There’s an app for that.
If you are old enough, you remember hearing that phrase a lot. Have a mental illness? There’s an app for that.
It is important to note that mental health apps are not to be used in place of professional treatment from doctors and therapists, but they are very helpful in managing and learning to put into play the therapies your doctors use and suggest.
You will find the ultimate list of the 17 best mental health apps for 2020.
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✅ Anxiety Mental Health Apps
Worry Watch
For individuals with chronic worry, anticipatory anxiety, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, this mental health app provides simple self-monitoring and allows you to document your feelings of worry. It also uses a tool that charts the entries you make and does a terrific job of displaying evidence of the intensity, frequency, and duration of cognitive distortions.
MindShift
This mental health app targets adolescents and teens to help them gain insights into their symptoms of anxiety disorders, social anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks. It teaches simple skills to manage their disorders and offers lists of active coping strategies tailored to the type of anxiety. It is also helpful for people with PTSD or OCD looking to track their symptoms and progress.
Self-help Anxiety Management
An app to help you understand what causes your anxiety, monitor your anxious thoughts and behaviors over time through self-help exercises and private reflection. This mental health app helps develop skills of insights and self-awareness.
For more anxiety apps, read 15 Anxiety Mental Health Apps (That Will Give Your Health a Boost.)
✅ Depression & Mood Disorder Apps
Moodpath
Developed by therapists, the mental health app asks you questions daily to assess your mood. Based on your results, certain psychological exercises are recommended to learn more about your mood and be more in tuned with your mental health. The app offers 150 exercises and videos to help you do this.
Depression CBT Self-Help Guide
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one approach to manage depression and other mental health problems. This mental health app helps you monitor your moods with an assessment test that tracks the severity of your depressed moods and provides several resources aimed at educating you about the flawed thought patterns that may be worsening your depression. There are also audio programs for relaxation and depression assistance.
Moodkit
Moodkit is filled with mood improvement tools, including activities to boost your outlook immediately, a thought checker to monitor your moods, and a journal for you to help work through your emotions. The mental health app works with your iOS calendar and can be synced with your social media accounts. We like that there’s the option to track your moods quickly and refer back using weekly or monthly charts.
For a more comprehensive list, read 18 of The Best Mental Health Apps for Depression (That Will Greatly Improve Your Life.)
✅ Meditation and Mindfulness Apps for Mental Health
Headspace
Targeted to anyone who wants to learn meditation to reduce anxiety and stress and improve their attention and awareness. It is good for beginners to establish a regular meditative routine. The skills taught include mindfulness and cognitive diffusion, breathing exercises, meditation practices.
Health Through Breath
Stress contributes to many symptoms of ill health, including depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. Health Through Breath is one mental health app that attempts to soothe your mind and body through relaxation. It features guided, slow breathing techniques to help you learn to relax and breathe deeply and quickly.
Breathe2Relax
The American Psychological Association recommends this mental health app which guides you through breathing exercises to stabilize your mood, control anger and manage anxiety.
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✅ Mental Health Apps for Other Disorders
Panic Relief
This app is targeted to help individuals with panic disorder access easy-to-use and empirically supported coping tools to better manage and move through panic attacks. The free version includes access to progressive muscle relaxation of the arm skill, while the upgrade allows access to the rest of the skills, including square breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation.
✅ PTSD & OCD Mental Health Apps
PTSD Coach
One of two self-help mental health apps from the National Center for PTSD, this app is targeted to help individuals suffering from PTSD as well as those simply interested in learning more about the disorder. The skills taught may be applied to mild or moderate PTSD sufferers for whom self-guided assessment and treatment might be sufficient. It is not meant for PTSD patients who need intense one-on-one therapy sessions with a professional.
Live Free
Designed for CBT treatment of OCD with different sections for children and adults. It includes standard and user-designed exposures, ERP (exposure response prevention) exercises; a cognitive toolkit; an ERP reminder, and an ERP guide with custom and standard ERPs.
✅ Mental Health Apps for Developing New Positive Habits & Coping Skills
Pacifica
This app targets those with anxiety, mood disorders, and stress. It teaches deep breathing, behavioral exercises, and helps identify cognitive distortions. Once a cognitive distortion is identified (like negative thinking patterns), it helps you learn to replace them with positive thinking patterns. This mental health app does a terrific job of personalizing one’s anxiety using voice recordings and introducing CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It is designed to be used in conjunction with professional therapy, not as a substitute.
Secret of Happiness
Sometimes our brains need help breaking out of a destructive cycle. The Secret of Happiness is designed to give you a regular schedule of positive thinking as a way to train your brain to think more on the bright side. No one would suggest the cure to depression is as simple as turning your frown upside down, but this mental health app can help you get in the practice of thinking positively. The app asks for a 30-day commitment which is a good amount of time to establish a new habit.
Positive Thinking
The things we surround ourselves with certainly have the potential to affect our moods. Positive Thinking is an app that provides a massive collection of positive quotes to help you keep your mind on good things rather than worries and stress. You can add to the collection, store your favorites, and share the quotes on social media.
What’s Up?
A free mental health app using the CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and ACT (acceptance commitment therapy) methods. It is made to help people coping with depression, anxiety, anger, stress, and more. It has many useful features like negative thinking patterns, diary, and a habit tracker.
Positive Activity Jackpot
The temptation to stay indoors and crawl under the covers can be intense when you suffer from depression and other mental illnesses. Getting out into the world and enjoying social activities, however, is often precisely what the doctor would order. The Positivity Activity Jackpot helps you break free of this introverted inclination and offers suggestions for nearby activities. This mental health app makes a game of something that an individual might otherwise dread.
No matter what mental illness you or someone you love struggles with, some very effective mental health apps have been developed. In an age where our phones are practically glued to us, apps are an easy to access mental health tool. It’s great to have a few targeted apps in your mental health toolkit.
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- 60+ Thoughtful Gift Ideas For Someone With Depression
P.S. Did you find this article helpful? Go ahead and PIN these 17 SUPER HELPFUL MENTAL HEALTH APPS for later!
