Anxiety and stress have become common in everyday modern life, families, communities, and even the workplace. In fact, mental health problems have an impact on employers and businesses directly through increased absenteeism, and a negative impact on productivity and profits. According to Mental health America (MHA), managing stress and balancing professional and personal demands continues to be a prominent issue for employees.
In 2021, some 80% of employees agreed that the stress from work affects their relationships with friends, family, and co-workers. A further 71% of employees say that they find it difficult to concentrate at work -up by 6% from 2020. Very often anxiety manifests itself in the form of increased heart rate, rapid breathing, restlessness, trouble concentrating, insomnia, and others.
If you experience some of these symptoms perhaps you might want to seek help from a trained mental health professional. But in the meantime, you might consider trying out some mental health apps to help relieve your anxiety.
What is an Anxiety App?
Anxiety apps are tools that help users focus on improving different aspects of their mental health and well-being. They employ a variety of behavioral exercises and relaxation techniques to help you break free from anxious thoughts and feelings. These may include meditation sessions, calming tracks, breathing exercises, mood monitors, sleep therapy, goal setting, courses, and more. With anxiety apps, all you need is your mobile device and a few minutes to focus. Anxiety apps not only help you overcome panic attacks but also help you receive therapy in the comfort of your own home. They make it easier for people to reach out for help and are easily accessible for anyone trying to cope with mental health problems.
Why You Should Download an Anxiety App
Anxiety apps can help you find the right mental health services that suit your needs. They also can help ease any apprehensions when it comes to seeking to address a mental health issue in person. There are many potential benefits of using anxiety apps for alleviating depression and anxiety and including:
- Affordability: Unlike therapy with a mental health professional anxiety apps come at a relatively low price. However, they may not be the best substitute for treatment if you are dealing with anxiety at work or serious mental health issues.
- Supplement existing therapy: Anxiety apps can supplement treatment as they help to offer compliance to routine treatment through worksheets and tools.
- Convenience: Anxiety apps come in the palm of your hands making it easy for you to access some tools to help you cope with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. They also offer convenient ways of practicing strategies learned in face-to-face therapies and include reminders that can be set to increase treatment and continuation of therapy.
- Gathering data and trends: Some anxiety apps can generate data through graphs or tables showing improvements or areas that need improvement. This can help therapists determine which interventions are working best and which ones should be changed.
Best Free Apps for Anxiety
If you need help coping with anxiety, depression or insomnia try one of the free anxiety apps below:
1. Mindshift
MindShift CBT helps users manage their anxiety and stress using evidence-based anxiety management strategies based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This free self-help anxiety relief app helps to reduce stress, learn more about anxiety, develop more effective ways of thinking, be mindful, and relax. It comes with a user-friendly intuitive design, tools based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) designed for anxiety relief and self-management; daily check-in to keep track of your anxiety levels and mood tracking; facts and tips to overcome general worry, social anxiety, perfectionism, panic attack, and phobias; goal setting tools to keep users accountable; coping cards and statements to help users deal with anxiety; guided relaxation and mindfulness meditations; tips and tricks for incorporating healthy habits into your life and minimizing anxiety naturally; the ability to share data to streamline sessions with your counselor, therapist, or psychologist; and more.
Available on: iOS and Android.
2. Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind is a free app for meditation and mindfulness developed by psychologists and educators to help bring balance to users’ lives. It is designed to assist people in dealing with the pressure, stress, and challenges of daily life. It has dedicated sleep programs for adults, teens, and even kids. The app offers guided meditations that help users wind down at night to assist with both getting to sleep and improving overall sleep quality. It also touts being able to help increase productivity and attention; help in anxiety reduction and stress management; offer clearer and more focused thinking; and increased positive emotion, life satisfaction, and self-esteem beyond the workplace.
Available on: iOS and Android.
3. Dare: Panic & Anxiety Relief
Dare app offers users an interactive experience that helps users overcome anxiety, panic attacks, worry, and insomnia. It comes with information on anxiety, panic attacks and other topics. It has exercises to help users work through their anxieties and offers several meditations too. Users can also download the free audio guides to help them meditate and tackle insomnia. In addition to its free version, its robust paid subscription comes at a price tag of $9.99 a month.
Available on: iOS and Android.
4. Stop Panic & Anxiety Self-Help
Stop Panic & Anxiety Self-Help app helps users monitor and manage symptoms of panic. The app includes articles about anxiety and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and includes tools for relaxation, mindfulness, and teaching audios. With it, users have access to a mood log and analysis, cognitive diary, healthy goals, and more.
Available on: Android.
5. Bearable
Bearable is a simple, customizable health tracker that helps users track trends and patterns in relation to their mood, and symptoms through the use of calendars and graphs. With it, users can understand the impact of different treatments and medications on health issues such as anxiety, depression, pain, fatigue, and mood disorders. Users can also use Bearable to identify triggers, find the cause of flare-ups, help with medical appointments, manage existing health conditions, and to understand correlations between their habits and health. Users can customize reminders for diary entries, medication, and more while being able to sync their health data from Apple Health and Apple Health Kit. The free version comes with a basic version while subscriptions start at $4.49/month.
Via: www.smallbiztrends.com
