Mental Health Apps: Beneficial or Harmful?

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Mental Health Apps: Beneficial or Harmful?
• Mental Health Apps Can Help
• When Mental Health Apps Might Harm
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• Mental Health Quote

Mental Health Apps: Beneficial or Harmful?

If you have a smart phone, you may be aware that there are apps for almost everything, including mental health and wellbeing. Are mental health apps beneficial, or are they a waste of time (or even harmful)?

Mental Health Apps Can Help

If a mental health app is based on scientific research, it has the potential to do some good and help you overcome difficulties like stress, anxiety, and depressive thinking. Research-based apps often use one or more proven approaches to mental health like mindfulness, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and positive psychology. They offer interactive ways to help you recognize and overcome negative thoughts that keep you stuck, center your emotions, and choose positive actions in your life. (Each app is unique and targets different challenges with its own activities).

When used regularly and sometimes in conjunction with mental health therapy, these apps can help you improve your perspective and give you tools to calm yourself in the face of emotional or situational upheaval. That said, even good mental health apps have their limitations.

When Mental Health Apps Might Harm

Apps aren’t substitutes for professional mental health care, and they can’t assist people in crisis. They also aren’t great for people dealing with severe mental illness (including depression and anxiety, which many of these apps are designed to help).

Used wisely, mental health apps can be great tools. If you do use them, though, make them part of other treatments rather than as stand-alone therapies.

Related Articles Dealing with Mental Health Apps

• Mental Health Apps for Coping with Depression and Anxiety
• 5 Mental Health Recovery Apps You Should Try
• 7 Best Anxiety Apps to Help You Manage Your Anxiety
• 4 iPhone Apps to Help You Remain Grounded and Stable
• Mental Health Apps You Should Know About
• Mental Health Apps Can Change How Well You Cope

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: If you’ve tried mental health apps, what has your experience with them been like? We invite you to participate by sharing your thoughts, experiences, and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

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Living With & Loving Someone with Mental Illness: It’s Darn Tough

Abby stuck it out for 15 long years until she couldn’t take it anymore. She tried everything to help them both cope but, sometimes, love isn’t enough.

This Thursday, on our Facebook Live, Abby shares what it was like living with a partner dealing with depression, anxiety, and addiction and why she finally decided to call it quits.

Therapist, Caleb Dodson, will also be here to provide insight into the challenges of mental illness with relationships.

We start at 3p ET / 4 CT. As always, our guests take your personal questions and comments. We’ll see you then. In the meantime, check these out:

• How I Cope with My Partner’s Mental Illness
• Bipolar Spouse Support: Survival Strategies
• Tips on Dating Someone with a Mental Illness
• Mental Illness and Marriage: Make a Wellness Contract

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Reaching Out to Your Community for DID Support
• Tips to Stop Binge Eating at Night to Support ED Recovery
• Why It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better
• How Your Diet Affects Your Anxiety
• Self-Harm, Poor Body Image, and Drug-Induced Weight Gain
• Can Learned Behavior Masquerade as a Mental Illness?
• The Appearance of High-Functioning Bipolar Online
• What to Do When Your Depression Causes Dissociation
• Schizoaffective Disorder and the Summer of COVID-19
• How Sex Addiction Impacts a Marriage
• Is Your Self-Harm Getting Worse? Here's What to Do
• 8 Types of Activities to Include in Your Anxiety Plan
• Mental Health Issues in Extroverts, Introverts, and Ambiverts
• The Mundanity of Day-to-Day Anxiety
• Should You Talk About Your Bipolar at Work?
• How to Break Yourself of a Compulsive Body-Checking Habit
• Trust Your Decisions and Build Self-Esteem

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. What Is a Stim Toy? How Do They Soothe DID Symptoms?
2. Body Dissatisfaction and the Chronic Illness Behcet's Disease
3. The Best Mantras for Eating Disorder Recovery

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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Mental Health Quote

"Be your own kind of beautiful."

Read more mental health quotes.

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back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index