I, like many others, have a smartphone that I carry around with me more often than not. I, like many others, struggle with anxiety and depression but I still want to function and live my life. There’s an app for that. Well, there are apps for helping with that. An app, no matter how well made, cannot cure you. I do not recommend substituting therapy or necessary medication with apps, but they can be a useful addition. For those who have no access to therapy or medication, an app is better than nothing. All the apps listed below are free, but many have full versions that cost money or other in-app purchases.
1. Pacifica
This one is a multi-tool. The feature I use the most is the mood tracker, which allows you too rate your mood from Very Good to Awful, choose the particular emotions of the moment off a large menu, and write down the circumstances surrounding a moment. You can do this as many or as few times a day as you want and view a graph to show the progression of all the moods you’ve recorded. This can help discern triggers and thus help you better prepare coping mechanisms for such situations. It can also help identify patterns that could mean your depressive flare-ups are symptom of bipolar or some other disorder. There is also a journaling section to help deal with negative thought patterns and a section for recording goals. You can write in any goal you want or choose from the provided options which range from “ride in a car” to “go to class” to “do improv”. You then can rate how difficult you anticipate the task being for you on a scale of 1-10 and then when you complete the task, rate how hard it actually was from 1-10. This app is free with more options available in the paid version and is on both iOS and Android.
2. Noise Generator
I am not going to specify a particular app for this because there are so many good ones. I do have a favorite, but you should check out a few and see which ones you like best. Some provide only a small range of related sounds (e.g. rain sounds), others have many different sounds, some give you the ability to layer various sounds and adjust the levels. Lots of them are free and the ones that do cost money don’t typically cost a lot (though I stick with the free ones). Noise generators are very helpful for anxiety. I particularly favor them when I need to work on assignments in the midst of a panic or if an anxiety attack wakes me up and doesn’t let me get back to sleep. I also recommend them for relaxing in general.
3. Essence-- Breathing Relaxation
This is a very simple, no frills app that will guide you through a deep breathing exercise for as long as you need. The circle expands when you are supposed to inhale and deflates when you are supposed to exhale. The speed of inflation and deflation are meant to be a visual guide for the speed of inhalation and exhalation. It starts when you open the app and ends when you close it. This is another one that helps with anxiety. Hyper ventilating is a common companion of many panic attacks and an effective way to come down from that. Adrenaline regulates your breath, and that’s hard to do without some external guidance when you’re in the throes of a panic attack. This app is free and available for iOS.
