Mental Health Apps That Work!

Mar 27

In the last few years, there has been an increase in mental health-focused apps. From meditation to mood tracking, these apps are advertised as tools to improve issues such as anxiety, depression, and stress. However, you might be wondering which apps are actually effective, or how to choose between apps with similar claims. With so many options available, it can be difficult going through the process of researching yourself and feel time-consuming to test out different apps to try to find which one works best for you. You might even wonder about the validity of their suggestions and activities. This list offers a breakdown of a few of the apps that we have found to be helpful and based on proven methods for improving your mental health.

Mental Health Tools & Skills

Moodfit

Moodfit is an incredibly thorough mental health app, with a variety of tools and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) practices. When you first download the app, you are given the opportunity to complete the PHQ-9 and/or GAD-7, which are psychological assessments used by therapists and mental health professionals to measure depression and anxiety symptoms. By completing these brief assessments, the user can establish a baseline and more accurately track change over time. You also have the ability to set daily goals in order to track your use of helpful activities and practices, such as sleep, exercise, and nutrition, as well as tracking your use of prescription medications or attending therapy.

Within the app, tools include a mood tracker, gratitude journal, mindfulness audio recordings, breathing exercises, a CBT thought record, and coping skills activities. As you track your use of the various skills and tools, the app will keep a summary that you can later refer to in order to track your progress or notice patterns. Overall, this app is a great resource to monitor your mood and healthy practices, as well as keep track of how effective these practices are for you. This can be especially helpful when used alongside therapy, so that you can report to your therapist the patterns and changes you notice. Many of the features of the app are available for free, but for expanded access the app is $9.99 per month, $19.99 for 3 months, or $39.99 annually.

Mindshift

Similar to MoodFit, Mindshift is an app that includes a variety of coping tools and CBT skills. What sets it apart is that this app is focused predominantly on anxiety. Mindshift features short articles that users can read to learn more about anxiety, how to recognize the behavioral, physical, and psychological signs, and how different skills and practices can be used to reduce feelings of anxiety. For each area of the app that includes some form of healthy practice or coping skill, there is an explanation of why this is useful and how to incorporate it into your life. Users can create goals within the app as well as set notifications to remind you to engage in goal-oriented behaviors.

The tools within the app are all evidence-based practices used in CBT which can be effective to work through anxiety on your own, as well as in relationship with a CBT therapist. These practices include a CBT thought record, coping cards which feature statements and affirmations, belief experiments where you can input your anxious thoughts and then work through their accuracy, and gradual exposure to feared scenarios. The app also has a library of audio meditations, grounding exercises, and healthy habit suggestions. If you are looking to learn more about anxiety and practice a variety of helpful exercises, Mindshift is a great resource and unlike some other apps on this list, it is completely free!

Habit

If you are trying to establish and increase healthy habits, or you simply like tracking the habits you already have, this is the app for you! The Habit app allows the user to input practices such as drinking water, reading, meditation, journaling, and saving money then track whenever you engage in the habit. You can decide how frequently you want to do it, and can also set up notifications so that you get reminders throughout the day. The app has many habits to choose from across categories of athletics, thought, health, and life or you can customize it to fit your specific goals. You can view your aggregate data of how well you are doing with each goal, which can be helpful to assess what you are struggling most with or what frequencies may need to be adjusted. Overall, this app can be useful for people who find it helpful to monitor their goals or habits and is completely free, making it a practical addition to some of the other apps featured here.

Daylio

If you are looking for a simple tool that combines several of the features of the aforementioned apps, Daylio is the app for you. This app serves as a mood and activity tracker, with an easy-to-use interface. Daylio includes a daily check-in to monitor your mood, what you did that day, and a space to expand with a note or photo. In addition, within the app you can set goals for yourself such as meditate, get 8 hours of sleep, go on a walk, or something more personalized. You can then set the frequency with which you would like to do this activity, and turn on your phone notifications for reminders. While this app shares common features with the other apps mentioned, it is a more simplified version focused on only tracking mood and activities, rather than including an expansive library of extra resources. The basic version is free, or you can upgrade to the premium version for $2.99 per month, or $23.99 per year.

Meditation, Mindfulness, & Relaxation

Calm

As the name suggests, the Calm app is an app full of resources and recordings to increase calmness. While popularly known as a meditation app, the app also has sleep stories and soundscapes, calming music mixes, breathing exercises with relaxing visuals, sound baths, and guided stretching videos. There is also a check-in section of the app which includes a mood tracker, gratitude journal, journal reflection prompts, and a sleep quality tracker. Meditations and videos range from 3 minutes to an hour, and span a variety of topics and themes so that you can find a resource to fit both your schedule and your present needs. For example, you can choose a 30 minute sleep story told by a celebrity like Harry Styles, or choose a 3 minute body scan when you want to take a quick break during the day. The Calm app has an extensive library of options and regularly adds new ones, meaning you will never run out recordings and mixes to try. You can also save your favorites to come back to if you like to keep some consistency. Calm is available with a free 7 day trial, or 14.99 per month or $69.99 annually.

Shine

Shine is a BIPOC-owned and founded self-care app that aims to take an inclusive approach to mental health and self-care, specifically for BIPOC and other underrepresented groups. In accordance, alongside the individual tools is a community forum section where users can publicly respond to prompts, and some of the meditations are focused on common BIPOC experiences. When you join the Shine app, you can select your intentions and goals, which is used to recommend curated meditations. The app features a daily check-in feature which includes a positive message, a curated brief meditation, and a mood or gratitude log. Unlike other apps which stop at tracking your mood, the Shine app will respond with follow up prompts to expand on your mood, and suggestions for how you can cope or reflect. Shine includes an extensive library of meditations, guided journaling exercises, and breathing exercises across varying topics and themes. Another unique feature of the app is “daily rituals” which are guided mindfulness exercises that are made to be done in tandem with the activities we already do each day, for example brushing your teeth, putting on your makeup, cooking, or doing laundry. These brief exercises make it easy to begin incorporating mindfulness in your life without making drastic changes. You can try out Shine with a free 7 day trial, or pay $14.99 per month, or $64.99 annually.

Insight Timer

InsightTimer is another meditation and mindfulness app, but what set it apart is that much of its content is free to use and does not require a subscription! This app has a massive library of over 100,000 guided meditations across subjects and styles. While this number may seem overwhelming, the app makes it easy to choose what to do through the filter system which allows you to narrow the meditation by length, benefits (stress and anxiety, relationships, sleep, etc.), practices (mindfulness, sound, movement, etc.), and origins (science, religion, spirituality, etc.). In addition to meditations, the app also includes sleep stories and music, courses on topics such as stress reduction and conscious parenting, relaxing soundscapes and music, and live yoga videos. Overall, Insight Timer is a great app to use without cost, especially if you are new to mindfulness and meditation and would like to try it out without a financial commitment.

Headspace

You have likely heard of Headspace, as it is not only a super popular app, but is also a meditative TV show on Netflix. The Headspace app features an extensive library of mindfulness and meditation recordings, breathing exercises, sleep stories, relaxing music, and soundscapes. One helpful feature is the ability to adjust the volume of ambiance vs. voices to personalize the meditation experience. The app also features topic-based courses, covering subjects such as coping with cancer, dealing with regret, and grieving, which allows the user to explore more specific life challenges they may be navigating. In addition, the app even has a video feature with stretches, yoga, and mindful cardio so that you can incorporate more movement into your mindfulness practice. In general, the app is an extensive library of practices and exercises, and can be downloaded for a free 7 day trial, or $12.00 per month, or $69.99 annually. If you’d like to get a taste, you can also check out the TV show if you have a Netflix subscription, which includes an interactive interface to recommend different meditation practices based on your present mood and needs. Each episode walks you through a different type of meditation and how to use it, alongside beautiful and engaging visuals, and ends with the meditation itself.

Asasia