The Most Effective Mental Health Apps

Having your therapist on speed dial might always belong to the Upper East Side but now the tech world is enabling all of us to have therapy at our fingertips.

Hard to believe it’s been ten years since Headspace launched their extensive library of digital meditations to help quieten our busy minds and offer the briefest of pauses in the barrage of daily life. At virtually the same moment, Michael Acton Smith, launched his Calm app as an antidote to our modern stress epidemic and collective sleep issues and Sleep Stories still remain a firm fixture in our healthy bedtime routines.

These apps led the way for digi-mindfulness but now there’s a new wave of anxiety apps changing the digital therapy landscape. Welcome to the iCBT revolution - the next frontier of mental healthcare; fully accessible professional therapy, life coaching and emotional support in the palm of your hand. Moving on from gentle focus exercises and breathing techniques, you can dial in for an accurate depression diagnosis, enrol in iCBT courses and book in with a top psychologist within the hour.

Throwing out the rule book of traditional therapy along with any preconceived notions of what therapy should look like, (e.g. lying on a couch for years on end) and empowering people to be masters of their own mental health wherever possible. Initial medical papers have found these new apps to be highly effective for emotion regulation and management, common precursors to low mood and depression. The idea being that in some cases, emotional intelligence leads to more positive life choices and increased mental resilience.

“At Mindler we follow our 'blended treatment' model - a mixture of therapy sessions plus access to our self-help materials,” says Dr Siobhan Jones, lead psychologist in the UK for the new app. “Working through self-help materials can empower people to make changes in their life in the way that works for them. They can access self-help materials whenever they like through the app, work through the materials at a pace that works for them and choose what to change. We respect that people are the experts in their own lives and give them the power to continue being the experts.”

Always at the forefront of the next tech discoveries, here’s our rundown of the best mental health apps to try out for size.

When you need external help, MINDLER is the leading digital therapy provider that connects you with world-leading certified psychologists in record time. Choose who you want to talk to and book in with them for a video session, regardless of where you are in the world that day.

When you need a kick up the proverbial, Paradym is about becoming your best future self and maximising your potential. A combination of wellness coaching, goal setting, trigger identification and generally getting unstuck, you can also form ‘Inner Circles’ to create community with those attempting the same.

My Possible Self has the most impressive credentials being that it’s from high-profile therapy and rehab clinics, The Priory Group and approved by the NHS. CBT led interactive tasks that break down problems into situations, thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and actions, then arm you with tools to manage each one.

The age-old adage of writing sh*t down, Moodfit is about self-management, logging behavioural patterns and detecting repeated triggers. It’s a data geek’s heaven with charts and stats to track your mental fitness, just as you would your physical.

The Peloton equivalent for mental health, MindLabs instructors guide you through thought-galvanising video classes to get you strong of mind. Backed by neuroscience, the aim is to energise, motivate and take control of your hectic life.

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• Insomnia
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• Anxiety
• Depression
• Motivation
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