World Mental Health Day: From Moodfit To Talkspace, Here Are 5 Apps Worth Checking Out

Mental health apps provide encouragement, general guidance, and some activities that you can practice on a daily basis. 

Mental health apps offer a plethora of activities to help calm your mood when needed.

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World Mental Health Day is observed on October 10 every year to spread awareness of mental health education across the globe. Additionally, it looks to advocate against the prevalent social stigma on mental health. First observed in 1992 under the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, the global Mental Health Day is now observed across 150 nations. This year, the overall mission is to "make mental health and well-being for all a global priority", as per the World Health Organisation (WHO). To help in that process, smartphone apps can play a major role in helping those in need nurture and take care of their mental state.

What can mental health apps do?

Before we look at five handy mental health apps to check out, it is important to know exactly what such apps can do. 

For starters, no mental health app can diagnose your conditions. If an app does claim that, it is highly advised that you steer clear of them. Given the serious nature of mental health conditions, it is always advisable to reach out to professionals to get a proper diagnosis. 

Think of mental health as a supplement to your professional treatment, or even as a companion to keep you on track once you graduate from therapy. 

Mental health apps usually provide encouragement, general guidance, and some activities that you can practice on a daily basis. 

Top 5 mental health apps to check out

Moodfit

Generally considered to be one of the best mental health apps out there, MoodFit offers you daily goals that can help you build your “mood fitness”. It will also offer insights based on your mental health with actionable analysis of elements such as mood trends or sleep patterns. It will also share inspirational quotes to help you deal with low spells. It has already seen over 50 trillion downloads on Google Play.

Calm

One of the most effective sleep and mindfulness apps out there, Calm’s USP lies in its incredible UI design and its trademark ‘Sleep Stories’, which are tranquil narrations of stories by popular celebrities such as Kate Winslet, Tom Hiddleston, Harry Styles, and Matthew McConaughey. Apart from sleep aids, Calm also offers handy meditation tools to help you find some much-needed downtime. 

Talkspace

Talkspace offers 24x7 access to treatment from mental health professionals. Working just like any other telemedicine app, Talkspace also lets you change your therapist based on your needs. Apart from live video sessions, you can choose to drop a text to your therapist in Talkspace’s dedicated chat rooms at any time of the day, offering much-needed access to round-the-clock care. 

Happify

Happify uses cognitive behavioral therapy and offers activities and games to help you relieve anxiety. You can check out activities based on what you need, be it dealing with stress or getting rid of negative thoughts. It will also offer meditation routines to help achieve mindfulness. Happify can be very effective in relieving stress when such a situation develops.

NOCD

Largely recognised as a truly handy OCD treatment app, NOCD claims to have been developed by people with OCD with help from leading experts. You can also get matched with a licensed OCD therapist and connect over video, text, and more.