Useful apps
While not a substitute for consulting a mental health professional, a handful of apps put helpful techniques at your fingertips, from tracking a person’s mood to mindfulness and breathing exercises.
Mental Health apps
Be a Looper
Be A Looper is a free daily mental health check-in tool keep you “in the Loop” with five people anywhere in the world.
Big White Wall
Big White Wall is a community application offering self-help programmes, creative outlets and a community that cares
Booster Buddy
Booster Buddy gives you a virtual animal friend to help manage your mental health. Each day, you check-in with how you’re feeling, and then complete a number of daily ‘quests’. It can be used to help keep track of appointments and medications, get started on tasks, develop healthy coping skills, follow self-care routines, and socialise.
Breathe2relax
Breathe2Relax is a simple app designed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology. It provides detailed information on the effects of stress on the body, and instructions and breathing techniques to manage stress.
Calm Harm
Calm Harm is designed to help resist and manage the urge to self-harm, containing four types of activity: distract, comfort, express and release. It stems from ideas involved in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Catch It
Catch it helps you capture and understand your mood using a journal.
Chill Panda
Chill Panda helps you relax by measuring heart rate and suggesting breathing techniques and light exercises.
Daylio
Daylio can help you to understand your habits and factors that might influence your mood by keeping a private diary. Select your mood and activities you have been doing during the day. It will then provide you with statistics and calendars to help you identify your habits.
Happy healthy
This app allows you to rate yourself on lifestyle, exercise, nutrition and sleep, which can begin to show you any patterns in things that might influence your mood.
Hear and Now
Hear and Now is designed to help with stress by teaching clinically proven deep breathing techniques. You can also set reminders to quickly regain focus.
Mindfit
Mindfit is a self help app that focuses on mental health training.
MindShift
MindShift is designed to help teens and young adults cope with anxiety, phobias and panic attacks. It’s also useful for managing worry, performance and test anxiety. It offers simple information and coping strategies: “Chill out” tools such as breathing exercises and mindfulness strategies; “Quick tips” to assist with anxiety in the moment and more strategies for making sleep count and riding out intense emotions.
Moodfit
Moodfit is a companion to help you achieve your goals. Track your mood, to see what can cause it to lift and drop. Understand how sleep and exercise affect you, practice gratitude, get your zen on, and understand medications and therapy.
Moodtools
MoodTools is a self-help app targeting depression and negative moods. It contains information on depression, a depression questionnaire, videos, a thought diary, activities, and a safety plan.
Pacifica
Pacifica is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and meditation. Designed to be used in conjunction with therapy, it contains daily tools for managing stress and anxiety. The tools include guided self-help paths, mood/health tracking, challenges to help you reach your long-term goals, relaxation and breathing techniques and a peer-support community. It allows you to see your progress over time, make connections, recognise negative thinking patterns you might fall into and learn how to replace them with positive thinking patterns.
Panic Shield
Panic Shield can help to train your minds not to be afraid by the sensations you typically associate with panic attacks, and not to fear external situations or activities that you avoid in case they trigger a panic attack. It also contains a paced breathing tool which can help you to calm down when you begin to feel particularly anxious.
Peak
Peak is a brain training app. Each day, you complete a couple of short games to challenge and stretch different areas of your brain, including focus, memory, problem solving, and mental agility. The app shows your improvement.
Sleep Cycle
Sleep Cycle tracks your sleep and wakes you up during the lightest part of your sleep cycle, which can help you to feel better rested. It can also track your sleep during the night which can allow you to see how well you’re sleeping, and where any problems might lie.
Sleepio
Sleepio is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It helps people overcome sleep problems through sleep improvement techniques, but also people experiencing anxiety and depression.
Stay Alive
Stay Alive is designed to support people with suicidal thoughts. It is full of useful information to help you stay safe and it has quick access to online support services and other helpful apps.
What’s Up?
What’s Up? uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) methods to help you to cope with depression, anxiety, anger and stress.
Meditation apps
Buddhify
Buddhify is the meditation app for modern life. It has over 80 different meditations for all parts of your day.
Calm
The Calm app focuses on specific goals with a multi-day series. You start with seven days of mindfulness meditation, focusing on a single daily goal. Other seven-day programs include managing stress, improving focus, calming anxiety, improving sleep, fostering gratitude, and boosting self-esteem.
Headspace
Headspace is targeted to anyone who wants to reduce anxiety and stress and improve their attention and awareness through meditation. You can select meditation sessions to suit your particular mood and set specific length. Headspace allows you to listen on the go and download sessions to use offline.
Imagine Clarity
Imagine Clarity is an online meditation course that includes video and audio. With daily meditation content and thoughts of the day, Imagine Clarity offers access to uplifting guidance. There is also the opportunity to be part of Compassion in Action, and discover unique humanitarian projects.
Insight Timer
Insight is a free meditation app with over 8000 guided meditations, 1000 music tracks and 1600 meditation teachers that can help you with sleeping, dealing with stress and anxiety, and increase your levels of self-love and compassion. It also includes 5000 discussion groups to connect with others.
Omvana
Omvana gives you access to over five hundred meditation tracks for focus, peace, sleep, enlightenment, and tapping into your creative, purpose-driven life.
Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind provides hundreds of age-bracketed mindfulness meditations (even for toddlers!), helping you find the perfect track to relax and refocus.
Stop, Breathe and Think
Stop, Breathe and Think meditation and mindfulness app that his to decrease anxiety and and stress. It recommends short guided meditations, yoga and acupressure videos and allows you to check in with your emotions.