Episode 9: I Tested/Rated Free Popular Mental Health Apps for Improving Stress, Depression, Bipolar and Anxiety
Good morning y buenos dias. To my lovely friends all over the world welcome to the Noggin Podcast, a cozy mental health advocacy podcast with me, Kyarra Keele. It genuinely means so much to me that you’re here.
On this podcast we provide a safe, loving space advocating for diverse mental health dialogue in the community for people of color, educating about marginalized mental illnesses, and providing resources for mental health recovery. If that's what you’re looking for, welcome home.
If you’ve already listened to me introduce myself briefly in a different episode, you can skip ahead about 40 seconds because I value your time. But, if you’ve never stumbled across me before, again I’m Kyarra Keele. I’m a 4-time published author, healthy lifestyle blogger of 6 years, and an aspiring polyglot currently learning 4 languages, which are Spanish, and American Sign Language and I’m also gradually learning French and Arabic. I’m a mental health ambassador working as a liaison between the community and my local health center to educate, support and progress the mental health dialogue. I’ve been navigating the mental health system for about a decade now and I’m extremely passionate about mental health service and advocacy because I believe that no one deserves to be hurting or feeling alone in this universe. I hope this compassionate podcast will cheer you along on your good days and offer a cozy and supportive haven for you on your more difficult days.
Bueno, today is an exciting day because I’m doing a part 2 of an episode from a few months back that many of you LOVED which was Episode 4: I Tested and Rated Mental Health Hotlines + Why and How to Give Mental Health Hotlines A(nother) Chance. This is my episode with the second highest number of listens and it was requested directly from you all. By the way, if you’re interested in showing your love and support to The Noggin Podcast, showing you care about mental health advocacy and having access to private messaging to chat with me and influence and request the next topics, or get a live name shout out on the next episode, you can officially check out my Patreon page at patreon.com/thenogginpodcast. I also do uplifting personalized notes for my patreons, so check that out. Every dollar given is deeply appreciated and helps me to continue creating high quality content that provides a cozy and comforting space for those who need it most in this swirling world.
In last week’s episode, I talked about the loneliness pandemic that I believe has gotten substantially worse for many of us since this virus began to affect our communities.I shared hare some fascinating research about the staggering effects of loneliness on the body and mind and we explored how to cope with loneliness and emptiness during these times of social distancing. Finally we discussed how to learn to be your own close friend if you don’t have someone to lean on in these times.
Now, in part 2 of the I Tested and Rated Mental Health Hotlines episode, there is a slight plot twist...I’ll be testing a bunch of free mental health apps and free online mental health chat rooms today instead of text hotlines. So, I’ll be giving you a detailed tour of the interesting highlights of each app or chat room, share the good, bad and the ugly and ultimately rate the best ones.
Just a little side note: I was inspired to make this part two because when I was growing up and struggling the most with my own mental health, these types of mental health apps and online chat room resources were not available to me and now there is a plethora of them. However, many of them need work and I want to present to you the ones that may be more useful and more thoughtfully crafted for you.
But before I reveal the apps and online chats, one more thing! And if you've been with me for awhile, you already know what it is! Let’s take a quick break to do our Noggin Nurturing segment together, where we take a break from the episode to do one thing to nurture and invest in ourselves. As I always say, a plant collector, I’ve learned that much like plants, our minds need gentle encouragement. So, let’s use this noggin nurturing segment to motivate ourselves to get out of bed and get going. Need some ideas of what you can do? Well, you can make yourself a cozy cup of tea, ask for or give someone a hug, do some gentle stretching, make a phone call to someone you love, or make that brave call to make your first or next counseling appointment, journal, make your to-do list for the day, or plan out a healthy breakfast. You could take a short 5 or 10 minute walk or if you’re on medication, you can use this time to take your meds. If you’re in the car or on public transit commuting, you could try listening to a song that makes you feel uplifted, or planning out your ideal day mentally. If you can’t try any of those examples for the segment, you can still participate, so don’t worry! I’d like you to make a pledge to yourself of what you’ll do to nurture yourself as soon as you finish your commute. As I always say, I truly understand that sometimes even the most simple tasks can feel like they take all of your energy, so please pick a task that’s gentle and kind to your body and mind. If all you can do for the pause is simply get out of bed and use the bathroom or get out of bed and brush your teeth, make that your plan of action and follow through. That’s okay. You’re doing your best. We’re all out here just trying to do our best. For myself to celebrate the Noggin Nurturing segment, I did two things I really enjoyed. One of which was video chatting with a good friend through using American Sign Language for about an hour. Secondly, I had a dance party by myself to a bunch of groovy latin and reggaeton beats and it was a lot of fun as well as a good workout. Let me know in the comment section what your favorite dance song is or if you know any cool deaf cultural spots in San Francisco for me to check out and practice my sign language. También, comment below to share with me and everyone in our home how you’ll spend the break for the Noggin Nurturing segment…The Noggin Podcast is brought to you today by Anchor. A service I actually use. The anchor app is the easiest way to make a podcast, ever. It's the only app that lets you record a high-quality podcast, and distribute it everywhere (including Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts) – all in one place. No fancy equipment or podcasting experience necessary, and even better than all of that, it’s 100% free! I’ve tried plenty of other podcast editing apps that make it a headache to import and export your audio files but Anchor’s intuitive platform makes it nice and easy.
Bueno, let’s jump right in because I know many of you are excited to hear about what apps and mental health chat resources I have up my sleeve. To the apps!
Rootd - the Panic Attack and Anxiety Relief app has a pretty self explanatory title and is a female led app for helping anyone of all ages and genders overcome anxiety and regain confidence using proven lessons, interactive breathing tools, exercises and a feature for when you need to hear a friendly voice, you can immediately call a friend, family member, or nearby help center directly from the Rootd app.
After activating what the app calls the “Rootr” with the press of a big red button, you are presented with two guided paths to relieving the panic: one for when you’re ready to face the panic attack head-on, and another for when you just want to find comfort as quickly as possible.The point of the app, as they say in their description is to blend both immediate help and long term support.
There is also a Personal Stats Page regarding where you can take pride in your healing progress and gain appreciation for how far you’ve come with a personal stats page that tracks your number of panic attacks survived, lessons completed, and overall “warrior points”. I have to say right off the bat this app attracted me with it’s spunky and unique design and the funny little app character named Ron.
As with the other apps I’ll be mentioning in this episode, this one is free to download and free to use those, though it does have some in app purchases that you can make if you want to access more anxiety lesson plans. So, the basic lessons, “Breathr” tool and “Visualizr” tool are free.
Under the basic lessons you can learn all sorts of things such as what exactly anxiety is, the physical and mental effects, causes and theories, first steps to conquering it, and how to use the “Rootr” For every basic lesson you complete you earn points towards your daily count/goal. The breathr exercise is allows you to doing a moving circle breathing exercise for a minute a time following the prompt of the circles moving in and out. The visualizer tool offers something similar but with added voice guidance. Both of which could be wonderful tools for someone just dealing with a basic stressful day or someone dealing with a debilitating anxiety attack. Okay so for the grand finale, what are my thoughts on the big red Rootr button? Does it provide realistic support? Is it comforting?
Well, when you press the big red button, it asks how you’re feeling and you have the option of choosing not good/help me feel okay or confident/let’s do this. If you choose “help me feel okay”, the app will either silently or verbally walk you through guided , comforting statements. You can decide whether to have the voice read aloud to you or not. I personally just enjoyed reading the statements. Every 8 statements which would be about 8 minutes, the app will ask you how you're feeling and if the panic attack has ended and will allow you to click yes or no. If you click no, the app will show you new sets of comforting statements. If you click no two more times, the app will either ask if you want to contact your emergency comfort contact or if you want to continue viewing the comforting statements. You also have the option of exiting to go back to the breathing exercises.
Now, if you select the opposite option saying that you feel confident after you click the big red Rootr button, you will follow the prompts to gain a new found sense of confidence to work through the feelings you’re feeling. Basically, this option encourages you to flow with the feeling of anxiety and not fight them. It encourages you to not be afraid of anxiety. This strategy is exactly how I learned to overcome my anxiety attacks; by basically giving them the middle finger and deciding to not be afraid of them anymore even though the experience was scary at first every time. A sense of humor and deciding not to be afraid anymore, changed my entire perspective with anxiety. I would rate this app a 4.5 out of 5.
Okay, que está siguiente en la lista? What’s next? What's Up? is a free app with 500,000 downloads utilising some of the best CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) methods to help you cope with Depression, Anxiety, Anger, Stress and more! The app is modern yet very simplistic and easy to use. It’s built on a scroll left system to navigate through most of the app. The app is split into 4 main sections which then each have several sub sections. The four main ones are Help Right Now, Coping Strategies, Information, and Personal.
Let’s talk about some of its top features: Firstly it has a guide on 12 common negative thinking patterns and simple methods to overcome them, 10 great metaphors to help you cope with negative feelings, a comprehensive diary to keep your thoughts and feelings together including the ability to rate feelings on a scale out of 10. There is also a positive and negative habit tracker to set goals to practice those good habits while ending the bad ones! There’s a catastrophe scale to put your problems into a better perspective when things are too much and a grounding game containing over 100 fun questions to help keep you grounded and in the present when stress is taking over. For those of you looking for meditation help, there are 3 simple breathing techniques for keeping calm and relaxed. This app also has forums to talk with people that may be feeling just like you from all around the planet, without worrying about the like/dislike system. And finally there is a 70 positive quotes collection, with the ability to add your own and share them with the world and passcode protection and data backup capabilities.
Wheew alright, now I’m going to evaluate some of these main features I mentioned above highlight things you might be interested in:
The Get Grounded Featured gives questions like: ”Name 5 countries in the world” or “Name 5 songs you really like” and allows you to click each of the 5 interactive buttons as you brainstorm which is something I think could be really helpful if you’re someone who needs a distraction from an impulsive decision or destructive behavior.
Next, I gave the three types of guided breathing techniques a try which were belly breathing, 4-7-8 breathing and roll breathing. I found the 4-7-8 breathing to be rather relaxing and worth the effort, the belly breathing the simplest and the roll breathing to be a little too complex to visualize. I would highly recommend trying the 4-7-8 style where you place your hand on stomach, breathe in for four counts, hold your breath for seven counts and breathe out for eight counts. But if you like simplicity just go for the basic belly breathing option. The only downside of the app’s breathing exercises is that there is no guided visual unlike with Rootd.
After that, I found that the Catastrophic Scale 1-10 feature is actually quite a helpful interactive tool where you can slide the meter which changes the facial expression of the emojii and also changes the little message. For example at 0 on the scale, “Everything in life is perfect” 5 is “This isn’t the best day but it’s not the worst either and it will get better soon” and 10 is “Everything has fallen apart” I won’t read and spoil the numbers in between so you can still explore for yourself. I only wish there was a way to save your catastrophic scale for each day.
The forum section: Ah the forum section...gosh... I feel ambivalent about this part of the app, because I think for people who are like me and are naturally more prone to taking in the sadness of other people, this forum would be potentially upsetting and not helpful. Personally if I were to use this app, I would steer clear of the forum and just focus on the more positive aspects of the app that are more self-focused. Because it is indeed your journey and sometimes it’s important not to wade too deep into the misery of others. However if you do choose to explore the forums, there is one positive element that I noted: Something I love about it that is explained during the intro tour of the app, is that there are no like or dislike buttons and no way to view how many people viewed the post. The creator says this is purposely done to get rid of the culture of comparison and to prevent people from feeling bad about themselves through the poor habit of comparison.
Next, the uplifting quote section: I read through most of the quotes and I’d like to share a few lovely ones here that I found: “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”-Mark Twain. I like this quote because I think many individuals with mental illnesses often spend some much time worrying...about the past, about the future, about what other people think, about our potential...and often times this worrying just intensifies the suffering. In fact, I believe there’s a quote by someone that says worrying means that we suffer twice.
Another quote: “If you say you can or you can’t, either way, you’re right”- Henry Ford
My dad used to say that quote to me as a kid and it’s something I always keep in the back of my mind. Our inner self talk that we cultivate shapes our life’s narrative completely.
“No matter what the situation, remind yourself, I have a choice” - Deepak Chopra
I love the quote because this is something I live by and think about frequently. We make thousands of little choices every day. Get up at 5 or get up at 8, drink water or drink coffee or drink nothing, exercise for 10 minutes or an hour or not at all, stairs or elevator, smile or complain, talk or listen, organize or take shortcuts, work or slack, plan or hope for the best. There are always small choices we can make to improve the situation. And the final two quotes I’ll share but again I want to leave plenty for you to explore if you check out this app are: “Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself” - Leo Tolstoy and “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill. Enough said.
In the metaphors section of the app, there was one metaphor that I found particularly insightful which says “You can be in the driving seat, whilst all the passengers (thoughts) are noisily chattering, being critical, or shouting out directions. You can allow them to shout but keep your attention on the road ahead, ignoring what they say and not letting it affect you”
I think that’s a wonderful metaphor for combating negative thought patterns and there are 9 other metaphors for you to check out.
The last thing I wanted to highlight about the app is that there is a “Help Websites” section with more resources for anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and life ending thoughts. Overall, I think this app is rather informative and though it’s not the cutest and most aesthetically pleasing app in the sense that the design is a little plain, I very much so appreciate that it exists and I’m sure that it could be of great use to many individuals with mental health struggles.
I would rate this app 3.5 out of 5.
I also tested Vibrant.org’s mental health online chat called the NYC Well Chat. At first I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to access this one because I don’t live in New York but it appears that anyone can use this online chat. There was no sign-in which is always nice if you want to speak to someone as fast as possible and you have the choice to either speak to a counselor or to speak to a peer support specialist. According to the website, a Peer Support Specialist has their own experience with mental health and/or substance misuse challenges, and knows firsthand the importance that listening and support has in one’s recovery. I was connected with a peer support specialist within about 2 minutes and the conversation was pleasant and uplifting. I chose to talk to a peer support specialist instead of a counselor because I often find that peers can more naturally communicate and relate to the struggles, though if you’re dealing with more intense struggles or a crisis it may be best to choose the counselor option instead.
I would rate this online chat resource 5 out of 5.
I also tested an app called Daylio that I discussed in my Episode 7 which was about how to feel better on low energy and bad mental health days. Daylio requires even less energy than traditional journaling because you don’t have to type out how you’re feeling (though you have that option if you want to). Straight from their website they say: “Keep a free private diary and capture your day without writing down a single line! Daylio is collecting recorded moods and activities in the statistics and calendar. This format will help you to understand your habits better. Keep track of your activities and create patterns to become more productive. Use beautiful charts and yearly stats to turn your life around! Okay now that all sounds nice and dandy but does it actually work and is it worth your time?
Let me explore that...Basically you can just choose the emotion icon along with what activity you’re doing at that moment. I personally use the app every single day, often multiple times per day and I’ve recommended it to several of my friends and my counselor. The app allows you to track your mood with custom emotions you can change, you can compare your emotional changes over the days, weeks and months, in circle or line graphs. And the app is available in dozens of languages and will remind you daily to log your emotions. As I said in episode 7, I like to start my day off with checking in with how I’m feeling so that as the day continues I can see the progress (hopefully). Tracking your mood can help ensure that you’re aware of what activities and behaviors make your mental health worse and what improves your state. And moreover it allows you to release all of the emotions you’re feeling and to see them out in front of you. I love the modern and upbeat feeling of the app and the highly interactive nature. All in all, yes this app is worth your time because the charts and stats feature really helps you understand your mental patterns and can help give you something to SHOW your therapist or psychiatrist when they ask how you’ve been feeling for the past few days, weeks or months. Because they do ask that a lot. And it’s frustrating when you can’t remember. So, try this app!
I rate this one 5 out of 5 stars.
Next, iPrevail is a welcoming website where you can chat with a trained peer for what they call “Wellness chats” You click the chat button, and you don’t even need to make an account. A virtual assistant named Amber starts out by asking you a few basic questions. Age, gender, How many times a week do you feel overwhelmed by stress? How often you have problems with your sleep on a scale, and one or two other relevant questions. Then I was connected with a real human volunteer to chat with, within 1-2 minutes. The conversation was pleasant and natural and not robotic or stiff at all which I appreciated very much. I also saw that they offered programs and coaching but after exploring more found out that this was not free. So the free aspect of this resource is just the peer to peer chat. To be completely transparent there was a glitch during the chat that made it appear that the other person had not replied to me for some time but when I typed “Are you there?”, her message immediately appeared and we continued our conversation normally. All in all, we talked for about 50 minutes and the person I spoke to was very kind. I liked that you can choose the person you speak with based on their profiles or you can allow the site to choose someone random for you. There are plenty of options of people to chose from if you’re looking for a certain type of personality to comfort you in times of crisis.
I would rate this one 3.8 out of 5.
And finally, innerhour Self Care Help Therapy for Depression and Anxiety is an app that provides a personalised 4-week self-help plan by first identifying your unique mental health needs.
So what does your plan entail?
Self-care activities, goal setting and tracking, mood tracking, InnerHour Resources, Allie the relief chatbot and a space to book qualified therapists
When you first enter the app, you’ll select a goal from their list of six which are sleep better, tackle stress, beat anxiety, overcome depression, manage anger and live happier. Then you’ll select what factors are causing issues in your life, and move onto an activity based on the goal you selected. For example, I selected live happier, so my activity was related to gratitude. I liked that there was an explanation of why each activity mattered as well. The app also had me do a happiness assessment that took about 4-5 minutes. Then step 3 is to when the app walks you through creating a 4 week personalized plan with daily activities. You can choose to set an alarm within the app during which you’ll do your activities to work towards your goal such as reducing stress and living happier.
I will note that there are ads for their premium membership sprinkled into the layout but all you have to do is x out of the ads and continue on. They even have a Covid19 self care course that is 100% free and walks you through 10 days to give you a piece of sanity and stability in bite size chunks each day.
Something really interesting about this app is that it has an interactive “happiness buddy” named Allie who you can talk to and use to guide you if you’re feeling sad, if you can’t sleep, you’re angry, anxious, tired and so on. At first I was skeptical of this little robot thinking that it couldn’t possibly make me feel any better or have enough vocabulary to make the so-called conversation interesting. But alas, I was wrong. This little robot was pretty well-crafted, and I talked to her easily for about 10 minutes while she shared some strategies for tackling the emotions I was feeling and it easily could have been a much longer conversation if I chose to keep engaging. Overall, I think this app offers quite a bit of value even in the free version, and offers even more value over time as you allow the app to track your mood and happiness levels or whatever other goals you specified. If you’re looking for something like Daylio but with extra features like a chatbot and affordable counselor woven into the app, this one might be for you but personally I prefer Daylio.
I would rate this one a 3.5 out of 5 just because I wasn’t very motivated to keep using it, however it definitely is an interesting and all encompassing app.
Okay, so, with all of that said which ones are my top two picks? I chose:
Daylio - Mood Tracker and Micro Diary for it’s excellent mood tracking design, colorful and welcoming format and practical daily use.
Next I choose Rootd - the Panic Attack and Anxiety Relief app for it’s unique and creative approach to tackling stress and anxiety and how helpful it’s information and exercises could be for anyone.
And last one I’d recommend is the NYC Well Chat (Online Chat Resource) if you want to speak directly to a real human being within minutes without logins and passwords or robots and have the option to speak to a counselor or a peer specialist, this is the one for you.
Alright, eso es todo para hoy! That’s all for today! Again, if you enjoy this podcast and value the cozy space it provides, you can support the podcast by becoming one of my beautiful Patreon supporters. Simply go to patreon.com/thenogginpodcast. Every dollar given is deeply appreciated and helps me to continue a cozy and comforting space for you.
For my much-loved hard of hearing and deaf community, transcripts in english are now available on the Noggin Podcast website and for my Latinx community transcripts in español will be coming very soon on the website for you all as well.
If you made it here to the conclusion of this episode, I’d like to say thank you so much. Muchisimas gracias. If you’re interested in learning more information about The Noggin Podcast you can visit our website and subscribe to be a part of our cozy home with new episode releases every other Monday morning. See you in the next episode! Nos vemos en el próximo episodio.