Restarting an activity is pretty straight forward if your app supports HoneyComb and above. Just use Activiy.recreate. However, when supporting lower api versions you need something equivalent to Activity.recreate. I found this method to be useful. If you need to restart an activity from more than one activty it can be put in a utility class.

/**
Current Activity instance will go through its lifecycle to onDestroy() and a new instance then created after it.
*/
@SuppressLint("NewApi")
  public static final void recreateActivityCompat(final Activity a) {
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
      a.recreate();
    } else {
      final Intent intent = a.getIntent();
      intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION);
      a.finish();
      a.overridePendingTransition(0, 0);
      a.startActivity(intent);
      a.overridePendingTransition(0, 0);
   }
}