Peace is just a click away

Mental health apps are mushrooming online and some of them could help you in your elusive search for nirvana.

In today’s fast-paced world, it is often difficult to find time to introspect and check on our mental health. We take mental health for granted, but it is just as important as our physical health as it affects our behaviour, mindset, and our productivity at work. A recent research showed that mental health apps may improve the monitoring and management of mental health conditions. Additionally, research suggests the use of applications increases engagement in treatment plans and makes monitoring symptoms easier.

Headspace

Meditation has been shown to help people stress less, focus more and even sleep better. The Headspace app helps its users learn the skills of meditation and mindfulness in just a few minutes a day. The app is backed by research and science and helps users create life-changing habits to support mental health and make you healthier. Headspace is proven to reduce stress by 14 percent in just 10 days.

Moodfit

Moodfit helps you track your mood. The app provides the most comprehensive set of customizable tools and insights to help you learn what works best for you. A set of customised daily goals provides the basis for your daily mental health workout. These goals keep you on track with important self-care practises and help build new skills and ways of thinking. You can set specific daily goals, use various tools to boost your mood, and receive insights into what is lifting your mood and what’s dragging it down. If you attend physical therapy, you can share your mood charts and other variables to help them better understand how you’re doing between appointments. These charts and data can help your therapist help you better.

Happify

Many get overwhelmed when they experience feelings of sadness, anxiousness, or when they are stressed out in general. Happify provides you with tools and programs that help you take control of your feelings and thoughts. The techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who have been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioural therapy for decades. Happify requires users to complete a few activities each week, after which it begins to suggest techniques based on the data provided by them.

Calm

Calm helps you relax and regularise your sleeping patterns. Users can learn life-changing skills of meditation and get more restful sleep and wake up feeling refreshed. It offers music to help you focus, relax and sleep. The app has an exhaustive playlist of nature scenes and sounds to enjoy while relaxing, sleeping, working or studying. Additionally, Calm has audio programs taught by world-renowned mindfulness experts and video lessons on mindful movement and gentle stretching. The techniques taught in these videos are well researched and help users relax.

MoodKit

MoodKit uses the foundation of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and provides users with over 200 different mood improvement activities. The app aims to help you not only with your mood, but also maintain your general mental health. Developed by two clinical psychologists, MoodKit helps you learn how to change your mindset and develop self-awareness and healthy attitudes. The app has a built-in journal feature which enables users to reflect on their day, note down any distressing thoughts, and document how they overcame them. — NTF