mentalillnessmouse

Self-help apps

This list will contain apps that you can use on your own (or together with your therapist), aimed to improve your quality of life. You can find a more complete list in our useful phone apps page; this is a lighter, rebloggable version of that.

Disclaimer: none of these apps are valid substitutes to therapy and/or medical professionals.

Most of these apps are free.

Meditating

  • Stop, Breathe & Think, to check in with how you’re feeling, practice some mindful breathing, and increase your level of relaxation. For Apple, Android, and Web App.
  • Take a break! to relax as you are voice-guided step by step. For Apple, Android, and Amazon Apps.
  • Breathe2Relax, a portable stress management tool which provides instructions and practice exercises to help users learn stress management skills, through diaphragmatic breathing. For Apple and Android.
  • Insight Timer, guided meditations and talks led by the world’s top mindfulness experts, neuroscientists, psychologists, and meditation teachers from Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, and the University of Oxford. For Apple and Android.
  • Smiling Mind, not-for-profit organisation that works to make mindfulness accessible for all. For Apple and Android.
  • Calm claims to bring clarity, joy, and peace, to your daily life. A meditation app for beginners, but it also includes hundreds of programs for intermediate and advanced meditators and gurus. For Apple and Android.
  • Recolor delivers the mammoth adult coloring book phenomenon in an app-sized package. More than 1,000 images are provided on Recolor to help you relax, rest your mind, and send you into a Zen-like meditative state. For Apple and Android.

Keeping a journal

  • TherapyBuddy has five features: you can record your appointments, write a “helpful takeaway” for each session, create a homework assignment task list, create a list of things to bring up at your next session, and set an alert reminder for your next appointment. For Apple and Android.
  • Journey records your daily events to relive those moments later. For Apple, Android, and Windows.
  • Journal it! combines bullet journal, diary, habit tracker, mood tracker, and planner. For Apple, Android, and Windows.
  • Daylo lets you pick your mood and add activities you have been doing during the day. You can also add notes and keep an old school diary. For Apple and Android.
  • Moodlytics is a mood tracking/journal/diary app with easy to understand data analysis. You can also set goals and have your moods analyzed through time.

Productivity & focus

  • Todoist, with which you can keep track of everything so you can start getting things done and enjoy more peace-of-mind along the way. For Apple and Android.
  • myHomework is useful for students, especially those of us with poor memory. This app is a practical planner, and it has reminders for classes, assignments, etc. For Apple, Android, and Windows phone.
  • Egenda – School Planner & Assistant makes it simple to add multiple different types of assignments and manage them day to day. All it takes is three simple steps: a. create a few classes b. add some assignments c. hammer your homework. For Apple and Android.
  • Habitica is built like a game, to help you stay motivated and organized. For Apple and Android.
  • ColorNote is a simple notepad app, with a quick and easy notepad editing experience when you write notes, memos, e-mails, messages, shopping lists, and to-do lists. You can assign different colors to different notes. For Apple and Android.
  • Peak challenges your memory, attention, problem solving, mental agility, language, coordination, creativity, and emotion control, to improve your brain’s performance. For Apple and Android.
  • To Don’t is a daily reminder for all the things to NOT do in your life.
  • The key to unlocking productivity is not adding tasks, it’s removing them. To-Don’t is a to-do list that helps you avoid all the things you really shouldn’t be doing. Doing nothing has never felt so good! For Apple and Chrome.
  • Forest helps you put down your phone and stay focused on what you have to do. For Apple and Android.

Recovery

  • Rise Up + Recover for EDs is based off self-monitoring homework, and it’s a good addition to your professional treatment. For Apple and Android.
  • Recovery Record, a mobile and web based program designed to assist users in the recovery process from eating disorders. The program has two versions: a patient program (free) and a clinician program. When using the program as part of ongoing treatment, the clinician is able to see data logged by their patients and send them messages via the program. For Apple and Android.
  • The WRAP® App involves listing your personal resources (Wellness Tools), and then using these resources to develop Action Plans. For Apple and Android.
  • Nomo accurately breaks down the years, months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes of your recovery journey. You can also share your success with others. For Apple and Android.
  • I Am Sober is an ad-free motivational companion app for tracking your sobriety: gives an overview of your sobriety milestones and savings, reminds you why you’re staying sober with a daily pledge, lets you review how your day went and track whether you stuck to your pledge, reinforces your journey with daily motivation, tracks how much money you save by not spending on your habit. For Apple and Android.
  • SelfCare creates a space to dedicate only to yourself, and guides you through some steps of self-care. For Apple and Android.

Self-help

  • Aloe Bud is an all-in-one, self-care pocket companion. It brings awareness to self-care activities, using encouraging push notifications, rather than guilt or shame. For Apple, currently in development for Android.
  • PlantNanny keeps track of how much water you drink – each glass also waters the app’s plants so you both can thrive! Every day you can collect and take care of little plants to get hydrated and grow together. For Apple and Android.
  • Virtual Hope Box is where patients can store a variety of rich multimedia content that they find personally supportive, and have them on hand in times of need. It’s designed for use by patients and their behavioral health providers as an accessory to treatment. For Apple and Android.
  • Self-help Anxiety Management, or SAM, is a friendly app that offers a range of self-help methods for people who want to learn about how to manage their anxiety.
  • Calm Harm provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm. You can set a password so that it’s completely private. For Apple and Android.
  • SkinPick allows you to document your picking urges and episodes. After a while of using the app, you will have gathered enough data to start seeing patterns in your behavior and trying to block the process. For Apple and Android.
  • SuperBetter is a tool created by game designers and backed by science. By playing it you start building personal resilience: the ability to stay strong, motivated, and optimistic even in the face of difficult challenges. It works like a game of rewards. For Apple and Android.
  • Youper applies Artificial Intelligence to monitor and improve your emotional health, and helps you feel your best with quick conversations based on various psychological techniques personalized to your needs and style. It’s designed to be a self-help tool that supports you in taking control of your emotional health and have better conversations with your doctor or health provider. For Apple and Android.
  • MindShift™ CBT uses scientifically proven strategies based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help you learn to relax and be mindful, develop more effective ways of thinking, and use active steps to take charge of your anxiety. For Apple and Android.

Sleep helpers

  • Twilight, an app that blocks blue light from your screen. Only for Android, but iPhones have the option included in their last updates.
  • Pzizz has a patented algorithm that plays you “dreamscapes”— sleep-optimized mixes of music, voiceover, and sound effects that quickly quiet your mind, put you to sleep, keep you asleep, and then wake you up feeling refreshed. For Apple and Android.
  • Sleep Town leads you through building a town by maintaining healthy sleeping hours every day. For Apple and Android.
  • iSleep Easy Meditations Free contains three guided meditations to help you fall asleep and sleep deeply. For Apple and Android.
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