What do Ryan Reynolds, Adele, Selena Gomez, Dwayne Johnson have in common (beside the fact that they are all A-list celebrities)?
They have all spoken out about mental health and their struggles with it. This goes to show that no matter how rich, successful or ‘perfect’ someone’s life may seem, nobody is truly immune to mental health issues.
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, US gymnast Simone Biles made the headlines when she withdrew from competition, prioritizing her mental health needs instead. In the 2024 Olympics, she made a noteworthy comeback, sweeping up 4 medals! Her decisions proved that taking care of mental health when required, does have an immense impact on performance too.
Indeed, mental health issues are more common than people realize. WHO estimates that 1 in 8 people (about 970 million people globally) experience a mental health disorder. Anxiety is a major contributor here – with about 18% of people facing anxiety disorders like panic, obsessive thinking, post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and various phobias.
Unfortunately, due to cost constraints and lack of access to therapy, a lot of people don’t receive the help they need, when they need it. It is reported that 1 in 4 adults in America go without the required care due to high costs. Even those who can afford help often have to wait about 12 weeks before a professional is available to speak to them. Stigma remains another obstacle – with people hesitating to ask for help for fear of biases. The impact is not just emotional. Over time, mental distress starts affecting physical health – increasing the risk of heart disease, strokes, diabetes and other conditions.
Today, most modern employers are recognizing the concerns around mental health and prioritizing support offerings as a part of their benefits package.
Mental health apps are a great way to bridge the cost, availability and bias gaps that exist when it comes to support. These apps are tech platforms that offer everything from mindfulness exercises, journaling, mood tracking, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – at speed and scale. They help with everyday issues like daily stresses, difficulty falling asleep, anxiety, and work-related conditions.
Also, with lots of highly skilled mental health experts working as independent consultants, these apps are able to connect their users to licensed professionals quickly and at an affordable rate.
Though not a replacement for therapy, these apps do have tangible advantages for self regulation and care. In fact, most employers now include these as a crucial part of the bouquet of mental health resources that they offer employees.
There are many offerings in the market today, and what one chooses depends on specific needs. Here are a few things to look out for:
User interface and ease of use
A good mental health app should be intuitive and easy to navigate. An app that crashes or glitches frequently can be frustrating at the best of times – and is certainly not ideal when someone is going through an emotional crisis and needs immediate assistance!
Features and functionality
Every app has certain basic as well as unique features like mood tracking, therapy, guided meditation, or CBT exercises. Assess the functionalities that would be the most helpful for you or your team. For example, for people seeking one-on-one professional help, a self-guided meditation app may not suffice. You’ll need platforms that connect you to human therapists.
Privacy policies
Privacy concerns are a big consideration here. Mental health information is obviously very personal, so a lack of transparent privacy policies and security protocols is a major red flag that should not be ignored.
Professional-backed, science-based offerings
Watch out for apps that rely on pseudoscience and psychological jargon. Mental health is a serious issue – and without the backing of legitimate science and licensed professionals, any ‘support’ offered can do more harm than good.
Customer support
If users need help or experience technical issues, they’ll need great customer assistance that enables them to get the help they require – stat! Long wait times, helplines that pass the buck, or support teams that do not speak your language may defeat the purpose.
Pricing
Finally, the app that’s best for you and your team is one that fits in your budget – while still offering relevant support. Many businesses offer the free versions of popular mental health apps to their teams without considering the fact that they may not include the features that employees actually need.
This is one of the most popular apps for mental health, with 2.8 million subscribers using Headspace. With features around sleep assistance, guided meditation, resources for mindfulness, managing anxiety and lots more, this is one of the most comprehensive apps for mental health self-care out there.
Pricing: Headspace comes at a monthly subscription of $12.99. For those who are still shopping around, there’s a 14-day trial that lets you try out the features for free first. Users who swear by Headspace and use it regularly prefer the annual subscription plan, which works out to be more economical at $69.99. There’s also a family plan for $99.99 that lets users add up to 6 family members. Businesses can reach out to the company for custom plans catering to employee wellbeing and EAP services.
Features: Headspace has a huge library of 500+ guided meditation content around body scanning, grounding techniques, stress management, relaxation and more. When it comes to mindfulness, Headspace offers specific techniques catering to different areas of a user’s life – like mindful spending, eating or tech usage.
The sleep aids on Headspace are one of the app’s most-loved features. From soothing music, sleepcasts and stories to fall asleep to, to science-backed sleep meditation exercises and even sleep hygiene tips, the app offers it all. Users can also reach out to personal mental health coaches for text-based support when needed.
Reviews: Headspace is rated at 4.8 out of 5 stars on the App Store, with users praising the app's offerings around mindfulness guidance, pain management and insomnia assistance. As one user reviewed, ‘I have learned to manage stress and anxiety in a way that I had never thought was possible.’
Calm is a top app for meditation and sleep relief, with 4.5 million subscribers as of 2023. It stands out with its sleep meditations, soundscapes, grounding techniques and access to in-the-moment support for stress relief.
Pricing: Calm comes with a reasonable annual subscription fee of $49.99, as well as a free 14-day trial. For businesses looking to offer Calm subscriptions to its employees as a benefit, there are customized enterprise plans catering to 5-500 people – starting at $318.90 per year for 5 people.
Features: Calm stands out with its resources for in-the-moment relief – be it for stress, anxiety or negative thoughts. Their meditations, grounding and relaxation exercises are guided by clinical experts. Users can choose from a huge catalog that includes everything from 2-minute breath-work to 10-minute ‘Daily Calm’ mindfulness sessions and even longer 7-day programs.
Their library of 300+ sleep stories is a unique feature – narrated by celebrities like Matthew McConaughey, Idris Elba, and Jennifer Garner, these are designed to be bedtime stories for adults. Enterprise users can access customized support – like general company-wide mental health assistance, condition-specific resources and burnout support.
Reviews: Calm has an App Store rating 4.8 out of 5, with users calling out the incredible soundscapes, meditation resources and the sleep stories. ‘Calm allows me to find hope in my current predicaments, and is amazing at calming me down,’ reports one user.
Erika’s Lighthouse is a program specifically designed for children and teens. It partners with schools to offer key resources for adolescent depression and mental health.
Pricing: Since Erika’s Lighthouse is a non-profit organization, access to it is completely free. The program does accept donations to continue their mission and amplify their impact.
Features: Erika’s Lighthouse brings free mental health school programs, focussed around tackling depression and prevention of suicides. They have 12+ programs in their repertoire, including grade-specific classroom resources, student-led mental health empowerment clubs, and staff training programs that equip school staff with policies, tips and best practices to function as allies for students who need help.
They also engage families with handy workbooks, workshops and resources that they can use to support kids at home.
Reviews: Erika’s Lighthouse has a score of 93% (4 stars out of 5) on Charity Navigator. The program is well-loved by educators and students alike. One student says, ‘This program kept me interested and informed and I really appreciate that I can now help myself or someone I know who may be struggling with depression.’
Moodfit takes a more data-driven approach to mental health, providing resources for action-based support strategies. They have customizable tools that help users understand what’s holding them back, what they need to break out of obstacles, meet specific goals and improve their lives in various ways.
Pricing: The free Moodfit plan comes with pared-down offerings like gratitude and mood journaling – great to get started on your mental health journey. The Premium plan comes at $29.99 (discounted from $39.99) for a year and $39.99 (discounted from $79.98) for 2 years. This plan includes more comprehensive nervous system tools, breathwork resources, insights based on mood tracking, thought records and more.
Features: The mood journals help users maintain an ongoing record of their moods, look back on their mood history, and receive insights based on entries. They also have goal-based insights – with data to help users recognize patterns that are keeping them stuck, procrastinating, or in counterproductive fight, flight, freeze or fawn states. There are cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)-based tools too, like thought records to identify distorted thinking patterns and gratitude journals for positive mental rewiring.
The app works as a companion for therapy with many mental health professionals using it to set tasks and homework to clients. Moodfit has dedicated organizational offerings with Premium access for all members and population-level analytics for employers.
Reviews: Moodfit has 4.1 stars on Google Play, with users appreciating the trackers and thought record tools. It is ‘Concise, user friendly and helpful,’ as per one reviewer. While there’s great customer support available, some find the app tough to navigate intuitively.
Worry Watch is a mood tracker, an anxiety thought journal and a coping resource provider rolled in one. It uses evidence-based CBT strategies to help users cope with anxiety and keep track of their negative and worrying thoughts.
Pricing: There is a free version of the app that lets you access limited features – like being able to input only one journal entry daily. The paid version however, is quite affordable, at only $11.99 for an annual subscription.
Features: Worry Watch helps users track daily worries, identify what triggers their anxiety and learn CBT-backed coping mechanisms and techniques to manage those emotions. With options to input detailed thought processes, chart out an action plan and reflect on outcomes at a later stage, it can be a comprehensive solution for self-guided emotional regulation.
The coping strategies include breathing exercises, grounding techniques, mindfulness and meditation.
Reviews: Worry Watch has 4.6 stars on the App Store. One user appreciated the options to ‘verbalize my fears, categorize them, and reflect back on them,’ noting that doing so has enabled them to spot patterns of unnecessary overthinking and stress.
This is an AI-powered mental health platform. One of the biggest problems users face is the long wait time of 2-3 months to get the professional help they need. Woebot bridges that gap by offering mental health support at scale.
Pricing: Woebot has no subscription fee. It is currently available only in the US, and is accessible through healthcare providers, insurance plans and business benefits. Organizations interested in providing this service to employees can fill out a query form on their website and get customized plans and support.
Features: Woebot’s biggest USP is that it can provide in-the-moment support – even if a user needs help at 2 am. The app facilitates therapy-based conversations that help users with emotional regulation and mood management. These conversations are based around Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) approaches and are written together with clinical experts – offering the best of technology and human understanding.
Additionally, it also has self-help tools for stress and anxiety – like mood tracking, gratitude journaling, mindfulness practices and more, all designed to address unsolved behavioral concerns.
Reviews: Woebot has a Google Play Rating of 4.7 stars. Users who have been through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy already and want to keep up the work, swear by the app. Equally importantly, they say that the conversations are very natural and human. ‘Won't take the place of a therapist of course, but super useful in finding cognitive distortions and things like that in my thinking,’ sums up one reviewer.
Sanvello has recently partnered with AbleTo to provide on-demand, 1-on-1 virtual coaching and therapy services, as well as research-backed meditation and stress management tools that are accessible 24/7.
Pricing: The app has a free version with limited offerings. The Premium self-care option comes at $8.99 per month and $53.99 annually. The professional therapy and coaching options however, cannot be accessed through a self-pay plan – they are available through specific insurance plans only.
Features: The self-care tools provide mood tracking, guided journaling, CBT exercises and meditation. For users who need more hands-on support, the platform connects you to therapists and coaches for 1-on-1 programs. These are CBT-focussed programs conducted over 8 weeks, and they teach actionable skills to help users achieve specific goals.
Reviews: Sanvello/ AbleTo has 4.7 stars on the App Store, with users loving the professional expertise the platform offers up. As one user reported, ‘My coach is very observant. She was able to tell from less than 30 minutes of talking that I have Asperger’s Syndrome. The fact that she was able to guess that correctly means that AbleTo definitely hired a very intelligent therapist.’
However, if you are looking for a mobile-friendly mental health app, you may not find this very navigable – especially after the transition from the original Sanvello app.
ifeel functions as an organizational wellness and mental health companion for HR departments. It focuses on holistic growth for employees, helping them tackle issues like work stress, anxiety and burnout as well as resources for professional skill-building.
Pricing: ifeel engages with users in two ways – chat support as well as video calls. The chat plans offer unlimited messaging options at €30 per week. The video call plans are €39 per week, and gives users access to one 40-minute therapy session weekly.
Features: Specially curated for corporate employees, this app offers mental well-being support via 600+ psychologists in over 30+ countries. It enables employees to reach out to specialized psychologists for much-needed interventions or prevention of emotional crises. Apart from mental wellness, these experts also offer professional development training – guiding them on leadership, communication, team skills and more.
Additionally, employers can organize workshops and group training sessions for teams through ifeel. They also receive enterprise-level wellness performance reports (generated through anonymous data). This helps them track the overall well-being of the company.
Reviews: The app records a 3.8 star rating on Google Play. Users offer mixed reviews with some reporting issues around accessing the available support and navigating the app, especially on Android devices.
Others love the personal approach, saying that the professionals ‘listened and understood everything I said, and empowered me…to make the choices I needed to make to pull myself out of my anxiety and depression.’
Gaming meets psychology in Happify – a unique app that engages its users through science-based activities. Each activity is meant to be a soothing exercise that subtly reframes users’ thought processes and tunes them for a happier, more positive mindframe.
Pricing: There is a free version of the app that unlocks limited activities for users, but doesn’t offer the more advanced features like happiness tracking. However, you can subscribe to Happify for a monthly fee of $14.99 – or an annual fee of $139.99. The app also has a lifetime subscription plan for $449.95.
Features: Happify provides a charming experience with CBT-based interactive games, journaling practices and exercises that reduce stress.
The app stands out with two major advantages. First – each activity is made to be completed in just 5-15 minutes, making it easy for people to stay consistent without getting overwhelmed.
Second – the journey is highly user-driven. You can set your own happiness score and create an action plan to start improving it. There are over 70 programs you can choose from to achieve specific outcomes like positive thinking, being more mindful and so on. Users report a shift in their thinking within 2 months of using the app. Happify also provides additional guidance with a therapeutic assistant trained by clinicians.
Reviews: On the App Store, Happify scores high with 4.5 stars. Where other activity-based apps quickly start feeling like a chore, Happify has managed to keep its users engaged over the long term. As one user says, ‘I’m defaulting to joy more quickly, finding it easier to take my focus away from negative stuff to enjoyable experiences.’
Daylio is a digital bullet journal that goes the extra mile. It lets users track moods and daily activities with just a few taps, thus taking a minimalist approach to day-to-day mental health record-keeping.
Pricing: The free version of Daylio is already pretty comprehensive, with robust features for daily mood journaling. The Premium version unlocks unlimited moods and goals to choose from, nifty features like extra reminders and more. The Premium version comes at a cost of $4.99 per month or $35.99 per year – and can be tried out for free with a 7-day trial.
Features: Daylio is preferred by people who like to maintain a daily journal of their moods and activities, but usually lose steam when they have to write out their thoughts. The app enables users to keep track of everything important by clicking through the various options. Those who want to maintain more detailed records can optionally add notes or voice memos.
Daylio then crunches the data and generates insightful charts and statistics that let users get a holistic view of their emotions.
Reviews: Daylio is highly rated on the App Store with 4.8 out of 5 stars. Users love the simplistic functionalities and the ease of use. One reviewer appreciated the minimalistic approach by saying, ‘It helped me begin to be able to track what was making me happy and what was making me sad and spotting the consistency of these activities correlating with my moods.’
Science-based and AI-backed, Unmind is known to transform workplace mental health through an employee empowerment approach. Its programs tackle various aspects of mental health, so workers can thrive at work and beyond.
Pricing: This subscription is available through employers and healthcare partners. The pricing options will vary from enterprise to enterprise – but on an average, it costs about £5-20 per employee per month.
Features: This app too, offers the best of both worlds – tech availability and human excellence. The conversational coaching function is backed by AI, so it is able to provide 24/7 support. There are also tools for wellbeing, burnout reduction and other resources that are available round the clock. Additionally, employees get access to licensed therapists and coaches, specializing in 50+ areas of mental wellbeing.
On the professional front, workers get outcome-based training and resources – helping them build skills as managers, leaders and team members. The employer organization receives workplace wellness and development insights that help them make data-driven decisions. Unmind counts companies like Standard Chartered and Uber as its clients, offering support to their thousands of employees.
Reviews: Unmind has 4.0 stars on the App Store, with employees loving the app, and the courses it offers. One user claims, ‘I was able to book a session with a therapist in minutes just from my phone… Free therapy every week has changed my life.’
However, some have voiced the need for a better user interface, saying that navigating the app and locating favorite courses are currently a bit challenging.
This is another workplace-specific platform that offers teams access to professional therapy and coaching, as and when they need it. Not only does Oliva Health help them build a positive mindset, but also lets them develop skills and habits for success.
Pricing: Oliva Health is available to enterprise users. Companies can access business pricing upon request, which is determined based on specific needs.
Features: Oliva Health brings employees therapy, coaching, and sessions to tackle both personal and professional challenges. These sessions can be accessed on a one-on-one level, at a cohort-level, as well as at a larger group-level. Their EAP offerings provide crucial advantages like 24/7 support, employee helplines and more.
Managers can access coaching sessions and workshops that equip them to build key leadership skills and foster a sustainable growth culture. HR teams too, have ebooks, workshops and other content to help them nurture healthy, high-performing teams.
Reviews: Oliva Health has an impressive 4.9 star rating on G2. Many employees have seen tangible benefits while navigating challenges – from managing conditions like ADHD, dealing with grief or tackling difficult conversations in the workplace. They have found the therapists on the platform professional and helpful, with one reviewer noting that ‘Everything was relaxed and supportive during the session.
Mental health support can largely be categorized in two ways – self-guided or professional-guided. What you ultimately choose depends on the requirements within your team.
If you think daily meditation, mindfulness and self-care is what your employees need, popular apps like Headspace or Calm can’t be beat. On the other hand, if you want your employees to access professional therapy, ifeel or AbleTo are a better choice.
So dive into the options we have discussed above, explore their offerings – and don’t hesitate to reach out to their teams for assistance or customized plans before making your choice!