It seems a little bizarre but there’s just about an app for everything these days. After a week of reading about World Mental Health Day and the importance of maintaining mental health it occurred to me that there must be an app for it as well.
As it goes, mental health apps are starting to emerge and some are very cool indeed. The apps provide some way to assist in self-regulation of your mental health through your phone. This will unlikely be as good as seeing a professional counsellor, but if it works for you then it’s worth a try after all we all need to manage stress and anxiety at one or many times in our lives.
The apps we identified essentially help you monitor your own state of well-being utilise tools that can support your mental health conditions.
The great news is that mental health apps work anytime, day or night and you don’t need to book an appointment to see a specialist. You can be sitting in your donga after your shift in the midst of the Simpson desert and they may be able to assist you in coming to terms with your current state of well-being. Of course, we would remind people that these are tools for measuring your state of mind at times and they will never replace an appropriately trained GP, counsellor or Mates in Mining representatives to help you through a condition.
Here’s five great examples of Apps to help you – there may be many more out there and of course if you have a recommended one, please let us know and we’ll publish that as well.
The top free mental health apps for miners
BIf you are uncertain that need some professional help right now, but want to keep track of your mental wellbeing? The Black Dog Institute has created an app to help you monitor your mood and wellness, so you can increase your awareness of your feelings, recognise patterns, and identify issues that you might want to work on.
Snapshot gives you an overview of your mental wellbeing over time, tracking your general happiness, mood and anxiety levels, as well as work stress, sleep, social support and alcohol intake. It also provides feedback based on Australian population norms for your age and gender. And if you do decide you need more help, the app connects you with a range of resources and professional support services.
beyondblue created this app to help young people help each other. It’s not easy to start conversations with friends or family who you think might be struggling – or to know how to help once you do talk about it. The Check-in app guides you through how to approach the topic of mental health, questions you could ask, how to respond and what you could do to best offer support.
The app offers tips not just for helping others, but for checking in with your own mental health, including advice from young people who have been through these conversations with friends. For further support, it also connects you to a range of professional online and phone services.
MindShift is a mobile app designed to help young adults cope with anxiety, by acting as a portable coach that guides users through challenging situations. Designed in collaboration with Anxiety Canada, this app teaches users how to relax and helps them identify active steps to directly face and take charge of their anxiety.
Specific tools help users tackle issues such as improving their sleep quality, dealing with perfectionism, and handling conflict. These tools address everyday situations that contribute to increased levels of anxiety, in order to help users change their overall relationship with anxiety. The goal is to support users to face—rather than avoid—anxiety-provoking situations and take charge of their lives.
Mindfulness meditation can be a valuable tool for improving your mental wellbeing. Research has shown that regular mindfulness practice can help you feel calmer and more positive, as well as giving you more energy, clarity and focus. Smiling Mind guides you through simple meditation exercises to get you started on your mindfulness journey. Colourful and warm, the app uses engaging illustrations and short meditation sessions to train you to become more aware of your breath and your senses, so you can bring mindfulness into your everyday routine.
Moodpath
Moodpath is an interactive depression and anxiety screening program. This app tracks psychological, emotional and physical health over a two-week period in order to generate a personalized mental health assessment that users can discuss with their physician or therapist. The app also contains an educational component to teach users about the psychology behind their mood, signs of depression, and psychotherapy.
When in a mental health crisis or dealing with anxiety and depression from day to day, it can be hard to get a sense of the overall picture of our mental health. Moodpath provides a structured report that can help quantify users’ experience, which can provide a path to resources that help manage and heal from depression and anxiety.
Pacifica
Pacifica is a subscription-based app that seeks to break the cycle of negative thoughts that lead to stress, anxiety, and depression. Using psychologist-designed tools that target this cycle, such as mindfulness, guided self-help lessons, mood and health tracking, CBT techniques, and a peer-support community, Pacifica supports personal growth and improved mental health, one day at a time. Ranked first in Forbes’ 4 Technologies Innovating in Mental Health list, this app provides a balance of evidence-based tools and an easy-to-use interface that keeps users engaged with the support this app has to offer.
Conclusion
If you are feeling down due to life stuff, always be mindful that it’s ok to feel crap sometimes. If the world starts closing in on you and you are starting to feel in a constant state of crap, it’s time that you put your hand up and tell a mate. Across the Australian mining & resources industry we’ve got some awesome programs running to assist you on the journal. The Rural & Remote Health Servicerun the Resource Minds Program. There’s also the Mates In Miningprograms that are adding value across the industry to reduce and recognise the signs of anxiety, depression and suicide.
These apps might just compliment those wonderful programs that we all have a lot to be thankful for. They’re one starting to point to help you stay on track for a health body and health mind.
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