Mental Health Apps: Accessories to Therapy
By: Nicole Achbach
When thinking of ways to improve your mental health, it is likely that therapy is the first thing to come to mind. And yes, therapy is great! But what can you do to improve your mental health after-hours? The answer is quite simple: you can download apps focused on promoting healthy habits to improve your mental health!
As the digital age continues to thrive, mental health apps have become an increasingly popular method to work on mental health. In fact, a multitude of mental health focuses such as mindfulness, addiction, anxiety, depression, and more have great apps tailored to those needs. There is a suitable app for everyone; it is only a matter of finding the app that suits you! So dive in and discover which app addresses your needs.
General Mental Health Apps:
Ios Rating: 4.7 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Moodfit prides itself on its ability to help anyone and everyone improve their mental health. One of the greatest perks of Moodfit is its ability to track the results of all the different tools in order to create a suitable plan to help you improve your mental health. This makes it an incredibly useful app for addressing a multitude of mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, stress, and almost anything else since all of the features are customizable to suit your needs.
The main features of Moodfit include the ability to set personalized daily goals, a mood journal to track and analyze your daily mood, breathing exercises, a gratitude journal to help identify the good parts in life, and more. Then by tracking your results, Moodfit helps you understand your brain better and learn techniques to improve your general wellbeing.
Overall, Moodfit is an incredibly useful app for helping you understand and uplift your mood.
Ios Rating: 4.7 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Maintaining a healthy, balanced diet is known to be beneficial for mental health, but it can be difficult to find a balance between them that works for you. Yet, Noom makes it possible! The main goal of Noom is to positively change the way you think and feel about eating in order to create healthy eating habits. Noom helps you achieve this through daily lessons and exercises based on CBT.
The main features of Noom include diet and hydration tracking, personalized goals, recipes, interactive lessons, and a large, supportive community.
All in all, Noom is a wonderful app for creating a healthier relationship with food which can improve your overall mental, and physical, health.
Ios Rating: 4.9 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
I Am - Daily Affirmations is an app focused on building up self-esteem by changing negative thought patterns into positive ones. The main idea is that by deliberately allowing positive thoughts into your brain, you make less space for negative thoughts which helps make you more positive and happy overall.
The main feature of this app is positive affirmations being sent to you as reminders, and widgets for iOS, on your home screen. You can set your intentions and goals so that your positive affirmations will be applicable to you. Through this practice you are able to strengthen and empower yourself.
I Am- Daily Affirmations is a great app for building up your confidence, and everyone can benefit from it.
Ios Rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Ever had a low moment and wanted to talk to a friend who will understand your struggles? The TalkLife app makes this possible! This app offers an anonymous, safe space where you can always find a listening ear to vent about your problems, your day, or anything else.
The app functions quite simply. Essentially, it is an online support group which is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It allows you to share your feelings anonymously, join Public Groups, private message as well as block any content you may find triggering. TalkLife is a great app for people who find themselves wanting extra support. In addition, its sister app, TalkCampus, offers these same features but is geared towards students.
Note: This app does not attempt to replace physical support groups or therapy services, rather it acts as a bonus outlet to interact with others.
An App for Addiction:
Ios Rating: 4.9 stars
Price: Free
I Am Sober is an app which allows you to track your sobriety and build better habits. The app is entirely customizable, meaning you are given the option to track sobriety for things like alcohol, pills, caffeine, or anything else you choose to add. On top of that, the app estimates roughly how much money you have saved by remaining sober.
The main features of the app include the sobriety & savings tracker, a private page where you can add photos and messages to inspire you, the community page where you can join groups and follow others, and the milestone tracker where you can share your story.
I Am Sober helps make your progress more tangible and is a great step in the right direction to sobriety.
An App for ADHD:
Ios Rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
If you need help creating healthier, more positive habits in your life then Productive - Habit Tracker is the perfect app for you! With customization options which allow you to set your own goals, notifications, and checkpoints, this app is perfect for fine tuning your lifestyle and creating a routine which is extremely beneficial for improving your mental health.
This app includes a habit management feature which allows you to create, pause, delete, and complete habits, personalized weekly challenges, goal-oriented programs, and the ability to track your progress.
Productive - Habit Tracker is a great app for people with ADHD because it assists in the process of creating a focused daily routine. Furthermore, it can assist people in fighting addiction and depression by promoting healthy routines.
Apps for Anxiety and Depression:
Ios Rating: 4.8 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Good sleep and relaxation are extremely important when it comes to mental health, and Calm strives to improve those areas in your life. The main goal of Calm is to enhance the quality of your sleep as well as reduce stress and anxiety in your life through meditation.
Calm’s main features include sleep stories narrated by your favorite celebrities (for example, Harry Styles and Lucy Liu), mediation videos, and relaxing soundtracks. By listening along and meditating, you can find your inner serenity and improve your sleep quality and ability to relax.
Calm is an extremely helpful app for finding peace within yourself and easing into an improved nighttime routine to improve your life overall.
Ios Rating: 4.8 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Dare: Panic & Anxiety Relief is an app which aims to help you ease anxiety, put an end to panic attacks, and reduce your stress to eliminate negativity from your life. It is an extremely useful app for people with anxiety or stress disorders.
The main features of the app include audio guides and exercises to subdue your anxiety and panic attacks, meditations,, a personal mood journal. There are audio guides on a multitude of potentially anxious situations such as intrusive thoughts, driving, health anxiety, and more which makes this app suitable for various concerns.
All in all, Dare is an excellent app for addressing panic and anxiety in your life the second they appear.
Ios Rating: 4.8 stars
Price: Free
Do you want an app which aims to take care of your mental, emotional, and physical health to help you feel better overall? Daylio Journal offers exactly that! By tracking your daily moods, food intake, gratitude, fitness, and more, Daylio Journal gives you the ability to understand and improve your lifestyle.
The main features of this app include a variety of trackers, such as the mood and daily activities, which you can update daily then analyze over time. The outcome is a better understanding of what things make you have a good day and which things contribute to a not-so-good day. By being more conscious of these things, you can find your perfect formula to having a good day.
Daylio Journal is a wonderful app for people fighting depression or anyone who simply wants to understand their moods a little better.
Ios Rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Ever wondered what it would be like if your diary could respond to you? Well wonder no more because Reflectly can show you! Reflectly is a personal journal driven by AI which helps you practice mindfulness to negativity in your life.
As you journal and track your daily mood, Reflectly uses CBT to give you personalized motivation and prompts to get you thinking and behaving more positively. It's okay if you do not have any journaling experience because Reflectly gives you questions and prompts to help you reflect deeper. Alongside that, Reflectly will give you scheduled insights and reminders to provide you with more information on your current standing.
Reflectly is a great app for learning more about yourself.
Work Cited
“Experience Calm.” Calm, https://www.calm.com/.
“Fitness for Your Mental Health.” Moodfit, https://www.getmoodfit.com/.
“Home Page.” Dare Response, 16 May 2022, https://www.dareresponse.com/.
“I Am Affirmations - Monkey Taps.” I Am Affirmations, https://monkeytaps.net/.
“I Am Sober: Sobriety App for Android & IOS.” I Am Sober | Sobriety App for Android & IOS, https://iamsober.com/.
“Journal, Diary and Mood Tracker.” Daylio, https://daylio.net/.
“Peer Support Network for Mental Health - Support Group.” TalkLife, https://www.talklife.com/.
“Productive - Habit Tracker.” Productive, https://productiveapp.io.
“The World’s First Intelligent Journal.” Reflectly, https://reflectly.app/.
“What Is Noom (and How Can It Help You Lose Weight)?” Noom, https://www.noom.com/blog/what-is-noom-how-does-noom-work/.
