These top 24 Mental health Apps have tools that will help you cope and improve your mental well-being. Many are free and available for download, while others have in-purchase tools.
Please note that these are not substitutes for the treatment of any condition. If you have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder and prescribed therapy and medication kindly adhere to that.
These digital tools are just good to support your mental health journey, as well as help better monitor and manage symptoms or disorders. They are also great tools for anyone wanting to invest in self-care on a regular basis.
Benefits of using mental health apps:
- Convenience
- Privacy: Most apps guarantee the client’s privacy and anonymity
- Liberty: The apps offer convenience. You get to access and acquire the service anytime and anywhere.
- accessibility
- Affordable: mostly free or low cost
- access to help whenever you need it
- Additional support
What to Look for in Mental Health Apps
When considering mental health apps, it’s important to take into account a few factors.
- services offered; i.e do you need a specific mental health condition or general self-care and wellness.
- Data collection policies and privacy policy and terms and conditions.
- Ease of use.
- Access to content and resources.
- The level of support you require. consider If you need more self-guided apps or an app that lets you communicate with a qualified professional.
- and lastly, cost. Consider your budget as some require an ongoing subscription.
What these top 24 mental health apps covers
Some of the conditions are:
- depression
- anxiety
- Insomnia
- OCD
- Addiction
- suicide awarness tips
- stress
- bipolar disorder
- ADHD
Therapy (a)
BetterHelp – flat fee for unlimited therapy
One downside to therapy is that it’s not affordable to most people. Mental health apps provide Affordability. Betterhelp is an online private therapy with qualified therapists. All therapists are licensed, accredited professionals. BetterHelp allows you to connect with them in a safe and private online environment.
Communicate with your therapist as often as you want and whenever you feel it’s needed. You can switch therapists at any point if you don’t feel you are getting enough benefits. It offers individual therapy, Couples Therapy, and Teen Therapy.
Features:
- Provided by a licensed therapist
- Messaging any time
- Chat sessions
- Phone sessions
- Video sessions
- Easy scheduling
- Digital worksheets
- Group sessions
- Smart provider matching
- Easy to switch providers
- Get help from anywhere
online through calls, messaging, emailing, etc.
Therapy (b)
Talkspace – different prices for different plans
Talkspace is another non-traditional form of therapy offering 24/7 service. It eliminates commute time and scheduling hassles and offers flexible plans and an opportunity to Seamlessly switch therapists at no extra cost.
The online therapy platform provides users with the confidential support of a licensed therapist through an easy-to-use and HIPAA-compliant app. You get matched with a licensed therapist who checks in with you daily.
It deals with individual therapy, Couples Therapy, Teen Therapy, and Psychiatry.
Areas covered:
- Depression
- Relationships
- Anxiety & Stress
- Parenting LGBTQIA+
- Chronic illness
- Eating disorders
- Anger management
- Childhood abuse
- Mood disorders
- OCD
- Trauma & grief
- Substance abuse
- Family conflict and more…
It is conducted online and through calls, messaging, emailing, etc.
Best overall (a)
Moodfit – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
Moodfit provides the most comprehensive set of tools for good mental health and helps you understand what brings your mood up and down.
Features:
- Mood journal
- Set of personalized daily goals that include self-care and gratitude.
- Positive messages and new habits.
- Gratitude Journal
- CBT techniques.
- Breathing exercises
- Mindfulness meditation
- Lifestyle factors like sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
- Track mood-related medications
- To track any custom variables
- Mental health assessments like PHQ-9 and GAD-7
It is available on both the Apple store and Google Play
Best overall (b)
MoodKit – free, (in-app purchase $4.99)
Best for Improving your mood. It is also deemed as one of the “best mental health apps” in the world. It draws upon the principles and techniques of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), one of the most effective and scientifically-supported methods of psychotherapy.
The app addresses managing stress, depression, anxiety, or other moods. The good thing about this app is the effective strategies of professional psychology.
Moodkit’s Tools:
- MoodKit Activities – Provide you with specific ways to implement psychological principles and techniques known to reduce negative feelings and enhance well-being.
- Thought Checker – This helps you to manage negative feelings by identifying and modifying the thoughts that contribute to those feelings.
- Mood Tracker – Allows you to make, save, and chart daily ratings of your mood. It also enables you to record and save any notes that you would like to attach to your mood ratings.
- Journal – The Journal allows you to create, save, and export notes.
It is available only on the Apple store
Symptom tracker
Bearable – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
Bearable can help you feel more in control of your health. It’s a great tool to help you manage Mental Health, Mood disorders, Pain, Fatigue, ADHD, and hundreds of other health issues.
The app helps you discover what’s really making your health better and worse. By learning what affects your Mood, Symptoms, Sleep, and Energy, You can have more control over your health & wellness.
Some Of The Things You Can Track:
- Moods & Emotions
- Physical Health Symptoms
- Mental Health Symptoms
- Pain & Symptom Severity
- Sleep Quality & Quantity
- Energy Levels
- Medication
- Steps & Heart Rate
- Gratitude & Notes
- Pills & Medication
It is available on both the Apple store and Google Play
Tracking medications
Medisafe – free
With Medisafe, you get personalized reminders for each of your medications and vital drug interaction warnings.
- Manage your medications.
- Get reminders on time, every time.
- Be notified when your prescriptions are running low so you are never without your meds.
- Get an alert whenever any of your prescribed medications should not be taken together (US only).
- List your caregiver as a Medfriend to send them a notification if you accidentally miss a medication.
- Manage your family members’ medications from one convenient place with our dependents feature.
- Receive medication coupons and discounts at drugstores at thousands of drugstores nationwide*. Powered by GoodRx.
It is available on the Apple store and Google Play
Habit Tracker
Way of Life – Free -Offers In-App Purchases
Changing habits or cultivating new habits is hard work. Way of Life is a habit tracker tool that motivates you to build a better, stronger, and healthier you!
As you collect more and more information, you will be able to spot positive and negative trends in your lifestyle. There are no restrictions on what Way of Life can help you with when it comes to changing habits.
Feature:
- Chains – challenge yourself not to break a positive streak.
- Powerful reminders with flexible scheduling and custom messages.
- Charts – Pie charts and bar graphs with trend lines
- Note-taking – quickly jot down a note
- Use URL schemes for interaction with other apps
- Organize all your habits with customizable tags
- Scoreboard for instant weekly/monthly feedback
- Interactive walk-through
- Unlimited items (*)
- Export your data as CSV or Excel files for further analysis
- Passcode lock with Touch ID and Face ID support … and more
It is available on both Apple store and Google Play
Anxiety
MindShift CBT- Free
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.
Features:
- Clean and user-friendly intuitive design
- Evidence-based strategies and tools based on (CBT)
- Daily check-in to keep track of your anxiety level and mood
- Easy-to-follow guides
- Facts and tips to overcome general worry, social anxiety, perfectionism, panic attack, and phobias
- Goal-setting tools to keep you accountable
- Coping cards and statements
- Guided relaxation and mindfulness meditations
- Belief experiments to challenge the beliefs that fuel anxiety
- Tips and tricks for incorporating healthy habits into your life
- Sharing and data exporting
- Community Forum to share your stories and provide peer advice
It is available on both Apple store and Google Play.
PTSD
PTSD Coach – free
PTSD Coach app is designed to help you learn about and manage post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). it’s a military-designed app. Learn to manage troubling symptoms following trauma, such as sleep, trauma reminder, and anger. One of its amazing features is that it has versions in different languages.
Features:
- Information on PTSD and treatments
- Screening and tracking your symptoms
- Tools to help you handle stress symptoms
- Direct links to support and help.
It is available on both the Apple store, Google Play, and desktop.
Quitting smoking
QuitNow! – Free, in-app purchases (Pro $3.99)
With more than 8 million downloads, QuitNow! is a popular app designed to help you quit smoking. It has a Quitnow community where people share their experiences. It also has a live chat room for support and tracks your every achievement which you can share with your friends.
It is available in both the Apple store and Google Play
Quitting alcohol
I Am Sober – free – offers In-App Purchases
Struggling with sobriety? Track your sobriety with “I AM Sober”. Along with tracking your sober days, it helps you build new habits and provides ongoing motivation by connecting you to a wide network of people all striving for the same goal: staying sober one day at a time.
Features:
- Sober day tracker
- Remember why you quit-Add reasons and photos to help you remember why you want to quit your addiction and stay sober.
- Daily pledge tracker
- Sobriety calculator
- Analyze triggers
- Share your story – Either with others or for yourself, take photos and journal your progress directly in the app.
- Milestone tracker – Track and celebrate your milestones from 1 day to 1 week, to 1 month and beyond.
- Withdrawal timeline
- Customize your experience
It is available on the Apple store and Google Play
Sleep & Meditation (a)
Headspace – Auto-renewing subscription options:
Offers Meditation and sound sleep, creating a calm and positive environment. It’s a guide to practicing mindfulness in your everyday life. Best for Learning how to relax, manage stress and focus your energy to become more centered and well rested. Provides guided meditation, sleep meditation, and breathing exercises.
Headspace Features:
- Daily Meditations – hundreds of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises.
- Sleep Meditations – Create conditions for a more restful night, calming stories paired with relaxing sounds, ambient nature recordings, Tranquil sleep music, etc.
- Stress Relief & Coping Meditations – “SOS” sessions for moments of panic, anxiety, and stress, breathwork, build your resilience, and meditations that help to cope with sadness, and anger & adapting to change.
- Find Focus & Build Productivity – Boost concentration & productivity.
- Centered Fitness & Tension Release – Relieve stress, Mood boosting, and motivating at-home workouts.
It is available only on the Apple store
Sleep & Meditation (b)
Calm – free, (in-app purchase for premium)
One indicator of good mental health apps is the number of users. Calm prides itself as the #1 app for Sleep, Meditation, and Relaxation, with over 100 million downloads and over 1.5M+ 5-star reviews.
It Features:
- Meditation – Learn the life-changing skill of meditation
- Sleep – Get more restful sleep and wake up feeling refreshed
- Music – Exclusive music to help you focus, relax, sleep
- Body – Video lessons on mindful movement and gentle stretching
- Masterclass – Audio programs taught by world-renowned mindfulness experts
- Scenes – Nature scenes and sounds to enjoy while relaxing, sleeping, working or studying
It is available on Apple store, Google Play, and the web
Relaxing/stress relief/Deep breathing (a)
Take a Break! – free
Three meditations of varying lengths allow you to relax deeply regardless of how much time you have available. Written Meditation Tips help support your experience with guided meditations. No previous meditation experience is required.
Offers:
- Breath Awareness Guided Meditation – when you only have time for a short break.
- Deep Rest Guided Meditation – allows you to sink into a deeply restful state. Many people use this meditation for falling asleep.
- Whole Body Guided Relaxation – Relax totally and completely with this meditation which helps you locate tension in every part of the body, and let it go.
It is available in both Apple store and Google Play
Relaxing/stress relief/Deep breathing (b)
BellyBio –Free, offers in-app purchases
BellyBio (Belly Biofeedback) is designed for deep abdominal breathing, biofeedback, and music. It monitors your breathing when you rest your device on your belly.
The app turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a highly-sensitive deep breathing sensor providing a real-time, objective stress-level index based on your breathing pattern.
Only available to App store
Relaxing/stress relief/Deep breathing (c)
iBreathe – Free Offers In-App Purchases
iBreathe helps to guide you through deep breathing exercises. Whether you are struggling with stress, anxiety, or insomnia, or are trying to meditate and relax. Unlike other apps, iBreathe is designed with simplicity in mind and does not contain any bloat or clutter.
Features:
- Simple & easy to use interface
- Customizable breathing intervals (inhale, exhale, hold, cycles)
- Pre-defined presets specifically designed to help with stress and anxiety
- Customizable reminders to remind you to breathe throughout the day
- Apple Health integration
- Quick actions via haptic touch (long press from your home screen) to start your breathing exercises quickly
- Multiple color themes
- Learn about the benefits of deep breathing
- Supports all iOS devices
- Apple Watch App
- iMessage app to send breathing exercises to your friends
It is available only in Apple store
Bipolar disorder
eMoods Classic – free
eMoods is a user-friendly app for patients to track symptom data relating to Bipolar I and II disorders, Depression, Post Traumatic depression, and anxiety disorders.
The Tracking app lets you easily chart your daily highs and lows, sleep, medications, and other symptoms related to Bipolar and other common mood disorders. You can also send printable reports to your doctor or therapist and receive valuable insights about your triggers and mood patterns.
Identify triggers and patterns to help prevent relapses, and enhance doctor’s visits with detailed data exports.
It is available on Apple store, Google Play, and web desktop
Boosting mood
Happify – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
The app help boost your mood and combat negative thoughts. Whether you’re feeling sad, anxious, or stressed, Happify brings you effective tools and programs to help you take control of your feelings and thoughts. There are engaging activities and games that can be used anytime, anywhere—on your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
“Our proven techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who’ve been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy for decades.”
It is available on Apple store, Google Play, and the website.
Insomnia
ShutEye – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
If you are having trouble sleeping or struggling with insomnia, this app is for you. Your productivity, quality of life, health, and even your happiness, all depend on getting the rest you need. ShutEye brings a wide variety of tools to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.
Features:
- A huge selection of sleep sounds.
- Wide variety of relaxing music
- Sleep stories
- The ability to make your own personal mix of sounds,
- Sleep tracker
- Smart alarm; to make sure waking up is as gentle as possible.
- The snore detector informs you of how much you snore during the night
It is available on Apple store and Google Play
Eating disorders
Recovery Record – free
Recovery Record is the smart companion for managing your journey to recovery from eating disorders including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and ARFID.
This app is also intended for people with general eating, weight, and shape concerns.
Features:
- Keep a record of meals, thoughts, and feelings
- Access beautiful reflection images and affirmations
- Customize log questions, meal plans, coping tactics, and recovery goals
- View charts that highlight insights, trends, and progress
- Collect jigsaw pieces to earn hidden rewards
- Set personalized reminder schedules and alarm tones
- Complete questionnaires to track your progress
- Link with your treatment team
- Receive in-the-moment feedback and messages from your treatment team
- Receive and send encouraging messages and virtual gifts to/from other users
It is available on Apple store and Google Play
OCD
NOCD – Free
OCD is a common psychiatric disorder that involves repetitive, unwanted thoughts and compulsive behaviors intended to reduce the anxiety caused by those thoughts.
NOCD offers live video-based OCD therapy and in-between session support, right in the NOCD platform. Get matched with a licensed OCD therapist in your state from the comfort of your device, and start effective OCD therapy via video, text, and more.
NOCD therapists are trained in exposure and response prevention, or ERP, the most effective OCD treatment.
NOCD Features:
- Match with an OCD therapist
- Personalize your treatment plan
- Do “face-to-face” ERP therapy online through live video sessions
- Support between each session:
- Use OCD therapeutic tools 24/7
- Message your therapist anytime
- Learn what helps other people from a peer community
It is available on Apple store, Google Play, and the website.
ADHD (a)
Routinery – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
With over 1 million downloads worldwide, Routinery helps with time management to make your life more relaxed. It helps with issues such as low concentration, habitually postponing your work, creating and maintaining a regular life, and messy sleeping patterns.
Create productive plans and routines that maintain good habits(todo) with Routinery.
Features:
- Make a productive morning Routine, Night Routine.
- Plan and maintain the schedule systematically.
- Relieve anxiety and overcome lethargy.
- Don’t forget to keep the small habit of taking vitamins.
- Maintaining a minimalist lifestyle with small habits(todo)
- Stay focused and get help with ADHD symptoms.
- Get habit recommendations, and add your own habits.
- scheduling, automatic routine notification.
- Using as a Pomodoro, study timer, planner
- Check the time spent on each habit.
It is available on Apple store and Google Play
ADHD (b)
Todoist – Free – Offers In-App Purchases
Todoist gives you the confidence that everything’s organized and accounted for, so you can make progress on the things that are important to you. The app surfaces the right tasks at the right times so you always know what to focus on next.
Features:
- Share the workload – divide and conquer your daily tasks in shared projects.
- Delegate tasks – to other people and free up your mental space.
- Personalize your task views – Build your own task views to fit your unique style and workflow.
- Centralize all your work in one place
- Add tasks via email
- Set daily and weekly goals, and visualize your productivity trends.
It is available on Apple store and Google Play
Suicide awareness
Better Stop Suicide – free
There is no conversation on mental health apps without including suicide awareness. This app uses world-leading psychological techniques and technology to stop people from committing suicide.
Much of the work in this app is to calm and slow your mind, and to help you to use your thinking brain. It will help you experience a soothing night of restful sleep. In case of an emergency situation please call suicide hotline numbers 911/999.
It is available in both Apple store and Google Play
Conclusion
We have given more than one option for some mental health apps, so you can choose one that suits you best. Do your own further research before downloading any of the apps mentioned in this article.
Image credit:
Antoni shkraba – pexels
“Mental health…is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.”
Noam Shpancer, PhD
