Keeping your mind in good shape is essential whether you’re working remotely or in a hybrid environment. I’ve struggled with a number of mental health issues as a remote blogger, and developing a routine of looking after my mental health helped me cope better. I’ve experimented with a ton of apps and handpicked the ones that made me feel healthier — and the best part is that all these apps are free!

Before we start, I’d like to emphasize that none of these apps are a replacement for treatment. If you are suffering from a mental health crisis, I urge you to consult a professional. 

Here are the top 7 mental health apps to help you stay calm, motivated, and focused.

Whether you want to manage your stress levels or sleep better, these tools are highly effective. Download one of these apps—or all of them—and take the first step to build a happier and healthier version of yourself.

DARE: Anxiety & Panic Attacks

DARE, an app designed specifically to reduce anxiety, works to reduce your anxiety symptoms. If you have anxiety, you’re well familiar with the fight-or-flight response when you feel out of control. DARE helps to redefine how your brain reacts during times of fear, creating a sense of calm within minutes. 

The app is designed based on the framework by Barry McDonagh, a best-selling author who created the DARE (Defuse, Allow, Run-toward, and Engage) framework. It offers a collection of soothing audio meditations to help regulate your nervous system. Each meditation is incredibly calming, helping you relax instantly after a busy long day. 

If you’d like to read the original book on the DARE Response by Barry McDonagh, click here. 

It has many challenges (including the popular 7-day challenge) to help you overcome your issues quicker in a fun way. We especially love its breathing tool, which helps to even out your breathing into a steady rhythm. You can also try its Mood Tracker to monitor how you’re progressing every day. 

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Insight Timer – Meditation App

With 21 million uses across the globe, Insight Timer offers the opportunity to learn directly from a collection of neuroscience experts and world-renowned psychology teachers. 

Downloading the app is akin to carrying a year’s worth of psychological lessons in your pocket. It has hundreds of thousands of meditation clips and relaxing music tracks. It ensures a state of calm for you with mood check-ins, courses, live events, workshops, and quotes. 

It has a large number of community groups based on your interests, such as gratitude, kindness, mindfulness, philosophy, and more. Once you join these groups, you’ll feel less isolated and alone—which works wonders for your mental health. 

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being: my mental health friend

Being is a truly unique mental health app that caters to every possible mental illness there may be. It works as a space of comfort, love, and warmth by helping you forget about your issues and providing compassion for your everyday struggles. 

It offers interactive mini therapies that are designed by real professionals for all kinds of mental health crises. Had a bad day at work? An argument with a sibling? Rivalry with a colleague? You can use its search bar to find pre-recorded sessions designed to help you reflect, breathe and cool down. The app addresses all of these nuanced issues with specifically tailored mini-therapies to provide instant relief and healing.

As soon as you open Being, it plays soothing music—alongside offering a massive library of calming music for free. You can also speak directly to a friendly volunteer about your problems anytime you need to. 

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Woebot: Your Self-Care Expert

Woebot is built and designed by Stanford university trained psychologists. With years of clinical research-backed experience, Woebot is an AI tool that addresses anxiety, addiction, procrastination, and grief.

Woebot talks to thousands of users across the world every day, which helps it gather insights on mental illnesses and how to treat them better. It helps in identifying distortions in your thinking and reframing your thoughts—which is a popular CBT technique. It helps you identify patterns in your mood, helping you take the first step into healing your mental health issues.

Woebot daily checks in with you and provides guidance on the go. It offers practical strategies and tools to enhance your mental immunity, teaching you to understand and resolve your problems on your own. Over time, it helps you monitor your progress and understand yourself better. 

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Wysa: Anxiety, therapy chatbot

Wysa is a mental health buddy that resides in your pocket, ready to have interactive conversations with you whenever you require support and care. It offers a variety of therapy tools including a chatbot, which helps you reframe your thoughts and build an optimistic mindset. 

You can access its free mindfulness and breathing exercises for instant stress relief. It has 40 coaching techniques to address your issues with research-backed therapy techniques. Wysa helps to measure your anxiety and depression levels over time and prepares progress reports to showcase your growth over time. 

Though I’ve used a ton of AI mental health tools so far, I really love how Wysa talks to me. It truly embodies the experience of speaking to a real, supportive friend. Throughout conversations, it constantly provides various affirmations and wellness courses to ramp up your mental health progress.

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Atom: Meditation for Beginners

Atom is a meditation tool that takes short breathing exercises one step further. It has a 21-day meditation program that consistently encourages you to meditate daily using guided meditations, at the end of which you’ll have a fully developed habit of meditating daily. 

It truly is a habit-forming app, using the psychology of building new habits in every step of your meditation journey. For example, its meditation clips initially have only a 2-minute duration, and they gradually increase in length over time. We all have short attention spans thanks to constant exposure to the internet, and Being understands that. Its program is designed to eventually increase your ability to take a pause and focus on clearing your mind. 

Throughout the app, Being offers tips and tricks to building new habits. It helps monitor your progress by planting trees in your own virtual garden, which is a gratifying and rewarding experience. As someone who’s always struggled with mindfulness and meditation, I can honestly say this app helped me consistently meditate better with bite-sized guidance and motivation.

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Daylio Journal – Mood Tracker

Ever wanted a journal in your pocket? Daylio is a fantastic self-care tool that lets you record how you’re feeling and what habits you’re practicing on a daily basis.

It lets you track a variety of activities, from your eating habits to how often you work out each week. You can add entries on the topics that matter to you, including hobbies, chores, health, sleep, activities—you name it. Each category lets you add anything you’d like, making its interface feel truly unique to you. The app allows notes and pictures with each journal entry too. 

Over time, Daylio builds analytics over the data you provide. This helps to understand your mental health and stress levels better. I’ve personally used this app for over a year now, and it’s really exciting to look back on the change and growth in my daily habits within just a year.

Overall, it’s a nice tool to take quick check-ins with yourself and track your progress over time. 

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Also Read: 7 Best Chrome Extensions for Productive Bloggers

Conclusion

We hope these apps help you enjoy a happier personal and professional life. Life may—at times—be stressful and exhausting. Compassion and prioritizing mental health are the first steps in taking care of your mind. Since technology is already a part of our everyday life in many different ways, incorporating a few mental health applications into your routine will help you maintain consistency and self-discipline.

Thank you for reading, and if you found this post helpful, please tell a friend about it!