Everyone has smartphones these days and the benefits are endless, not least that there are a wealth of useful apps to download. More and more apps are targeting the mental wellbeing market and revolutionising how we monitor and evaluate our mental health.
There are more than 500 mindfulness apps. There are apps such as Daylio, which monitors your mood, creates graphs of overall mood and enables you to diarise your daily feelings. Headspace teaches guided meditation in handy ten minute sessions. 21 days of Gratitudehelps you increase your daily dose of gratitude, an aid to mental wellbeing and there are many, many more apps to download and test drive.
It could be said that an app cannot replace face-to-face teaching, such as by experienced meditation and mindfulness teachers. However, the revolution does not show any signs of slowing down yet and there is certainly an appetite for these apps amongst people experiencing high levels of stress in this modern world.
These apps can be an inroad for a person to start monitoring and assessing their mental health which may in turn lead them to get more expert assistance if they need it. Having such a smorgasbord of apps to improve mental wellbeing is certainly helping break down stigma around mental health and normalise it for society.
At Bridge, we support people with enduring and long-term mental health conditions providing support and care in the community. It is unlikely that a ten minute meditation will alleviate symptoms of a serious untreated mental illness, and if you are experiencing such symptoms you should see your GP and access local mental health services, such as Bridge, immediately. However, should you be already on the road to recovery, as many of our clients are, such apps could be useful tools to monitor and improve your moods yourself while also taking advantage of real life treatments such as psychotherapy and counselling.
Overall, enabling so many more people to access wellbeing tools can only serve to increase awareness and help improve the mental wellbeing of society.