8 Free (And Ad-Free) Mobile Apps to Help You Improve Your Mental Health

Looking for free apps to help you live a better life without being bombarded with ads? Here’s our pick of the eight best free mobile mental health apps

Best free mental health apps for your phone:

Medito; Plum Village; Atom; Woebot ,Breathe2Relax; CBTi coach; ProsSimply Yoga; and FitON

What Good is Your Stupid Smartphone?

If you haven’t seen the movie “Social Dilemma” then do yourself a favor, don’t.

The message is dismal; I’ll summarize it for you:

Our miniature digital pocket screens work very hard to get your attention.

To get my attention.

To get our attention.

Our attention is now a tradable commodity.

A resource to be mined.

Your attention is a product that is now valuable to the “algorithm.”

And the more attention you “pay” to the corporate content, the less you have for your own personal bank account of sanity.

In short, your phone is working against your mental health in many ways.

I’d even go a bit further to suggest that ads are a mental health crisis themselves if one is in the wrong frame of mind.

So, I have spent some time looking for ad-free apps available on iOS and Android to ensure that you are in the right frame of mind.

These tools help us use our minds to frame our own reality based on healthy, organic human rhythms.

As opposed to letting our phones frame our minds with machined algorithms.

So, take a few deep breaths, find a comfortable position, and let’s dive in.

Best Apps for Meditation and Mindfulness

1. Medito – https://meditofoundation.org/medito-app

Pros:
- My favorite currently.
- It is good for maintaining a daily habit.
- It is simple and has an easy-to-understand user experience.
- There are meditations to help sleep, curb anxiety, and much, much more. There is even a pack designed to manage the stress of the pandemic.
- Meditations can be downloaded to use offline while in the backcountry or on airplane mode.
Cons:
- Sometimes the voice sounds a bit robotic and can be distracting.
- Some redundancy in the guided meditations.

2. Plum Village – https://plumvillage.app/

Pros:

Plum Village is an “international monastic practice center” founded by Thich Nhat Hanh (https://plumvillage.org/retreats/visiting-us/). A team living and working at the monastery developed this wonderful, free resource for the world.
Best for long meditations and “body scans.”
You get the feeling that you are connecting with an international community of peaceful activists and monastic allies.
Some delightful recordings with soft international (french) accents.
Cons
- Some poor recordings.
- Can’t download and listen offline.
- Can’t create a list of “favorites” or go-to recordings to access quickly.
- Sort of confusing to navigate with some redundant meditations.

3. Atom – https://www.theatom.app/

Pros
- The best app to teach the basics of meditation.
- Fun. The gamified interface lets you build a forest to see your daily progress
- Best to help you start a habit with daily, customizable notifications.
  - According to the developer, this app helps beginners by “Starting with just 2 minutes a day, our science-based program enables you to systematically and reliably build a daily mindfulness practice.“
Cons
- This app literally just cuts you off after 21 days.
- Can’t make favorites or re-visit sessions.
- Builds to only about 12 minutes.

Best Apps to Help Relax from Stress or Anxiety

4. Woebot – https://woebothealth.com/

Pros
- Woebot is literally an AI friend who checks in at a time you choose.
- It can talk you down in times of need and even has some crisis intervention programming built in.
- Clinically proven and peer-researched scripts based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
- The mood tracker and gratitude journal are great tools.
- Works well with (or without) supplemental therapist meetings.
Cons
- It’s hard at first to give honest feedback to what is clearly a bit of a cheesy computer program.
- Some scripts repeat in a robotic way to make it feel impersonal.

5. Breathe2Relax – (No Website, in App Stores )

Pros
- Diaphragmatic breathing coach developed by the US Army to help manage PTSD…
- Can hook up heart rate data via smartwatch or other monitors
- Clinically proven to train vets in breathwork.
- Easy to use
Cons
- Developed by the US Army to help manage PTSD…
- The voice that counts while breathing can sometimes be very distracting

CBT I coach

Pros
- Improve your sleep habits and bedtime routine.
- Best app for those of us who deal with sleep issues such as insomnia.
- A sleep diary is a handy tool to use in combo with a therapist.
Cons
- Developed by the US Dept of Veteran Affairs so not so user-friendly.
- Reviews suggest some bugs with Apple products
- Manual input of sleep times

Best Apps for Strong Body, Strong Mind

7. ProsSimply Yoga – https://dailyworkoutapps.com/

Pros
- Three free basic yoga workouts are excellent to start a habit or use while traveling.
- Simple and easy to use
- This developer has several more fitness apps, each with a few basic free workouts.
Cons
- Many of the workouts are behind a paywall
- Upgrade for a one-time fee of 14.95 (no monthly)

8 FitON – https://fitonapp.com/

Pros
- A large variety of free workouts, from yoga to quick HIIT
- Fitness tracker, meals, and nutrition tracker!
- The search filter option is handy for finding exactly what you want.
Cons
- Manual entry for fitness tracker can get tedious to keep up with daily
- No integration with a heart rate monitor or other tech.
- You will get so shredded you’ll need to hire an assistant just to handle your dating calendar.

Use Your Phone for the Power of Good

Like any tool, a smartphone can be used for good or evil.

Fortunately, armies of app developers are building the tools to help us in this epic battle more mindfully and with purpose.

Sometimes, however, the tools that claim to help are simply designed to deliver more ads and attention-grabbing distractions straight into the old Medula Oblongata.

It is easy to get lost in the choices and distractions. I hope these apps will help you as much as they have me to simplify my routine and focus on reclaiming my mind, time, and life.

Life” is essentially the “PTSD of birth,” and the fight for our mind’s attention is very real; it would be reckless not to use all the technological advantages available to us.

References and/or Works Consulted

https://psychcentral.com/blog/top-7-evidence-based-mental-health-apps#4
https://onemindpsyberguide.org/apps/cbt-i-coach/
https://onemindpsyberguide.org/apps/breathe2relax/