7+ Mental Health Management Apps with High Reviews

For people with communication disabilities, managing mental health is a critical part of our everyday routines. As we mentioned in Emotional Impacts: Understanding the Connection Between Disability and Mental Health, people with a disability are nearly five times more likely to experience poor mental health compared to people without disabilities. 

One benefit of so much of the world moving online is that new apps and programs are introduced every day to help with some of life’s most common problems. Mental health apps, in particular, have seen a huge increase in use since 2020. Their simplicity, ease of access, low cost, and clever features have made mental health management apps a great tool for anyone, and especially helpful for people with disabilities. 

In this article, we’ve collected 7 mental health management apps (plus a few returning favorites) with high reviews in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Here are our favorites: 

• Best Mental Health App for Mood Disorders: Daylio 

• Best Mental Health App for Connecting With Your Emotions: Sphēra 

• Best Mental Health App for Free Therapy Exercises: FreeCBT 

• Best Mental Health App for Improving Emotional Intelligence: Paradym 

• Best Mental Health App for Connecting With Your Care Team: MoodLinks 

• Best Mental Health App for Setting Intentions: Manifest 

• Best Mental Health App for Maximizing Energy: Lifestack 

Apps We’re Bringing Back: 

• Bearable 

• Finch 

• Headspace 

• Calm 

• The Fabulous 

We hope you enjoy our selections, but please note: an app should never replace actual medical care from a qualified professional. If you or a loved one are struggling with your mental health, please don’t hesitate to contact your doctor!  

Best Mental Health App for Mood Disorders: Daylio 

Daylio is a quick-and-easy app designed to track moods and activities. Your Daylio experience can be fast and simple: track your mood and activities in just two taps. It can also be customizable and in-depth, with writing templates, open journaling, and the ability to attach voice memos and photos to your entries. 

Designed as both a diary and a mood tracker, this clever little app also offers charts and stats of your past entries. When applicable, it will identify correlations between your mood statistics and the things you’ve been up to.  

Give Daylio a try for iOS here and Android here.  

Best Mental Health App for Connecting With Your Emotions: Sphēra 

Designed to keep you in tune with your emotions, Sphēra is more than just a journaling app. In addition to traditional mood tracking, Sphēra helps you track things like emotional and physical reactions to various triggers. Guided reflections let you think back on your experiences through guided meditation or journaling exercises.  

Sphēra’s monthly insights are robust: Taking your personal experiences into account, Sphēra calculates your mood distribution and emotional states over the course of the month, then offers personalized suggestions for ways to “navigate more consciously through your life journey.” 

Try Sphēra on iPhone here or Android here

Best Mental Health App for Free Therapy Exercises: FreeCBT 

FreeCBT, previously known as Quirk, is an open-source—and completely free—app based on the tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Its central feature is based on the “three column technique,” also known as “catch it, check it, change it.” The app helps people identify their worries, where they’re coming from, and how to handle or move past them. 

The team behind FreeCBT sees the app as a first step for people who want to start therapy. The designers created FreeCBT for people who don’t understand how CBT works, as well as people who are interested in therapy but aren’t sure if their problems are “big enough” to make professional help worth it.  

Try FreeCBT on iPhone here and Android here. 

Best Mental Health App for Improving Emotional Intelligence: Paradym 

Built in partnership with psychologists and clinicians from UCL, Oxford University, and Harvard Medical School, Paradym invites people to explore their emotions to live the lives they want. Its “five pillars” of resources include concepts from schema therapy, psychoanalysis, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). 

Paradym provides step-by-step coaching that helps people break their negative thought patterns. The app’s goal is to help people boost their self-esteem, stress resistance, and life satisfaction, all in just a few minutes a day on their app. 

Try Paradym for iPhone here or Android here.  

Best Mental Health App for Connecting With Your Care Team: MoodLinks 

Designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MoodLinks offers a direct connection between therapists and their clients. For clients, the app offers an in-app communication method with your therapist (so long as they also have an account). 

Additionally, MoodLinks offers morning and evening check-ins with inspirational activities, self-care checklists (with ideas if you’re stumped), and a library of science-backed resources on goal-setting and coping skills. If that’s not enough, it also has a whopping 4.9 stars on the Apple App Store!  

Try out MoodLinks on iOS here and Android here.  

Best Mental Health App for Setting Intentions: Manifest 

Self-described as “Shazam for your feelings,” the Manifest app is a Gen Z-focused program and community that emphasizes self-care and emotional wellness. The app is gamified, offering rewards for building habits and completing goals. Community challenges—self-care challenges that users across the country can join together—offer a fun, social way to build healthy habits.  

The app also offers real-time connections to coaches and therapists, plus an AI-based chat system that provides personalized recommendations and resources based on what you tell it. (One major perk: Check-ins can be typed or recorded with speech-to-text software!) Manifest’s goal is to uncover patterns in your emotions, then help you learn to identify them and respond in a healthy way. 

At this time, Manifest is only available for Apple devices. Try Manifest for iOS here. 

Best Mental Health App for Maximizing Energy: Lifestack 

A productivity app might not sound like the ideal mental health booster, but Lifestack has a unique approach to managing day-to-day life. Using data it pulls from your health data, calendar, and to-do list, Lifestack analyzes the amount of energy each task requires and makes recommendations for when in the day to complete them. Lifestack’s ultimate goal? Stop burnout before it even occurs.  

The reason we included Lifestack on this list is because of its emphasis on energy levels. Poor sleep, fatigue, and lethargy are often linked to poor mental health, whether as a cause or a symptom. For people who want to improve their mental health without the bells and whistles of most wellness apps, Lifestack helps you reflect on how you’re spending your energy. This app is especially helpful for people who work in high-intensity or high-stress jobs. The idea is to find the times of day when you feel most active, efficient, and focused—by getting more done, you’ll feel better about what’s left to do!  

Try Lifestack on iOS here or Android here (also available as a web app and a Google Chrome extension).  

Returning Champions: 

We’ve mentioned these apps in our previous posts, but we find them so useful we had to mention them again. Bearable, Finch, Headspace, Calm, and The Fabulous are all great apps for managing your mental health, especially when combined with traditional talk therapy.  

Here’s why we love them! 

Bearable 

A cute, beginner-friendly app designed for tracking symptoms like pain and mood, Bearable offers an easy-to-use user interface with a soothing, fun art style.  

Check it out on the Apple App Store here or the Google Play Store here.  

Mentioned in 8 Apps To Try for Chronic Pain Management. 

Finch 

Finch takes all the stress of daily life and turns it into a relaxing, mindful minigame. Finch users adopt, hatch, and take care of a small bird (which the app calls a “birb”) as it grows up and takes on the world.  

Get Finch for iPhone in the App Store or for Android in the Google Play Store. 

Mentioned in The 10 Best Apps for ADHD and The 10 Best Productivity Apps for People Who Are Disabled and Neurodivergent. 

Headspace 

Headspace is another mindfulness app that helps people relax and practice self-care. Headspace offers a wide range of features like mental health coaching, fitness and tension release, soundscapes, progress tracking, and daily reminders.  

Try it out on iPhone here or Android here.  

Mentioned in The 10 Best Apps for ADHD and The 10 Best Productivity Apps for People Who Are Disabled and Neurodivergent. 

Calm 

Calm is a delightful little app that helps people relax, meditate, or fall asleep. In addition to a wide range of guided meditations and original music, Calm is most well-known for its Sleep Stories, bedtime tales for kids and adults alike, with narration by professional voice actors, behavioral experts, or celebrity guests.  

Try Calm for iOS here or Android here.  

Mentioned in The 10 Best Apps for ADHD and The 10 Best Productivity Apps for People Who Are Disabled and Neurodivergent. 

The Fabulous 

Created in partnership with behavioral scientists from Stanford University and Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight, Fabulous helps you create—and stick to—daily routines. Fabulous offers a unique mix of task management, motivation, mindfulness, and educational resources to make everyday tasks both approachable and fun, breaking even the biggest tasks into smaller pieces you can tackle without overwhelm.  

You can find Fabulous for iPhone on the App Store or for Android in the Google Play Store. 

Mentioned in The 10 Best Apps for ADHD and The 10 Best Productivity Apps for People Who Are Disabled and Neurodivergent. 

What’s next? 

What other apps would you like to see on our lists? At Ability Central, we’re always on the lookout for services and programs that offer support to people with communication disabilities.  

For more info about local nonprofits or organizations serving people with cognitive disabilities like ADHD, check out the Ability Central Service Locator tool.