MindShift
(Android, iPhone, iPad)

MindShift app is to help young adults cope with anxiety, by acting as a portable coach that guides users through challenging situations. The app teaches users how to relax and helps them identify active steps to directly face and take charge of their anxiety.

The app provides a variety of methods for young people to respond to anxiety including; developing their knowledge of anxiety and symptoms, engaging in relaxation tasks, evaluating their level of anxiety in particular situations, developing realistic thinking patterns and changing behaviour.

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 increase levels of anxiety, in order to help users change their overall relationship with anxiety. The goal is to help young people learn and practice anxiety coping skills.

Headspace: Guided Meditation
(Android, iPhone, iPad)

Headspace: Guided Meditations and Mindfulness takes a calm, relaxed approach to bringing calm relaxation into the lives of adults and kids. Headspace app, aims to keep children to stay “calm and focused” through short meditation exercises.

The app will help kids fall asleep and wake up peacefully. It uses common meditation techniques like becoming aware of environmental sounds, breath awareness, breath counting, and more.

Kids can learn the basics of meditation and mindfulness. Kids can follow the instructions and are reminded by the app to meditate each day. They can develop the habit of making time for personal growth and self-reflection in different situations, such as bedtime and waking up. This app is recommended by CAMHS and other Mental Health professionals

Smiling Mind
(Android, iPhone, iPad)

Smiling Mind is designed to help people reduce pressure, stress, and challenges of daily life. This app has a fantastic section on Mindfulness in the Classroom. An especially good choice for the younger users out there, as it was created specifically with students in mind.

Smiling Mind offers programs for a variety of age groups, including 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18 and adults. The app has an easy-to-use interface for keeping track of your progress over time, both in terms of how many sessions you complete and how your emotions change.

Calm
(Android, iPhone, iPad)

Calm is the perfect meditation app for beginners, but also includes hundreds of programs for intermediate and advanced users. Guided meditation sessions are available in lengths of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes so you can choose the perfect length to fit with your schedule.

Enjoy 100+ guided meditations to help you manage anxiety, lower stress and sleep better. Sleep Stories are soothing tales read by well-known voices to help people unwind and fall into a deep sleep each evening. Also enjoy 10 minute guided video lessons on mindful movement and gentle stretching.

For Me
(iPhone, iPad)

There are many different things than can impact a child’s mental health. Even the most attentive parents might not be fully aware of any anxieties or problems that their children might have.

Made and supported by the charity Childline, For Me provides help and guidance for those that need it, both within the app and through easy connection to a counsellor.

This is a free app, so encourage your child to have it on their device. That way, if ever they do need help, they have a starting point and it is one that has always been there, not one that has been pushed on to them because of their problems. Even if they do not need it for themselves, it might help them support a friend who does.

The Zones of Regulation
(iPhone, iPad)

What do you get when a game developer works with an occupational therapist? Zones of Regulation, it seems. The game developer’s sense of style and fun engage children with this app while the occupational therapist’s influence guides children towards better control of their emotions.

Children identify the coloured ‘zone’ that they are in which corresponds to different groups of emotions. For example, anger is in the red and sadness in the blue. The app then guides children through these emotions and how to deal with them. The intention is to take children through the negative emotions into the calm and content ones. There are not many apps that link a child’s love of games with mental wellbeing so this is one to check out.

BlueIce
Free

BlueIce is an evidenced-based app to help young people manage their emotions and reduce urges to self-harm. It includes a mood diary, a toolbox of evidence-based techniques to reduce distress and automatic routing to emergency numbers if urges to harm continue.

BlueIce has a mood wheel to track your mood and lets you add notes on how you’re feeling or what you’re doing. You can use the mood diary to see patterns and identify triggers.

The app offers a personalised set of activities designed to reduce distress including a music library, photo library, physical activities, relaxation and mindfulness exercises, and spotting and challenging negative thoughts.

Calm Harm
Free

Calm Harm is an app designed to help people resist or manage the urge to self-harm. It’s private and password protected.

Calm Harm is based on the principles of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). DBT is a type of talking therapy that’s often effective in people with mood disorders. The app provides tasks that encourage users to distract themselves from urges to self-harm and help manage their “emotional mind” in a more positive way.

eQuoo: Emotional Fitness Game
Free, with in-app purchases

The eQuoo app uses adventure games designed by psychologists to help you increase your emotional fitness and teach you new psychological skills. You’ll also find tips on how to communicate more effectively and maintain your mental wellbeing.

After mastering a set of psychological skills, you can choose your own adventure game to put them to the test. The type of game changes level by level, and there are mini-games designed to help you understand your personality and identify your areas for growth and personal development.

MeeTwo
Free

The MeeTwo app provides a safe and secure forum for teenagers wanting to discuss any issue affecting their lives. You can anonymously get advice from experts or other teenagers going through similar experiences in areas such as mental health, self-harming, relationships and friendships.

With MeeTwo, you can post messages about any issue you’re struggling to cope with. You’ll receive supportive responses from other teenagers and guidance from MeeTwo experts designed to build confidence, increase wellbeing and improve emotional resilience. Every post and reply is moderated to make sure only positive feedback is published.

The app contains advice and information on a variety of subjects, as well as a directory of specialist support groups that can offer further help.

WorryTree
Free

The WorryTree app aims to help you take control of worry wherever you are.  You can use the WorryTree app to record your worries, then the app uses CBT techniques to:

• ask you to answer a series of questions and make decisions about your worries
• help you challenge your worries and decide if you can control them or not
• give you ways to distract yourself from your worries and move on with your day
• help you create an action plan to take control of your worries