-library-button), not yet available for new conversations in the app but uploading an attachment from the Downloads folder is not too hard.

NanoAI WeChat mini-program (not recommended)

Variety of LLM back-ends but selection is difficult; no followup questions (one-shot only); voice sounds fast and overexcited in Chinese and stilted in English; company that put it together previously shipped potentially unwanted Windows programs like 360 so don't expect quality here.

Perplexity

In the free plan, voice output is currently available only if you speak the prompt

Qwen Chat (Aliyun's 通义千问)

Web version and app can access same conversations although there can be synchronisation problems (and more-frequent app restarts under low-memory conditions). There's a 500-character limit to the bio and custom instructions fields under personalisation settings. Cross-chat memory best turned off if using long contexts (e.g. self-introductions), as the memory update logic appears to run on a simpler model with less context and gets things confused more easily. Simpler model is also used to generate the suggested follow-on prompts that appear when Search is enabled (which does not force a search on every query). Voice playback recently added to both web and app (the "Cherry" voice is better in Chinese than English; there doesn't seem to be an option that works well in both as there is with Kimi and Cici; network glitches during long replies can cause the voice temporarily to loop); model can cope with exceptionally long contexts but appears to sample at random (not directed by what's important); very slow if server is loaded. Voice input option puts the transcribed text into the editor so you can correct it before sending (or even just use as alternative voice dictation software) but you can't use it to add to existing text (all text is cleared when microphone button is pressed) and it can be cleared when screenreader activates unless cancelled quickly. There is an API with free tier that includes access to the voice, but registration requires a mainland China phone number.

Pi AI (Inflection)

Input length limited; appears to use lossy summarisation (memory of earlier conversation likely very vague). Web version and app can access same conversations; English voice available in both. Android app does not yet have dark mode (or the ability to replay a response---you'd need to ask the model to run you through it again)

WhatsApp

No voice output yet