Introduction
When faced with pressing issues and overloading stress, it's always important to take a step back in order to safeguard our own mental health. In accordance with technological innovation and societal needs, many therapeutic services have moved online, becoming more affordable (free of charge for some apps), user-friendly and convenient! This post hopes to introduce seven apps related to mental health that can give our mental health a quick boost.
Calm
Helps reduce stress, anxiety, and enhance sleep quality through meditation services
Offers guided meditation sessions in flexible ranges (of length), benefitting both beginners and experienced users; these also include mindful breathing exercises
Users can gain access to “sleep stories”, where stories are read by calming voices in order to help users fall asleep, and listen to relaxing music or even scenes of nature with calming sounds
Tracks your daily meditation schedule and streak
Subscription may be needed in order to gain full access to its services
An annual membership may cost around $550 HKD.
Betterhelp
Provides online therapy services with professionals; essentially the online equivalent of an actual therapy session
Allows patients to message and chat with professional therapists anytime; therapists are all licensed counselors/therapists/social workers and have at least received a Master’s degree
Phone, video and even group sessions can be conducted
Makes use of smart provider matching and allows users to conveniently switch therapists whenever necessary. Matching typically takes less than a day to complete.
Users can gain access to more convenient scheduling and digital worksheets on the platform
Services range from $470 to $700 HKD per week
Recommends minors to refrain from using the platform.
Sanvello
Provides cognitive behavioral therapy tools to soothe stress and mild to moderate anxiety and depression
Helps to track users’ moods and health and identifies emotions and patterns through providing simple questions; it also offers teachings on mindfulness skills
Helps to build skills and alleviate issues such as public speaking, test taking and morning dread through tools, “progress assessments” (to track progress and set goals) and “guided journeys”, with the aim of making users feel better
Offers interaction opportunities within the community for sharing, understanding and advice; if more support is needed, Sanvello can also help users reach out to licensed therapists
Operates in both free and premium versions; the premium version costs about $70 HKD per month, with unlimited access to self-care content, e.g. guided journeys
May not be suitable for patients with severe mental health conditions
Happify: All about fun
Offers games and activities based on science-based activity to reduce stress, build self-confidence and overcome negative thoughts
Offers activities based on users’ individualized goals; this is to help users understand their emotions and thoughts and, at the end of the day, feel happier!
Games and activities are devised by psychology experts and therapists with evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy intervention. These activities usually are short in length
Operates in both free and premium versions; the premium version costs about $118 HKD, which may comparatively be more expensive than other apps for mental health.
Here are some therapy apps directed towards specific communities/disorders:
Mindshift - Anxiety
Designed for teens and young adults
Hopes to “shift” their “minds” by changing how they perceive anxiety, encouraging young people to take on challenges and take charge of their lives.
Introduces anxieties such as social anxiety, phobias, panic attacks and generalized anxiety disorder, as well as coping strategies on these disorders
Makes use of cognitive behavioral therapy and features functions such as Thought Journal (transforming worries into positive thoughts), Coping Cards (re-adjusting thinking with positive coping statements), Belief Experiments (testing out beliefs that induce anxiety) and more
Mindshift is free!
eMoods - Bipolar
All about mood-tracking - hence it benefits users with bipolar or mood disorder.
Through tracking depressive and psychotic symptoms, mood and irritability, it generates a monthly summary report and insights to identify symptoms and triggers, and even includes a color-coded monthly calendar to indicate users’ mood changes.
Helps to track users’ medication schedules and deliver reports and statistics to doctors whenever necessary.
Offers mood tracking and printable reports for free. A subscription is needed to gain access to premium features such as enabling multiple users per account and custom tracking points for around $40 HKD per month.
Shine - BIPOC
Voted as one of Apple’s Best of 2020 apps
Founded as a self-care platform to relieve stress and anxiety and encourage acceptance, creativity, productivity.
Set up under the primary aim of fighting for the rights and mental health of marginalized groups, striving to combat societal prejudice while increasing the accessibility of such marginalized groups to wellness
Hopes to boost users’ self-improvement by offering daily meditation, articles and short audio clips that users can listen to conveniently.
Offers a virtual community in which users can share, discuss and join workshops. Moreover, it offers self-care audio courses on stress and boundaries by experts.
The basic version only includes a daily meditation and article; users will have to purchase a premium version of $510 HKD to access a larger variety of and more personalized meditations.
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