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Anxiety and stress can make life seem exhaustingly difficult, but finding apps for stress and anxiety can give you a toolkit right in the palm of your hand.
Whether you have trouble sleeping, need to be more mindful, or are simply looking for ways to manage your stress, you’re about to find the best apps to improve your mental health and emotional wellbeing.
So keep reading for the best 12 apps for stress and anxiety.
12 Apps for Stress and Anxiety
1. HEADSPACE
With more than 10 million downloads, Headspace is one of the most popular anxiety-relieving apps on this list.
This mighty app offers guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and breathing techniques to help you reduce stress and anxiety.
You’ll be encouraged to fall asleep with sleepcasts, sleep sounds, and soothing music.
If you’re a student, Headspace offers a massive 85% discount, and if you want to join their family plan, you can have up to six people in your group.
Do you have these meditation tools?
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2. CALM
Calm is marketed as the #1 mental health app designed to help you manage stress, sleep better, and live a happier, healthier life.
If you’re struggling to sleep, Calm offers more than 250 Sleep Stories, soundscapes, and guided sleep meditations.
There are guided meditations, and you can also select from several beautiful, nature scenes to go along with your practice.
Plus, if you need immediate relief, there are quick 60-second breathing exercises to help your mind and body return to a state of relaxation.
3. TALKSPACE
When you need someone to talk to about your anxiety, Talkspace makes the process incredibly easy.
You can start messaging your therapist immediately via text, video, or voice anywhere, anytime.
If you don’t connect with your therapist, you can seamlessly switch at no cost to you.
What’s unique about other online therapy services is that Talkspace offers multiple different types of therapy like CBT, DBT, and humanistic therapy.
Plus, you can choose individual therapy, couples therapy, teen therapy, and psychiatry.
Listen to these meditations for childhood trauma:
👉 22 Powerful Inner Child Healing Meditations (Guided and Unguided)
4. STOP PANIC & ANXIETY SELF-HELP
There are multiple aspects to Stop Panic and Anxiety Self-Help, all of which center on the importance of mindfulness.
There are CBT articles and follow-along audios, and the app also includes a cognitive diary section, where you can track your progress.
You can also read the articles and listen to the audios online at Excel at Life.
The audios work on Wi-Fi, but everything else can work without it.
The best part is that everything on the app is free!
5. WHAT’S UP?
What’s Up? is another great CBT app focusing on mindfulness. It’s straightforward but super effective.
There’s a lot of very useful information within this app. There are 4 main sections: Help Right Now, Coping Strategies, Information, and Personal. Each category is broken down into even smaller categories.
There’s a section on uplifting quotes, affirmations, and grounding techniques.
There is even a forum, where you can talk to other sufferers.
Probably my favorite part about this app is that it also focuses on depression, self-esteem, and even anger, so you can really get the most out of the app.
Speak these anxiety affirmations:
👉 85 Calming Affirmations for Relieving Anxiety and Panic Attacks
6. ANXIETY SOLUTION STRESS RELIEF
Anxiety Solution Stress Relief is a complete anxiety toolkit with breathing tools, meditation practices, sleep stories, calming music, articles, and mood tracking.
With over 70 anxiety-relieving practices proven by science, you’ll be on your way to improving your mood and calming your mind.
You’ll be able to create a personalized wellness routine and develop daily habits that will help spark positivity into your day.
This anxiety app is best at tracking and visualizing your mood and symptoms over time to monitor your progress, understand your triggers, and find out what works best for you.
7. BREETHE
Another app prioritizing better sleep and reduced stress is Breethe.
This highly-rated app features over 1700 guided meditations, sleep stories, and breathing exercises to help you reduce anxiety and improve your mental wellbeing.
What makes Breethe unique is you’ll get to hear inspirational talks (and much more!) from leading experts in their field.
Plus, if you love nature sounds while you sleep, there are plenty to choose from!
More sleep meditations:
👉 10 Best Meditations for Sleep (That’ll Knock You Out Instantly)
8. SANVELLO
Sanvello has more than one million users, and it focuses on the reduction of anxiety and depression symptoms.
Because this app focuses on self-care, you’ll be able to handpick the right healing journey for you.
You’ll also get to keep track of the specifics of how your day was.
There are entries for your thoughts, moods, and your goals. You can even set reminders on your phone to keep you on top of it.
A really cool thing about Sanvello is that you can join chat groups and communities to keep you motivated, as well as 1:1 coaching to keep your mental health goals on track.
9. INSIGHT TIMER
One of the most highly rated apps on this list, Insight Timer helps everyday wellbeing for anxiety, stress, and sleep.
This app offers a wide variety of guided meditations, music tracks, and talks from mindfulness experts to help users reduce stress and anxiety.
You’ll be able to create a wellbeing routine that works for you with the help of yoga, journaling, breathwork, affirmations, and more.
The best part? It’s free!
Use crystals to height your session:
👉 17 Best Crystals for Meditation (to Boost Your Session)
10. PANIC ATTACK HELP
Backed by science, Panic Attack Help features tools to help you in your current state of mind.
You can track your mood and compare it to before and after you completed the various mindfulness and meditation exercises.
I love that when you record all this information, you can look back and see what helped you and what you can do less of.
11. SMILING MIND
Smiling Mind offers guided meditations and mindfulness exercises for adults and children to help reduce stress and improve mental health.
Based in Australia, it’s a 100% not-for-profit app, so you know their goal is to 100% help someone like you.
Trusted by over 7.8 million people, you’ll start to see a massive difference in your stress and anxiety in just 10 minutes a day.
12. BLOCK! HEXA PUZZLE
This app might not to much to help manage your anxiety, but it could definitely take away some of the initial symptoms.
It’s a great way to distract yourself in times of high anxiety.
Block! Hexa is a puzzle game where you try to fit various hexagon pieces into a randomly shaped hexagram.
There are hundreds and hundreds of levels, and they only get harder as you go on.
I put this app on whenever my anxiety is getting too intense. It saved me from the brink of a panic attack time and time again.
Best Apps for Stress and Anxiety:
Most apps for relieving stress and anxiety offer very similar features.
Finding one that fits you best usually comes down to the interface, how the meditations are presented, and the variety they provide.
💾 Bookmark this page for whenever you need recommendations for new anxiety and mindfulness apps to add to your phone.
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- 17 Healing Crystals for Calming Anxiety and Panic Attacks
- 5 Ways to Cope with Anger Caused by Your Anxiety
