Top 5 Mental Health Apps for Depression
Depression care in North America has some holes, to put the situation mildly. Despite the fact that depression is one of the more treatable mental illnesses, a lack of mental health service providers and/or lack of insurance can mean that the people who suffer often don’t get the help they need. Digital health firms recognize this, and they realize that while individuals wait for care, many may be inclined to look to their smartphones for alternative methods of managing their symptoms.
Given the ubiquity and sophistication of apps available for a host of other health and wellness outcomes (weight/fitness, meditation, general productivity) I wondered how far apps for depression had come and how effective they were.
Current Apps for Depression
It turned out, mental health apps had come quite far! To be clear, none of the depression-specific apps that I found made scientifically-validated claims that they improved depression or it’s symptoms. However, many provide reprieve for some individuals. Here I’ll cover the purpose and functions of five popular depression apps to help users see what’s out there and what they might want to try.
Some of the common functions include allowing people to journal, track their moods, and set goals. Many also provide coping strategies (e.g., guided meditations are common, particularly for sleep) and some recommend personalized coping strategies based on your symptoms.
Review of Five Popular Depression Apps
- Moodpath (4.7/5 Apple Store Rating, 14.4K Ratings)
Moodpath is a self-described personalized mental health companion. It allows users to assess their mental health, track their mood, and provides strategies on how to improve.
Overview
To assess mental health, Moodpath asks three questions (e.g., “Are you feeling up to your tasks?”) three times per day. After 12 days, it provides an assessment that can be given to your doctor. Mood is tracked on a five-point scale (from “very sad face” to “very happy face”) and allows users to describe what thoughts led to their mood. For coping strategies, it offers a series of meditative audio recordings that tackle overwhelming emotions or build self-confidence. However, only one recording is offered for free. There are also educational components (courses and exercises) on depression, mindfulness, rumination, self-confidence, emotions, and sleep, though again, most must be paid to access.
Positive User Comments: According to users, simply being able to track one’s mood is one of the most helpful features of the app. It helped them understand how they were feeling over time and to see patterns they hadn’t seen before. In addition to the 1–5 scale, Moodpath allows custom emotions to better express your feelings. Since depression often makes even the most simple tasks feel overwhelming, it was critical assessment questions were short and could be answered with minimal effort. Again and again, the fact that it was “simple” to use (including the clean interface) was listed as a pro. In addition, the paid version of the app provides customized insights that provided new coping strategies or changed their perspective.
Negative User Comments: For some, three questions three times per day (i.e., nine questions each day) was a lot to answer. In addition, Moodpath’s newest update featured a countdown that would turn orange or red if too many days had passed without questions being answered. Some users found that this made them nervous. This countdown was probably intended to help users reach the goal of answering all nine questions each day. Goal-setting in depression is useful, and is a part of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT; a popular and validated therapy for depression). However, sometimes not achieving goals can make people with depression feel worse. In sum, the overall reviews of Moodpath were quite strong!
2. Sanvello (4.6/5 Apple Store Rating, 459 Ratings)
Sanvello’s core goal is improving mental health via cognitive behavioural strategies. That means therapy and symptom-improvement strategies are at the core of the app.
Overview
Sanvello has a number of features, like mood tracking (including retrospective tracking if you forget to record your mood one day), meditations, custom goal-setting, journaling, analysis of your thoughts, community forums, and a hope board for photos or text that inspires you. Moreover, according to the website, a study with 500 depressed and anxious users showed that that using Sanvello reduced their symptoms (though that claim hasn’t been scientifically validated).
Positive User Comments: Users appreciate Sanvello’s focus on providing therapy. Some referred to it as “therapy on demand”. Particularly useful were tools for reframing your thoughts (e.g., the app asks you to take a thought and examine it more closely to see if there’s truth behind what you’re thinking). With mood tracking, the app would suggest personalized guided meditations depending on how you were feeling, which many felt was very accurate and helpful for reducing stress. Users also liked the fact that multiple life aspects could be tracked (sleep, time spent with friends, etc). Even the small things about this app, like affirmations sprinkled throughout, were appreciated by the community.
Negative User Comments: Many of the cons reported for Sanvello were technical bugs. However, as with nearly all website or app updates, there was an outcry for the old version of the app when Sanvello went through a large interface change. Particularly when many of the previously free features became locked. There were also some requests for a wider variety of guided meditations. On the whole, however, this app is well-liked by the people who’ve tried it!
3. Mindshift (4.4/5 Apple Store Rating, 116 Ratings)
Mindshift has a heavy focus on applying cognitive behavioural strategies and providing relief fast. It focuses on helping anxiety, panic, and phobias.
Overview
Mindshift has a few typical features (e.g., a mood tracker, thought journal, mindfulness meditations, goal tracking, and coping strategies) but also had other interesting features based on cognitive behavioural therapy. One such feature is “Belief Experiments” which allow users to describe what negative outcomes they believe will happen in a scenario (e.g., “if I speak up in class, people might laugh at me”) and then encourages users to test that hypothesis by engaging in the activity and noting the outcome. It also uses desensitization strategies to encourage people to face their fears — you break down a large, scary task into smaller steps and approach each one slowly.
Positive User Comments: A number of users described this app as a crutch when anxiety kicked in, suggesting that the “fast” component of relief promised by the app was fulfilled for some. As with other apps in this category, the mood tracker was one of the most helpful features and many used it simply mood tracking. Sleep meditations were also very well-liked. In general, depression can affect sleep, so it was great to see that this app improved sleep quality for some individuals. “Coping cards” with quotes to help people deal with stress were well-liked. Users appreciated the specificity of some of the anxiety-specific exercises (e.g., test taking, or sleeping).
Negative User Comments: One perhaps unsurprising finding was that the kind of users who like to record their data also like to visualize it — one complaint about mood tracking was that it was difficult to see a summary of past moods. This makes sense as almost all of the top data tracking apps (health and fitness, productivity, etc) have excellent data visualization. Another complaint came from the fact that users were asked to create an account immediately upon downloading the app. This violated the rule of reciprocity — in order to ask people for something (their information), the app must give them something first. Many users also called for more room in the character-count to log their emotions. The issues that users pointed our were primarily UX-related, but if those can be overlooked, the application of cognitive behavioural therapy in this app is strong!
4. What’s Up (4.7/5 Apple Store Rating, 24 Ratings)
While not as visually stunning as some of its competitors, where What’s Up really shines is with the sheer amount of resources it provides to its users. Like MindShift, it’s focused on providing cognitive behavioural therapy strategies to users.
Overview
What’s up takes a different approach than some of the other apps on this list. Instead of having mood tracking and journaling at its core, What’s Up puts identifying thought patterns and strategies for coping the centre of its interface. Under “Help right now” users have a curated set of options to “Stop!”, complete simple distraction exercises, practice breathing control, put problems in perspective, read quotes and affirmations, and participate in forums. It also contains mood tracking and journaling, but those are less prominent.
Positive User Comments: The ability to quickly relieve feelings of anxiety is on display once more with What’s Up, with users finding that to be among the most useful features. The exercises as well as the resources on depression/anxiety were appreciated, and it was clear that careful thought was put into each coping strategy.
Negative User Comments: Most negative comments were about technical bugs. This app is probably less appealing for those who want a dedicated mood tracker, want to visualize their data, or want insights from their mood over time. This app is designed to stop an immediate negative event in its tracks by providing strategies to cope — and it seems to be doing that quite well.
5. Happify (4.3/5 Apple Store Rating, 141 Ratings)
Happify doesn’t market itself as a “depression” app, however, it’s focus on science-based strategies to overcome negative thoughts suggests that those with depression will benefit from using it!
Overview
Happify is very much a “goals-based” app. It allows users to tackle specific goals (e.g., “Rewire my brain for happiness”, “Find my calling”, “Dealing with caregiving stress” and so on). There are a number of goals available for free, and a wider variety with the paid version. Once you choose a goal, you’re led down the “track” of specific tasks to complete (e.g., “pay attention to something that makes you feel peaceful”). There are also other features: a personality assessment, articles, public posts, games/exercises, and meditations. Happify reports that in its own internal study, 86% of people who used it regularly for two months reported feeling better about their lives (but the app has not been scientifically validated).
Positive User Comments: Happify aims to help users build habits (e.g., habits of mindfulness or gratitude). The users that have used the app regularly have successfully built those habits and can feel the effects. “It makes a big difference if you stick with it” said one user, and others report that they experienced real benefits in their mood from using it repeatedly. Additionally, the sentiments “easy” and “fun” were reported by many. Happify was the only app on this list that users described as fun to use!
Negative User Comments: When a lot of features are available, it can be hard to keep them organized and easy to find. That’s one complaint with Happify — the specific content someone’s looking for might be buried in a sub-navigation bar or an unexpected menu. Interestingly, even with all the features it has, there have been requests for some of the features that other depression apps have — a daily journal, for example. Past versions of the app were a bit buggy, but most major technical issues appear to be fixed. This is a good option for long term positive change, if you stick with it!
Overarching Themes
Across all user reviews, there were some consistencies in what people with depression wanted from an app.
Positive social support was consistently rated as an extremely important feature for users. This makes sense. Sometimes, people with depression just want to know that there are others out there who understand what they’re going through. They want positive encouragement, which they may not be getting elsewhere. Sometimes, that can be enough to make users feel a bit better in dark times.
In general, users also wanted insights that revealed something about themselves that they didn’t know before. Over and over, happy users made comments like “I saw myself in a new light” or “This app made me realize who I am.” While these are big statements, they can be achieved with simple insights: Revealing that a particular event tends to cause a particular emotion, or that a certain thought pattern can be broken by adding a new, more positive thought.
Lastly, what users consistently talked about were the strategies that helped them in a pinch. A panic attack, not being able to sleep, or stress about an upcoming test were all times when people needed immediate help to calm down. Depression is often coupled with anxiety, which can make it difficult to shut down stressful thoughts. Breathing techniques, distractions, or guided videos can go a long way to bring someone’s stress levels down.
If you have depression, there are a number of helpful apps to choose from that can support you in different ways. While no app is or should be treated as a replacement for therapy, they can help bridge the gaps in our system by providing support in the interim.
Do you have depression? Celia is doing research on how patients with depression use apps to manage their symptoms and would love to hear your feedback on which apps you find helpful! Contact her at cfidalgo89@gmail.com.
