Six iPhone Apps for Upgrading Your mOS (Mental Operating System)
If you’re like me, you often want to change the way you feel and react to the world but you weren’t born with a Quick Start Guide or a User’s Manual — you don’t have any access to the source code of your mind so you can’t debug it or upload a firmware upgrade. But there are mood tracking and enhancing apps that can help you.
I spent over two decades of my life looking (groping?) for a way to do just that: to do away with depression and anxiety; to be more resilient, focused and in a better mood. I’ve tried almost everything. I spent thousands of hours and dozens of thousands of dollars in pursuit of that goal.
But if you want results quickly and cheaply, here’s a distilled summary of fast, effective and inexpensive solutions. Most of them are iPhone apps. I have personally tried all of them and can vouch for their effectiveness. But remember: this is only my personal experience. Your mileage may vary. What worked for me may not work for you. You may have different needs and a different cognitive style. You may also require professional help; don’t discount that possibility.
But first you need to get a quick overview of how your mind works. My article How to Deal with Difficulties and Adversities is a ten-minute introduction with a quick and useful practical mood-enhancing technique developed by Dr Albert Ellis.
There is no app on the market that specifically implements the ABC technique but you can use any note-taking app for that purpose. I recommend Day One (link below) or just pen and paper.
I have divided the apps in two broad groups:
- Mood tracking;
- Mood enhancing.
I like the the app-centric approach because we all have our smartphone with us and spend (waste?) so much time with it. So we might as well turn it into a tool for self-improvement.
1. Mood Tracking Apps
Mood tracking is not only about recording where you are now and what your progress has been. The very act of self-tracking your mood has the potential to improve it.
- GottaFeeing — an application to track and share your feelings. You select one feeling from an extensive menu. It takes about 10–30 seconds to record a feeling. The menu-based approach has the advantage of giving you cues that help you identify your feelings if you’re not used to doing that.
- How Are You — improve your mood thanks to this simple, beautiful and scientifically proven mobile mood tracker. You visually rate yourself on several scales and then record the circumstances that may have had an impact on your mood for further analysis. It takes about 30–90 seconds to record a rating.
2. Mood Enhancing Apps
- Mood Mint — uses Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) to control anxiety. CBM is clinically proven to reduce and control anxiety. The app works by asking you to select a positive image from a number of others, thereby training your brain to focus on picking out the positive aspects of the world around you. The approach works if you spend 5 minutes per day in several about-a-minute-long sessions.
- Digipill — self-help hypnotic audio pills for relaxation, perseverance, moving on, a clear mind, achievement, creativity, wellbeing, a night of rest, confidence, as well as for a variety of life circumstances: losing weight, quitting smoking, fear of flying, study success, dating, and… trance tripping. The advantage of the app is that using it is quite passive, so it’s a good choice for a very difficult day. Sessions are 15–30 minutes long and require the use of headphones.
- SuperBetter — helps you achieve your health goals — or recover from an illness or injury — by increasing your personal resilience. Resilience means staying curious, optimistic and motivated even in the face of the toughest challenges. The app uses a gamification approach to dealing with your . It is the most complicated of all of and requires some up-front setup.
- Day One — it’s a simple way to journal and the most versatile app of the pack. Journaling is a scientifically proven way to improve your well-being. You can also do a number of Positive Psychology exercises in Day One, like: the Best Possible Self, the Gratitude Exercise, or Adversity-Belief-Consequences technique. Theoretically you could do the exercises in any note-taking app but I just like to have a dedicated app for my mental workouts. Firing it up puts me in the right state — much like putting on your workout outfit. Also, the app features a reminder to prompt you to do your journaling.
- Finally, you can use your passwords to help you.
I hope you find these hints helpful. If so, please hint the ‘Recommend’ button below so that more people can discover this article.
