Mental health apps are a popular and easy resource that can help you manage your stress, tame anxiety and elevate your mood each day. Although they aren’t a replacement for therapy, research shows that the best mental health apps can be a great way to improve your well-being and keep tabs on your progress. There’s a lot to love about mental health apps: the variety, the affordability, and the features. They also bring mental health resources to people who otherwise couldn’t get help due to finances, disabilities or location.
However, not all mental health apps are backed by research or clinical insights. With between 10,000 and 20,000 wellness apps out there, it can be difficult to find the best option. That’s why we did the research for you. Here are the seven best mental health apps you can start using today to elevate your happiness:
- Talkspace: best therapy mental health app that gives you 24/7 access to licensed therapists.
- Calm: best meditation app with a comprehensive offering of breathing techniques and calming exercises.
- Moodfit: a customizable mental health app that allows you to track sleep, nutrition, exercise, and more.
- Sanvello: best mental health app for stress relief with a full meditation library, guided journeys, and cognitive behavioral therapy tools.
- Happify: a free mental health app that focuses entirely on your mood and helps relieve anxiety.
- MindShift: a free mental health app specifically designed to target anxiety with categories broken down into general worry, social anxiety, perfectionism, panic, and phobias.
- Shine: the best mental health app for people of color with a selection of choices.
The apps included on the best mental health app list have the best features supported by research. When selecting our picks, we examined each app’s user experience, features, and pricing. We also read through user reviews to tease out pain points and what people value in mental health apps.
While mental health apps are great tools that supplement your experience, they’re unlikely to replace traditional therapy. Mental health apps have limitations in crises, and there are questions about their effectiveness when used alone. Mental health apps aren’t the best option for everyone, and some people still prefer to meet in person and have their therapist’s undivided attention. It’s all a matter of preference.
My advice is that mental health apps are what you put into them. While they are not a replacement for therapy, mental health apps are a great way to check in on yourself. Many of the free ones offer helpful, educational content. But you need to take the time to read it. Others allow you to work through stressors with open-ended answer boxes. But you have to interact with the app to truly benefit from it. With mental health apps, you can’t assume that everything is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Mental health apps fall in a gray area, and many of the best mental health apps on the market operate without connection to covered entities, meaning your information isn’t completely private.