Recent statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) show that around 21 million adults in the US experienced at least one episode of depression in the past year. The prevalence of the disorder is highest among individuals aged 18 to 25.
Given that 95% of people from this age group and 85% of all adults in the country own smartphones, it makes sense to leverage mobile-based apps for depression.
But if we were to be completely honest, we are all a bit unrealistic when it comes to apps for depression or mental health. We often download them without much thought, hoping a single app will magically improve our mental health. This can set unrealistic expectations for these mobile applications.
That being said, apps to help with depression offer a unique and efficient way to deal with your symptoms. While they might not be able to replace professional therapy and medications, apps for depression can help you deal with day-to-day problems, symptoms, mood-tracking, and many more things related to your diagnosis.
To help you get started, we have created a list of our favorite seven best apps for depression that can help you support and manage your mental health. Let’s get started.
7 Best Apps To Help For Depression
1. Mood Tools
Available for: Android | iOS
Depression is associated with constant feelings of hopelessness and negative feelings. To help you deal with such symptoms, Mood Tools is the perfect app for depression. It helps people manage and cope with their symptoms using cognitive-behavioral therapy activities.
The app provides the following features:
- Thought Diary: Individuals can enter their thoughts and feelings in the Thought Diary daily and track any negative thought patterns.
- Depression Test: The app also offers a PHQ-9 depression questionnaire and tracks the severity of their symptoms over time.
- Safety Plan: The Mood Tools app also allows one to create a safety plan containing valuable resources that one can utilize in emergencies.
- Informational videos: Created with the help of healthcare professionals, the Mood Tools app contains informative videos and self-help guidelines to help patients deal with their symptoms.
Cost: The app is free for Android and iOS users.
2. Headspace
Available for: Android | iOS
The Headspace meditation app is also one of the best apps for depression.
Meditation might sound like a pretty skeptical activity for depression. It might even sound like one of those ‘snap out of it’ or ‘be positive’ suggestions. However, meditation is a pretty effective tool to deal with depressive symptoms.
As per research by Meagan B. MacKenzie, meditation-based cognitive therapy reduces the chances of relapse into depression. Regular incorporation of meditation practice can significantly help reduce anxiety and stress, two of the primary depression triggers.
Headspace depression app leverages this effective power of meditation practice. It can be a great starting point for your meditation practice. It contains guided meditation sessions for almost all moods.
The app provides the following features:
- Guided meditation activities: The Headspace depression app contains multiple guided meditation activities that vary in length and are designed for different moods and scenarios.
- SOS sessions: It also provides SOS sessions to help effectively manage extremely stressful or severe situations.
Cost: $12.99/month or $9.99/year for students. Apart from these, other annual and family packs are also available.
Read a more detailed Headspace app review here.
3. Super Better
Available for: Android | iOS
Super Better is one of the best app games for depression. It is a simple and reformative idea that can help you effectively cope with daily challenges, manage stress, and practice proper self-care.
If you are bored by the more traditional and generic mental health apps, Super Better is the perfect app for depression. Created around the idea of ‘you are the hero of your story,’ the app helps you complete several super-hero tasks to build resilience. Apart from depression, the app can also help with symptoms of anxiety and PTSD.
As per research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, people who used the Super Better app for depression found significant improvement in their moods. Additionally, it also helped relieve their depression symptoms.
The app provides the following features:
- Life-skill quizzes: Super Better contains multiple quizzes to help you check your emotional control, mental flexibility, optimism, and much more.
- Resilience tracker: The app keeps track of your resilience by analyzing your tasks and activities, effectively helping you check your stress.
Cost: The app is free for Android and iOS users.
4. Mind Doc
Available for: Android | iOS
Mind Doc is the perfect journaling app for depression. It allows you to feed into your moods and monitor your depression symptoms and overall mental health through a series of questions. Following this, it provides a deep insight into your symptoms.
The Mind Doc app for depression also allows a library of exercises and courses to help you get better. Additionally, Mind Doc also partnered with Better Help, the largest online therapy platform, to directly allow users to connect with licensed therapists around the globe.
While it is particularly designed as one of the best apps for depression and anxiety, users find it beneficial for monitoring and dealing with eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and more.
The app provides the following features:
- Detailed questionnaire: Every time you open the app, it creates a detailed questionnaire to assess your thoughts and moods.
- Detect patterns: After filling out the questionnaire, the app allows you to monitor your depression symptoms and track your feelings.
Cost: Free version along with subscription plans, including $29.99 for three months, $44.99 for six months, or $69.99 for one year.
5. What’s Up
Available for: Android | iOS
What’s Up is one of the best apps for depression that leverages the power of cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance therapy to help deal with anxiety, stress, and depression. It contains negative and positive habit trackers that allow you to monitor your positive habits and break the counterproductive ones.
Additionally, what makes this one of the best apps for depression is that it provides you with community support via an in-built forum designed in the app.
The app provides the following features:
- Grounded page: This app feature that we particularly loved contains over 100 different questions to help you identify how you feel.
- Thinking patterns page: This page allows users to go through negative inner dialogue and develop positive self-talk.
- Coping strategies: What’s Up app also allows users to develop their own coping mechanisms to manage worries and take steps to build positive habits.
- Help right now: The app creates a repository of everything you need to calm down immediately to manage extremely difficult situations.
Cost: Free version along with subscription plans.
6. Mood Kit
Available for: Android | iOS
With over 200 different mood enhancement activities, Mood Kit is one of the best apps for depression. Using cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), this app for depression was built by two clinical psychologists.
Mood Kit helps you identify negative thought patterns and make a potent shift toward a healthy attitude and self-awareness. With its unique design, this is one of the best apps for depression to track your treatment and manage your symptoms.
In a testament to its efficacy, the Mood Kit app for depression was rated amongst the top five apps to improve your mood by Minnesota Monthly.
The app provides the following features:
- Journal: This feature allows you to build a great self-care habit by reflecting on your daily thoughts and feelings.
- Mood Kit activities: The Mood Kit app for depression provides you with a wide variety of ways to improve your mood.
- Thought checker: If you have been dealing with a stressful situation, Mood Kit’s thought checker section allows you to identify and modify feelings associated with these stressful events.
Cost: Free version along with subscription plans.
7. Sinasprite
Available for: Android | iOS
Looking for an interesting app to manage your depression? Look no further than Sinasprite.
One of the best app games for depression, Sinasprite is a multi-platform application designed to manage your depression symptoms uniquely and innovatively. All you need to do is create an account and engage in the various games, activities, and interactions available on the platform.
Sinasprite offers multiple gaming miniseries designed to help you learn healthy habits like journaling, meditation, breathing exercises, gratitude, and physical exercises.
The app provides the following features:
- Multiple relaxing activities: The Sinasprite app for depression contains numerous challenges for therapeutic and healthy habits for your mental health, including journaling, painting, etc.
- Detailed questionnaire: The app contains a detailed questionnaire to help you analyze your daily moods and thoughts.
Cost: Free version along with subscription plans, including $14.99 per month and $119.99 per year.
Conclusion:
We live in the age of technology. We spend most of our time engaged with our mobile phones and, therefore, using apps for depression to manage and cope with our symptoms. There are hundreds of online apps available to help you do just that. To get you started, we have compiled a list of the best apps to help with depression.
While apps for depression are effective and can help you cope with your symptoms better, they are certainly not equipped to replace professional help and therapy. Therapy and mental health care are of paramount importance for dealing with depression.
Access to professional help is now easier than ever with the advent of online therapy platforms. To learn more about the most effective and affordable online therapy platforms, click here.
To continue learning about depression and mental health, subscribe to Your Mental Health Pal.