Are you hooked to your smartphone? While smartphone addiction can adversely affect your mental health, it can also be used to make you feel better and happier in life. These days you can easily find a ton of apps for doing anything you want. Want food delivered to your home? Done. Want a cab at your doorstep? It’s here. Want your laundry done? You got it. They have apps for dating, health, fitness, music, shopping, groceries, and whatnot. If we need it, they have an app for it.
Although these fun and helpful apps can help us live an easier life, can an app actually make us feel better when we are down, boost our mood and make us happier? Can technology address a much deeper need and not just materialistic ones?
Yes. It can. There are many psychology-based happiness and mental health apps out there that can not only improve your mood but also help you build new positive habits and change negative behaviors.
What do you mean by happiness?
Happiness is a state of mind developed through good mental habits. However, happiness is not the same as pleasure. Pleasure arises from fun, exciting, thrilling, and joyful experiences. But it is fleeting. Happiness, on the other hand, can be long-lasting as it is not dependent on an event or experience, or thing. It is a mental state that makes you feel better, calm, and warm from the inside.
According to Positive Psychology, happiness is alternatively identified as subjective well-being (SWB). It is a measure of your well-being that you can obtain and report yourself through a questionnaire.
SWB is described as the cognitive & affective (moods, emotions & feelings) evaluations of an individual and their life. If you enjoy high levels of satisfaction in your life with little or no negative effect and strong positive effect, then you will have high levels of subjective well-being. To put it simply, you will be a very happy individual.
Although it may be hard for most of us to be completely happy, it is not a win or loses situation. Between depression and enlightenment, you can experience innumerable levels of happiness. And the majority of us fall somewhere in the middle, instead of existing in either extreme.
Read 15 Prescriptions for Happiness That Will Change Your Life
Can mental health apps really make you happy?
Happiness apps are more helpful and useful than you can imagine. These self-care mental health apps can bring about a positive change in your life and direct you towards the path of happiness. If you are unable to manage time and have a busy daily schedule, then these feel-good apps can be really helpful for you.
These apps are readily available at the tap on the screen on your phone. Moreover, the apps are designed in a way to offer users a positive experience.
Receiving positive affirmations can make you feel happier and better when you need it the most, just like constant social media notifications can irritate and disturb you.
Some of these apps can help you change your thought process & cultivate a positive mindset by enabling you to improve your behavioral patterns through repetition.
Although not all apps will be super helpful, some of these can actually help you improve your mental health. But these are certainly not an alternative to visiting a mental health specialist or simply talking to a loved one.
Here’s why you need to use happiness apps:
- These are easily accessible and you may practice anytime, anywhere.
- You can use these apps regularly if you are in the habit of using a smartphone.
- Most of the apps are either free or really affordable.
- These can help you learn a lot of techniques and practices to boost your mental health.
- These apps can remind you to enjoy the small things and find happiness in your daily life.
These happiness apps can be a great start for anyone to create positive habits and better mental health in their everyday lives.
Top 5 mental health apps to help you become happier in life
Now that you know happiness-inducing apps can be great for your mental health, which apps should you start using immediately? The moment you search for happiness on the app store, thousands of mental health apps will pop up making you wonder which is the right one for you.
So to help you our in your quest for happiness, here are the best and most helpful happy apps that you will love to use.
1. Happify
Android: Free,
iPhone: Free
This all-new app is designed to help you cope with stress and find happiness through various online activities. Happify offers you customized games and fun activities that can alter your mood to make you focus on positivity and happiness.
Once you start by filling out a questionnaire, the app scores your happiness and provides scientifically validated personalized tracks to increase your happiness. You can also track the progress of your happiness. Available on iOS and Android, the app offers a free version to users with limited features.
Even though it’s a new app, Happify has excellent positive reviews from over 86% of the users. The users reported that they have felt better and happier in just 2 months since using this app.
Happify helps you to:
- Develop new positive habits through games and fun activities.
- Build skills to develop a happy and healthy mindset through scientifically-based techniques.
- Reduce stress and be more resilient.
- Develop habits that cultivate positive thinking.
Read 21 Habits That Happy People Master: Your Guide To Happiness
2. Calm
Android: Free
iPhone: Free
Calm does exactly what it says. It calms you down with their guided meditations, sleep stories, nature sounds, and more. This aptly named mental health app helps you find peace of mind regardless of what mood you’re in. Available at Google Play and iTunes, Calm is a free app that offers an excellent overall user experience. The moment you open the app, you instantly feel relaxed thanks to their pleasing imagery and soothing background sounds.
The guided meditation sessions are led by Tamara Levitt who expertly guides you through the entire meditation process leaving you completely relaxed and calm by the end. However, you can choose either guided meditations or unguided meditations. The app boasts a wide variety of meditation topics, a calendar to keep track of your meditation, and a stunning interface to give you the best experience. You can use the trial version for free which gives you access to multi-day meditation programs as well as one of the sleep stories.
The premium version offers features like:
- The “Daily Calm” meditation
- Multi-Day Meditation programs
- Soothing background scenes
- Calm Masterclasses
- The Breathe Bubble
- Calm Body exercises
- Sleep music and sounds
- Sleep Stories
Calm is an excellent all-around resource for practicing mindfulness on a daily basis. This app was listed as ‘Editors’ Choice’ by Google Play in 2018 and was named iPhone App of the Year in 2017 by Apple. A study found that over 200,000 iPhone users claimed Calm as ‘the world’s happiest app’ as it made them feel happier after using it.
3. SuperBetter
Android: Free
iPhone: Free
Want to feel optimistic, motivated, and stay strong even when the chips are down? Then you need to check out SuperBetter immediately. This app has been designed to help you bounce back from the challenges of life and make you more resilient, positive, and happy through a number of games and activities. The app uses gamification to unlock the hero inside you.
By completing daily activities and tracking your progress, you can earn points and gain power. It focuses on the little things like taking a walk or drinking a glass of water to move a step closer. You can also create a superhero origin story and a secret identity based on your preference.
SuperBetter promotes personal growth and reduces stress and anxiety by using gamification to utilize its psychological benefits and strengths in real life. You will learn new happiness-boosting skills by completing quests and activities to give you a boost of positive energy.
According to a University of Pennsylvania study, users of SuperBetter experienced better moods, improved self-confidence, reduced anxiety and depression, and a positive mindset in just 30 days. It is available on Google Play and iTunes for free.
4. Headspace
Android: Free
iPhone: Free
Headspace is perhaps the most popular app on this list. And with good reason. It is one of the best meditation, mindfulness, and mental health apps that you can use. Headspace not only aims to boost happiness but also reduce stress and anxiety in users. Available on Android and Apple iOS, this free app guides you through different meditation practices.
You can choose from the free basic meditations pack to specifically designed guided meditation for happiness, stress, negative thoughts, sleep, conscious eating, work,open-heart living, and various other facets of life. Headspace also allows you to track your progress and get rewards.
With their brief 10-minute mindfulness meditation, this beautifully designed mindfulness app helps you learn and practice meditation in a scientific and methodical way. If you’ve never meditated before, then Headspace is a great place to get started. It also features an SOS mode that allows you to quickly get control over your thoughts and emotions, especially when you are angry, panicked, or depressed.
It’s a fun, clean, attractive, and user-friendly app that will make you happy with its vibrant colors the moment you look at it.
Read 5 Reasons Why Laughter Is Really The Best Medicine
5. Bliss
Android: Free
iPhone: Free
Using proven psychological exercises, Bliss helps you to develop a positive mindset and live a happier and successful life. The app offers you the tools to improve your overall well-being by following the principles of Positive Psychology. With regular use of the app and proper practice, Bliss enables you to rewire your brain. It includes a wide range of exercises that are approved by psychologists that encourage you to reflect on your thoughts and experiences.
Available on Google Play Store and Chrome Web Store, the app helps you practice gratitude, self-development and create a positive outlook.
The app also promotes the practice of gratitude by including different gratitude exercises. It is a simple and user-friendly app with crisp, clear, and professional content. The best way to make the most of Bliss and be happy is through daily use. The app also saves your logs for future reference and reflection.
Do you need happiness apps?
According to a 2013 Harris Poll, only 1 in 3 U.S. citizens claimed that they felt very happy in life. This signifies that 2 out of 3 Americans either feel depressed, unhappy or uninspired in life. With our fast-paced lives, we are always running after something. Something that we believe will make us happier when we reach there. But that’s where we are wrong.
Happiness is never about the destination. It is always about the journey. But we tend to easily forget that as we are struggling to earn our college degrees, get a job, pay bills, take care of our families, fight to keep our relationships, earn another paycheck and deal with all other responsibilities that life throws at us.
As we are trying to manage these challenges, we avoid what actually matters to us. We avoid ourselves, our loved ones, our relationships, and the things we are passionate about. This is what kills our happiness.
This crazy world is dominated by responsibilities, obligations, competitions, rivalries, and deadlines and is getting further corrupted by technology. Most of us use our smartphones as a means of escape, a distraction from the ugliness of our reality. But did you know our smartphone can actually be the gateway to your happiness? Feel good apps can help us catch our breath, take a moment of pause, wind down and improve our moods.
These science-based mental health apps can not only help us to be more grateful, make us happier and find inner peace, these happiness apps can also help us improve our relationships, meditate, exercise, and live a better life. Most of these apps utilize psychological principles to improve our mental health and overall wellbeing.
Read The Key To Rediscovering Inner Happiness Based On Your Zodiac Sign
Tap your way to happiness
Mental health apps can be a great way to feel better and happier in life but these are in no way an alternative to living a meaningful life surrounded by your loved ones and pursuing your passions. However, these apps can be the perfect replacement for wasting excessive time on social media that leave you feeling negative and alienated.
These science-backed apps are designed to decrease stress and enhance well-being. Through regular use of these mental health apps, you can start practicing mindfulness, gratitude, meditations, and other practices that will make you feel a lot more positive and happy than you are right now.
So go ahead and try out these mental health apps and see which one works for you the best.
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