Get Calm, Cool, and Collected With One of These 9 Anxiety Apps

One great way to manage stress and feeling overwhelmed is by slowing down your breathing and practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is a kind of meditation—a way of focusing on your present experience, tuning in, and quieting down the mental chatter in your head—and a mindfulness app offers exercises that help bring you to this state of mind. Used by 70 million people in 190 countries, Headspace is a leader in the mindfulness-app space. If you’re new to meditation, you can try out a huge variety of meditations within the Headspace app. From Goodnight Sleep stories for kids to movement-focused mindfulness and yoga for teens to de-stressing guided meditations for busy adults, there is something for everyone within the Headspace app. 

The app is available on Android, iOS, and web-based devices. In addition to the thousands of sleep stories, sleep sounds, guided and unguided meditations, and soothing sounds, the app and website provide comprehensive courses that will allow you to take a deep dive into the root of your anxieties. You can learn tools to stop panic attacks before they become debilitating and even quickly fall into a deep, restful sleep. If you have trouble getting going in the morning or getting through your mid-day slump, there are programs to help you get moving, restore focus, or re-energize. 

Headspace offers a seven- to 14-day free trial depending on whether you choose a month-to-month subscription for $13 a month (the free trial is seven days), or an annual subscription for $70 (the free trial is 14 days).

Nearly a third (31%) of adults will have an anxiety disorder. Sometimes, a mindfulness app is not enough—and medication can be prescribed to help people suffering from anxiety, on top of traditional talk therapy and meditation. If you’re looking for an app that can help you manage your medication, Talkspace is a great option. Upon signing up for one of its monthly subscription plans, you’ll have access to a licensed therapist or psychiatrist that can help you manage your anxiety via text therapy, medication, scheduled video sessions, or live chat sessions. There are over 5,000 licensed therapists on the platform that have collectively served over a million users. Thanks to the option to choose from four different therapy plans and communication options, Talkspace is affordable, flexible and convenient—even if you work long hours. 

The therapists are trained in multiple modalities, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and emotion-focused therapy (EFT). You can also sign up your teen (as long as they’re 18), opt for couples therapy, or add on psychiatry services to get prescription medication for your anxiety. In addition to therapy, Talkspace offers a wide array of resources, such as articles, mental health quizzes, and a free anxiety test. 

Subscription plans for Talkspace start at $69 a week.

• Messaging-only therapy: Includes unlimited messaging with therapist responses five days a week and starts at $69 per week
• Live therapy: Includes four live therapy sessions a month via live chat, phone, or video call and starts at $99 per week
• Live + messaging therapy: Includes both messaging and four live sessions and starts at $129 per week
• Couples therapy: Includes unlimited messaging with therapist responses five days a week and four live couples therapy sessions per month, and starts at $109 per week
  

People suffering from anxiety or depression may benefit from talking to a licensed therapist. BetterHelp is a live video-based therapy app offering talk therapy and mental health resources via a monthly subscription ($60 to $90 a week, depending on where you live, billed monthly).  Once you sign up—a process that involves answering a brief intake questionnaire and providing payment information—the app connects you to a therapist trained to treat the issues that you are currently experiencing. There are 23,000 therapists on the platform, available in all 50 states and internationally, that can treat various mental health concerns, ranging from anxiety and depression to PTSD, OCD, and ADHD.

One of the many benefits of using the BetterHelp app to conduct your weekly talk therapy sessions is having the ability to receive therapy anywhere you have data or an internet connection. You can schedule lunch-break sessions in a park or from the privacy of your bedroom with minimal disruption to your day or routine. The app is available on iOS and Android.

"Having a community where you can share your feelings is one helpful way to start feeling more connected, which has been linked to alleviating anxiety and depression," says Hannah Owens, LMSW, a subject matter expert, told Health. Circles provides an easy way to connect you to others. The paid version, costs $20 per week or $79 per month. In this version, prior to your first meeting you have a free call with the group’s facilitator to explain your goals. Then, you join a “circle” of people who are experiencing a similar mental health concern, such as anxiety. (There is an option for free peer-led groups, as well.)

In the paid, expert-led groups, your Circle will include no more than 10 other people—all first-timers—who all experience a similar problem, such as anxiety. The weekly video sessions are one hour long. Between sessions, you can chat with Circle members through the app or reach the group leader for support 24/7. The app also includes free features such as self-help exercises, blogs, and webinars.

Those who sign up for the monthly plan ($79) can also join circles on topics such as addiction, divorce, depression, parenting, and more. Each paid group is led by a trained expert that ensures the circles are a safe and beneficial place for like-minded individuals to meet.

Mindfulness meditation, which helps us focus on the present moment, has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and pain. Calm is an easy-to-use app for anyone who is interested in meditation. It offers a wide range of options for meditation practices. The meditations are geared toward helping you improve sleep quality, reduce stress and anxiety, improve focus, and learn self-care tools. You can choose from sleep meditations, calming music, guided and solo meditations, videos of nature scenes, mindful body movement, or join a master class taught by world-renowned mindfulness experts.

There’s also a blog with a wealth of resources on topics like "How to Achieve Small, Powerful Shifts in Your Life" and “The ABCs to Minding Your Mind” by Rheeda Walker, PhD. In other words: Calm is a great app for anyone looking to reduce stress and anxiety, whether you’re a meditation newbie or not. There is the option for a free trial, and after that, you can subscribe for $15 per month or $70 per year.

Observing our negative thoughts and moods and trying to redirect our thinking can go a long way in alleviating anxiety and depression. Moodnotes is an app that helps you record and track your moods over time and help manage your anxiety. The app has a fun and inviting interface that encourages you to rate how you are feeling at any given moment, and describe the affecting your mood. 

Moodnotes is based on CBT techniques—this can include anything from journaling to role-playing to exposure therapy, in which phobias are confronted—which are designed to help users identify and alter triggers that put them in a negative thought spiral. Depending on the user’s mood, the app recommends exercises to address negative thought patterns and ways to help create new, healthy behaviors. There’s also a daily check-in feature which is useful for tracking progress over time and helping you get in the habit of being mindful of their moods and triggers. Moodnotes offers a seven-day free trial that rolls into either $10 a month or $40 a year subscription. It is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to managing anxiety. "People with high levels of stress and anxiety often have difficulty sleeping—and a lack of sleep, in turn, can lead to an elevation of stress hormones," says Owens. The Tide app is a tool for helping people unwind and settle into a restful sleep thanks to its guided sleep meditations, soothing sleep sounds, and videos that feature rolling waves, campfires, and other calming nature scenes. For users who want to promote calm throughout the day, the app offers a focus timer that periodically reminds you to check in with yourself; five-minute quick meditations, such as morning focus or happiness; and a daily motivational quote.

Even though the app’s free features are impressive, the premium subscription unlocks a host of extras. Whether you are looking for babbling brooks, snowy Alps, or want to hear the sounds of a busy cafe to remind you of being in the city, Tide has it, and many more sounds with accompanying videos you probably never imagined would soothe your soul, but do. There are also yoga nidra (yogic sleep) sessions that will get you in touch with your body and breath before bed to truly bring you to a restful state. TidePlus is $12 per month or $60 per year, and you can try it free for seven days.

Paying attention to breathing, and slowing down the breath can go a long way in reducing anxiety. To help achieve this, Breathwrk is one of our top picks for breathing exercise apps. It has a whole range of quick one-minute breathing exercises that can help you recenter and refocus. The app helps you calm down, wake up, or wind down with the help of just a few breathing techniques—and it aims to do so within just a few minutes. It also offers breathing exercises aimed to help you combat specific issues, including brain fog and long COVID.

Breathwrk offers limited free content along with a free seven-day trial that will then roll into a $9 a month or $49 a year subscription. 

One of the symptoms of anxiety is negative thinking patterns. To help address these patterns, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be very useful in helping bring awareness to these patterns and refocusing thoughts. Moodkit, designed by clinical psychologists, is a CBT-focused mental health app that helps users manage their moods and build resilience. It offers “mood-enhancing activities,” such as a thought-checker, journal, and mood-tracker—all of which use the tools of positive psychology to help improve outlook. The app is easy to use and customize, allowing users to track their moods and progress over time and set goals. 

There are also helpful tips and guidance on how to build resilience, cope with stress, and improve overall well-being. There are five different aspects of your life the app helps guide you to improve: Productivity (sense of accomplishment), social (enhance relationships), enjoyment (adding pleasure and fun to your life), physical (being more active), healthy habits (diet, sleep, self-care). MoodKit requires a one-time app purchase of $5.