​VANFIRE Wellness

Mental health apps

1. Head Space Meditaion App

Meditaion app and wellness app for stress reduction 

The app virtually guides people through awareness exercises and gives tips on how to ditch self-doubt. With an extra focus on mindfulness, this app also provides a log to track your progress.

2. AETAS

Designed by therapist Rosemary Sword, this app offers mind-balancing exercises to help you relax, focus, and develop a sense of well-being.

The app offers meditations, guided visualization exercises, and a self-discovery quiz. The approach is based on Time Perspective Therapy, a method to curb unhelpful or obsessive thoughts. The app offers information and research on this approach.

3. Breathe2Relax

Sometimes, all we need to de-stress is take a few deep breaths. Created by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, this app teaches users how to do diaphragmatic breathing (read: breathe down into the low belly).

There’s educational videos on the stress response, logs to record stress levels, and customizable guided breathing sessions.

4. DBT Diary Card and Skills Coach

This app works as a daily mood and thought diary based on the dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) approach. It has a coaching module that gives tips on sticky emotional situations, like how to ask for what you need or how to successfully resolve conflict.

Users get positive reinforcement when they’re consistent with their entries. The app also includes a super-helpful DBT reference section for more info on coping skills — all backed by research.

5. Depression CBT Self-Help Guide

Need help managing the blues? This app is based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It helps you monitor dips in your mood and learn about clinical depression and treatments.

You can also try guided relaxation techniques in the app’s Relaxation Audio. You can learn strategies to challenge negative thinking with the Emotion Training audio and the Cognitive Thought Diary. There is a motivation points system that will keep you engaged.

6. Happify

Want to kick negative thoughts, nix worry, and dial down stress? The array of engaging games, activity suggestions, and gratitude prompts makes Happify a useful shortcut to a good mood.

Designed with input from 18 health and happiness experts, Happify’s positive mood-training program is psychologist-approved. Even cooler? Its website links to bonus videos that are sure to make you smile.

7. Sanvello

Formerly called Pacifica, the Sanvello app teaches techniques for dealing with anxiety, depression, and stress. It is based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It teaches through a combination of:

videos
audio exercises
interactive activities
mood and health habit tracking

Sanvello is integrated with Apple Health, so you can input exercise, sleep, and caffeine figures. Sanvello also tracks Mindfulness Minutes in Apple Health, based on your meditation practice.

You can also connect to a community of users where other people post on a variety of topics, including personal strategies and words of encouragement.

8. Daylio

Daylio is a journaling and mood-tracking app. Tracking moods can help you tune in to the positive things in your life. You enter your moods by choosing icons from Daylio’s large online database. Daylio also offers a journaling function to write about your activities.

9. MindShift

This straightforward stress management tool helps users rethink what’s stressing them out through a variety of onscreen prompts. The app encourages new ways to take charge of anxiety and tune into body signals based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

10. Operation Reach Out

This mood tracker and resource locator was designed by Emory University researchers to aid in suicide prevention.

The setup is simple: Users create a personal profile that includes emergency contact information, current medications, safety plans, and reminders for appointments or medications. The app uses GPS to locate mental health care services nearby, should any user enter crisis mode.

11. PTSD Coach

If you suffer from PTSD symptoms, this 24-hour tool can be very valuable. It’s linked directly to support services. PTSD Coach is available as an app or through a browser online.

You’ll select the specific issue you want to deal with, from anxiety and anger, to insomnia and alienation. The app then gives you guidance on how to lift your mood, shift your mindset, and reduce stress.

12. Quit It

If you’re a smoker, you probably already know all about the health consequences of smoking. But that knowledge probably doesn’t stop you from lighting up.

This app’s approach is different from that of other stop-smoking apps. It shows you the hit your wallet takes every time you get another pack.

Even better: Quit It calculates how much money you save each time you don’t smoke. Think of it as extra financial incentive to kick nicotine and tobacco, and save for something far better.

13. Quit Pro

Think of this as a fitness tracker for your smoking habit. It monitors your cravings over time, the places you puff the most, the triggers that lead you to light up, and the money you save by resisting a cigarette.

By keeping track of your quitting progress and offering you motivational messages and statistics along the way, this comprehensive app is a much better thing to have in your back pocket than a pack of smokes.

14. SAM

The SAM (Self-Help for Anxiety Management) app lets you know what’s pushing you over the edge, so you can reel yourself back in. SAM’s approach is to monitor anxious thoughts, track behavior over time, and use guided self-help exercises to discourage stress.

SAM takes it to the next level by offering a “Social Cloud” feature that allows users to confidentially share their progress with an online community for added support.

15. Stop, Breathe, Think!

Got 5 minutes? That’s enough time to cultivate mindfulness, which can improve your mood, lower stress, and help you feel more compassion toward yourself and the world.

Skeptical? Well, consider that mindfulness and happiness tend to go hand-in-hand. And, as added incentive, this app can also improve your focus.

16. Stop Drinking

Relying on the powers of relaxation, visualization, and positive suggestions, this pro-sobriety app has the goal of calming your mind and getting it to a less-stressed place — where you’ll be less likely to crave a drink.

Take advantage of the reminder feature that gives periodic chimes to prompt you to breathe and focus on the good throughout the day.

17. Stress and Anxiety Companion

Sure, we know that releasing negative thoughts, practicing relaxation techniques, and engaging in mindful awareness is good for our well-being. But that doesn’t mean we actually do all of that.

This app can help make the wellness process a lot easier by guiding you through proven techniques to reduce those off-kilter thoughts and emotions while cultivating a much more present mindset.

Additional features allow you to identify anxiety triggers to make sure they don’t catch you off guard.

18. Talkspace

Bet you didn’t think you could chat with a therapist every day of the week. Well, Talkspace makes that possible. For a low fee, you can text message with a trained professional as needed, and they’ll respond 1–2 times per day.

Talkspace offers services for both individuals and couples. Oh, and the best part? You can do it from your couch, not someone else’s. The app is free to download, but service plans will cost some dough.

19. Worry Watch

Many of us get anxious at times, only to realize later our anxieties were overblown or irrational. The idea behind Worry Watch is to nip these moments in the bud.

This app enables users to track what kick-starts their anxiety, note trends in their feelings, observe when the outcomes were harmless, and keep tabs on insights to stop future freak-outs.

To lower your anxiety even further, Worry Watch is password-protected, so whatever you divulge in the diary feature is safe and sound.Type your paragraph here.

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