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Best Self Help Apps
Best Self Help Apps
Now more than ever, it's important to take care of yourself and keep your stress levels low. Self-care is so important There are many wellness apps available to help you do just that. From meditation and breathing to yoga and fitness, utilize these apps to help you practice self-care. Below we've shared some of the most popular and well-regarded options to get you started. Some of these apps are free or are now offering an extended free trial period, so take advantage of them and let them help you find your center during times of uncertainty or just in general. We hope that this Best Self Help Apps post inspires you.
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Best Self Help Apps
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to the “best” self-care apps as it depends on your individual needs. Defining the “best” app depends on what you're looking to improve. There are many self care apps available; we've included some of the most highly-rated and popular ones below.
Meditation and Mindfulness
- Headspace: A leading meditation app that offers a wide range of features to support users' overall well-being, including guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and sleep-focused content. Headspace offers a user-friendly interface and a variety of courses and exercises that cater to different needs and experience levels.
- Insight Timer: With a focus on free meditation content, Insight Timer offers a large library of guided meditations led by a wide range of teachers. The app also has a feature that allows users to connect with others and participate in live meditations. Insight Timer is a great option for those who are looking for a free or affordable meditation app with a variety of content.
- Calm: Another popular meditation app that offers guided meditations, sleep stories, and calming music. Calm is known for its soothing aesthetics and sleep-promoting features, making it a great choice for those looking to improve their sleep quality in addition to reducing stress and anxiety.
- Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris: This app is based on the teachings of Dan Harris, a former ABC News anchor who turned to meditation to help manage his own anxiety. The app offers a variety of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, as well as access to live Q&A sessions with Dan Harris himself. Ten Percent Happier is a great option for those who are looking for a secular approach to meditation and mindfulness.
Habit Building
- Happify: This app uses games and activities to help you build positive habits and improve your mood.
- Strides is a great no-fuss habit tracker that helps you monitor progress toward your self-care goals.
- Simple Habit: This app offers short, five-minute meditations that are designed to fit into busy schedules. Simple Habit is a great option for beginners or for those who are looking for a quick and easy way to incorporate meditation into their day.
- Streaks (iOS): This app is a standout for iPhone users who like a simple and visually appealing interface. Streaks excel at tracking daily, weekly, and monthly habits with a single tap. You can customize how often you perform a habit and on which days. It also integrates with Apple Watch, making it easy to stay on track throughout the day.
- Habitica (multi-platform): Gamifies habit building, turning it into an RPG experience. You create a character and set goals as habits. Completing habits earns you experience points and gold, which you can use to level up your character and buy in-game items. Failing to complete habits damages your character. This role-playing aspect can make sticking to your goals more engaging and fun.
- Productive (iOS & Android): This subscription-based app focuses on fostering long-term change. It provides customizable templates to track progress toward goals and habit formation. It offers features like statistics, milestone celebrations, and even challenges to keep you engaged.
- Habify (multi-platform): A well-designed app with a wide range of features, including habit tracking, mood tracking, to-do lists, and journaling. The free version offers plenty of functionality, but a premium subscription unlocks additional features like data backups and unlimited goals.
Best Self Help Apps
General Self-Care Reminders
- Aloe Bud: This app focuses on gentle nudges throughout the day to remind you of basic self-care tasks like drinking water, eating healthily, and reaching out to friends. It uses a charming aloe vera character to keep you company and motivated.
- Fabulous: Provides personalized coaching and daily routines to help you build healthy habits and improve your well-being.
- TickTick: While not solely focused on self-care, TickTick is a powerful to-do list app that allows you to set reminders for any self-care activity you want to prioritize, be it taking a walk in nature, doing some stretches, or journaling. You can set recurring reminders and customize them with alerts to ensure they don't get lost in the daily shuffle.
- Finch: This is a gamified self-care app that uses a cute little bird character to help you develop healthy habits. You set goals for yourself, such as drinking water, meditating, or going for a walk, and earn points to help your Finch grow. The app also offers motivational quotes and challenges to keep you on track.
Mood Tracking
- Daylio (Android & iOS): A simple and user-friendly app that allows you to track your mood, activities, and thoughts throughout the day. You can choose from a variety of mood ratings and activities, and you can also add your custom tags. Daylio then presents your data in a variety of charts and graphs, which can help you identify patterns and triggers that affect your mood.
- Moodfit (Android & iOS): A comprehensive mood-tracking app that not only allows you to log your emotions but also provides insights and tips for improving your mental health. Moodfit uses a color wheel to track your mood, and you can also add notes about what happened during the day that might have affected your mood. The app also provides personalized reports and insights, as well as tips for improving your mood.
- Moodnotes (iOS): Designed by psychologists and utilizes cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques to help users improve their overall well-being. Moodnotes allows you to track your mood, thoughts, and behaviors, and it also provides prompts to help you identify negative thinking patterns. The app also includes a variety of tools and resources to help you improve your mood, such as gratitude exercises and relaxation techniques.
- eMoods Bipolar Mood Tracker (Android & iOS): This app is specifically designed for people with bipolar disorder. It allows you to track your mood, sleep, medications, and other factors that can affect your mood. eMoods also provides reports and insights that can help you identify patterns in your moods and track your progress over time.
- Worry Watch (Android & iOS): While not strictly a mood tracker, this app can be helpful for people who struggle with anxiety. Worry Watch allows you to track your worries and anxieties, and it also provides tools to help you challenge negative thoughts and develop coping mechanisms.
Best Self Help Apps
Sleep
- Shleep: Offers sleep meditations, bedtime stories, and calming sounds to lull you off to sleep.
- Pzizz: Uses a unique blend of sleep-promoting elements, including music, voiceovers, and sound effects, designed to lull you into a deep sleep.
- Sleep Cycle: This app tracks your sleep patterns and wakes you up during the lightest phase of your sleep cycle, so you feel more refreshed in the morning. It also includes sleep sounds and an analysis of your sleep quality.
- Slumber: Slumber offers a variety of features to help you fall asleep and stay asleep, including sleep meditations, bedtime stories, calming music, and white noise. It also allows you to track your sleep patterns and set goals for improvement.
- Breethe: Offers sleep hypnotherapy sessions designed to help you relax and fall asleep more easily.
- ShutEye: Provides a combination of sleep tracking, soundscapes, and personalized sleep coaching to help you improve your overall sleep health.
- Moshi: Offers a large library of relaxing bedtime stories for adults, designed to help you drift off to sleep peacefully.
- Headspace: A leading meditation app that offers a wide range of features to support users' overall well-being, including guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and sleep-focused content. Headspace offers a user-friendly interface and a variety of courses and exercises that cater to different needs and experience levels.
- Calm: Another popular meditation app that offers guided meditations, sleep stories, and calming music. Calm is known for its soothing aesthetics and sleep-promoting features, making it a great choice for those looking to improve their sleep quality in addition to reducing stress and anxiety.
Best Self Help Apps
Stress Management
- Headspace: A leading meditation app that offers a wide range of features to support users' overall well-being, including guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and sleep-focused content. Headspace offers a user-friendly interface and a variety of courses and exercises that cater to different needs and experience levels.
- Calm: Another popular meditation app that offers guided meditations, sleep stories, and calming music. Calm is known for its soothing aesthetics and sleep-promoting features, making it a great choice for those looking to improve their sleep quality in addition to reducing stress and anxiety.
- MindShift CBT: This app uses the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you challenge negative thinking patterns and develop healthier coping mechanisms for stress.
- Clementine: Offers cognitive hypnotherapy techniques for stress reduction.
- Youper: Chatbot that uses CBT principles to help you manage difficult emotions.
- Happify: This app uses gamification techniques to help users develop positive habits and improve their mood. Happify offers interactive activities, games, and challenges to help you build resilience and manage stress in a fun and engaging way.
- Daylio: This app allows you to track your mood, activities, and thoughts throughout the day. By identifying patterns and triggers that affect your mood, you can learn to manage stress more effectively.
- Relax Melodies: If you find calming sounds helpful in managing stress, Relax Melodies is a great option. This app offers a wide variety of nature sounds, music tracks, and guided meditations to help you relax and de-stress.
Award Winning Self Care Apps
Insight Timer: This app has won the title of App of the Year and boasts over 20,000 free guided meditations and talks led by meditation experts. It's a great resource for those looking to incorporate meditation into their self-care routine.
Ten Percent Happier: Based on the best-selling book and podcast of the same name, this award-winning app offers a collection of resources to cultivate happiness and well-being. It includes guided meditations, talks, and courses designed to help users build resilience and manage stress.
Best Self Help Apps
The best app for you will depend on your individual needs and preferences. Some things to consider include:
- What features are most important to you?
- Are you looking for guided meditations, sleep stories, calming music, or something else?
- Do you want an app that tracks everything?
- How much are you willing to pay? (Some apps are free, while others require a subscription.)
These are just a few of the many self-care apps available. This is just a starting point, and there are many more apps available. Consider what you want to get out of a self-care app and do some research to find one that meets your needs. The best app for you will depend on your individual needs and preferences. There are apps to help you with everything from meditation and mindfulness to sleep and relaxation. With so many options to choose from, you're sure to find an app that can help you improve your well-being. We hope that you are inspired by this Best Self Help Apps post. Namaste!
