What are some mentally healthy apps to have?

Not apps but things that have helped me:

* remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps.

* condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too.

* (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e-ink (android) tablet.

>I’m looking for some apps that people use and get genuine value out of. Can I learn something while I’m bored on the couch?

For me it's not about finding some app that helps me with this; I already have a backlog (bookmarks, pdf, tutorials) of stuff I genuinely want to consume yet I end up always scouring for new content, even with the gigantic backlog.

There's rarely any lack of quantity in content these days, quality maybe, but that's the fallacy that lead us to look for more/newer content rather than consuming the ones we've already identified.

So having a dedicated device for "consuming backlog" and minimizing adding more stuff to it have been a good change.

Delete every recreational app on your phone. Also delete anything that gamifies passive consumption, e.g. Duolingo.

Put some ebooks on your phone and read those. Stop mentally associating the phone with the infinite novelty generated by algorithmic social and YouTube feeds.

Do not open your web browser unless you have a specific search query in mind.

Disable all notifications except for the calendar and clock.

Treat your phone as if it had no online connectivity. When you open the phone, use it to organize your notes and structure your thinking, or to look at photo gallery. Begin thinking of it as an extension of your brain instead of a bottomless anti-boredom device.

As a thought experiment, imagine you had a smart phone without internet access (but it was somehow able to download apps).

Apps you would want on that device might include a lot of healthy apps.

For example —

It would replace many of the devices we used pre-internet. A compass. A calendar. A guitar tuner. A pedometer. A notebook. A recipe book - where you place recipes. A recording device - and a bank of guitar effects pedals.

These are all healthy apps in my opinion.

The 7 Minute Workout [0] app from Johnson & Johnson is nice. Free & no advertising.

"Mens sana in corpore sano" [1] as my dad used to say :)

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[0]: https://7minuteworkout.jnj.com

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano

Don't forget boring old Ebook reader apps eg Kindle. Spending more of those little 5 or 10 minute breaks on reading a decent (fiction) book instead of browsing social media etc was one of the best things I've done for my happiness in the past couple of years.

I found an app called Meomind (https://meomind.com/) recently that has helped me a lot. It has a collection of real recorded therapy sessions from individuals that they've decided to share (with personal details scrubbed I assume) that you can listen to at your leisure. They're categorized as well, so if you're looking for understanding why you have a lack of interest in things, are having relationship issues, etc... you can find topics that you're interested in. It's been super helpful for me to realize how many people have the same issues or are in the same boat as me without me having to go in to see an actual therapist.

I've tried to retrain myself to open Obsidian (and have Obsidian configured to always jump straight to my daily note upon opening) if I compulsively pick up my phone. From there, I'm either going to write about what I'm actually trying to accomplish in the moment, or realize I had no real goal and just compulsively picked up my phone as happens more often than I'd like. It's then much easier to just put my phone back down instead of getting locked into browsing random internet streams, or I just do whatever thing I actually got my phone out to do.

I've injected some intentional friction into an otherwise compulsive habit, which opens up the opportunity to redirect that behavior. It's been very a helpful switch so far.

These are my "good" apps:

- Spotify: everyone loves music. Put it on speakerphone. Dance and sing silly while you cook.

- Shazam: discover music. Exactly what apps ought to be.

- Google Maps: Does what it does.

- Google home: setting my lights to match the time of day / mood / or movie.

- Google Authenticator: 2FA is good

- "Justin Guitar", a simple guitar tuner, and a metronome app: I've been learning guitar

- Duolingo: my wife and I have been learning Spanish together.

- Apple Books, Libby, Kindle: I use Books for PDFs and epubs I "find" online or get through Humble Bundle. With Humble Bundle you can get a TON of books for super cheap. Libby for getting ebooks from the library. Finally, Kindle for books I purchase b/c I couldn't find them anywhere else.

- Audible: for audiobooks, which was more important when I had a commute.

- Stranger "Things to do": very specific to Seattle, but connects me to my community by giving fun events and activities to check out.

- Carbon: also specific to my interests, this is the best life-tracker app for Magic the Gathering Commander games. Worth the $5 upgrade.

"Mixed" apps:

- Discord. At best it keeps me connected with my friends. It was invaluable during the pandemic and strict quarantines. But can be addicting, toxic, and net-negative.

EDIT: from a comment below, I also realized that everything on the Control Panel is a Good App: airplane mode, low power mode, add note, add audio recording, alarms, timers, stopwatch, calculator, flashlight, Apple Pay, Shazam, and camera.

* c25k (couch to 5k) is an app I just started using to train for long distance running. A week ago, I thought I could only run for 2 blocks. With the first 2 runs on this app (and the advice from r/running to run slower), I now realize I can run a lot further than that already.

* SnoreLab & SnoreGym. My partner told me I was snoring and waking her up. Well, this app made it easy to collect data on that and then perform experiments in how to reduce my snoring. I now have a pretty great regiment and get a lot better sleep.

* LoseIt! A calorie tracker with a great library of foods. You can also track your weight and the premium subscription lets you track a lot more like body fat percentage (you'll need to get this professionally measured), water intake, and a lot more. You could do this yourself, but there are a lot of convenience features like creating recipes, seeing graphs of your weight overtime and getting estimates of how long it will take you to reach your goals, given your behaviors. I've used it multiple times during different periods of weight loss, so it has years of my weight history in it.

* SoundHound + Shazam. "What's this song? I love it!" Well now you know what it is and it's in your library. beautiful.

* Music, podcast, and audiobook apps. What's not to love?

* YouCut video editor. Got a little time and want to be creative? Combine with some other video effect apps and some of your own video or content downloaded from Reddit (I find I can download anything when I visit in browser) and you've got a nice little craft.

* Stellarium. I want to use this one more than I do. It's an AR star map. You calibrate it and then it shows you where in 3D the Planets and constellations are. As a city dweller I feel really disconnected from the night sky, so I downloaded this one.

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I will say that specifically on the toilet I have challenged myself to write instead of consume. Write what? Anything. Just write more. Open up an email to myself and... start writing.

Anki - jam everything into here. Various work facts, chess mate in X move puzzles, watched movie plots, every time I make a mistake I add it, etc.

BrainHQ - train your brain every day, get sharper. I found out about it after reading that Tom Brady uses it to be a better QB. After using it for a couple weeks I could notice a difference.

I bought a smartphone pretty late, only 5-6 years ago. Mainly I wanted an easier way to subscribe to podcasts (I'd been using an MP3 player for this for 10 years, and just using a feature phone for calls). I never actually got hooked on social media stuff or phone games. I'm not on any social media except Letterboxd, and that app is easy not to use because it's pretty terrible. The only game I've ever played on my phone is 80 Days. I mention this so that you can decide whether I am the exact wrong person to give you advice or not.

Anyway, here's what I use:

* Banking and investment apps

* Media apps (Pocket Casts, Audible, Spotify)

* My local library's app (KCLS represent)

* Nature / hiking apps (PeakFinder, AllTrails, iNaturalist, TrailRouter)

* Notion as a todo list / note taking app

* Librarything

* Lyft / Doordash

* Venmo

* Redfin at the moment, because I'm buying a house.

That's all the non 1st-party apps I have. I just don't download anything else.

I think that instead of browsing social media, my equivalent focus-drain is probably listening to podcasts and audiobooks. If you think that's healthier, switch to that. It may be, or I may be fooling myself.

If you have time to kill and want to use an app, how about Duolingo?

  - Duolingo
  - Chess apps (My favorite is Really Bad Chess, where everyone is given the same randomized board and tries to beat the computer once a day)
  - Wordle and variations (my favorite is Tradle, given the export data, guess the country)
  - BeReal (the only social media I enjoy)
  - Niche review apps (I like HappyCow for reviewing restaurants with vegan/veg options)

Basically, since wordle came out, I've realized that the only way I can limit myself on my phone is deleting overly addictive apps like Twitter and try to stick to apps where there is a daily goal, and once those are solved I can put the phone down and read a book or go outside. I do use the Twitter web app with iOS app limits set to 15 min for each social media app, so I'm not completely cut off, but it's short enough to not get sucked in.

Lots of good app recommendations - let me suggest something slightly different that can help:

Disable notifications. ALL notifications (barring - maybe - email and IM), including the little red counters on the icons. Move all non-essential apps off of the front page (perhaps even off of a "page" entirely).

This does wonders for making using a phone a pleasant experience. The "engagement" apps no longer have automated hooks into your attention - it lets you dive into them as you want to, not as they want you to.

I can go entire days forgetting that Facebook and Twitter are even a thing, since the lack of icons fools my dopamine circuits into believing that there's nothing new that requires my attention (which, mild entertainment from doomscrolling aside, is generally the truth). It makes it easy to pick a book or puzzle game instead.

In the spirit of Marshall McLuhan; changing the channel doesn't change the media. You're a dignified person. You needn't engage with the world of ideas through your thumbs and a 4 inch light hole at all. You're important-- if someone needs your correspondence it would be appropriate that this be facilitated by mail and by computer e-mail when time is a concern. Emperors, judges, and men of consequence don't communicate ideas in, "texts" or, "feeds" and you're an emperor; a modern Man-- someone and something of enormous consequence. Treat yourself right. You deserve it. You're intelligent and capable. Don't let the myth of modern culture into yourself at all. You're too valuable for that.

All the best.

I have found Headspace very useful for learning how to practice mindfulness and meditation. It’s very easy to get started with.

https://www.headspace.com/

Peloton’s app has become core to some of my mental health routines. Even if you don’t have the bike, the 10min guided workouts are fantastic for getting your body moving. But my most used feature is the meditations. I’ve racked up over 600 meditation sessions since the beginning of the pandemic and it’s helped me greatly.

Nearly every app in existence exists to profit off of you in some why. By nature it is hard for them to ever make your well being their aim. This is a reason I've stopped to working for direct to consumer companies, in the end you always end up scheming with your PM to figure out a way to screw over your users while humming a tune about how much you love your customers. Because of the raw numbers of customers, it almost never makes sense to do what is really right for them while doing what's also right for your bottom line.

In the last few months I have aggressively reduced my time online and replaced it with reading books of all sorts.

Part of this was a deliberate attempt to ween myself off an increasingly toxic online world. But the other part was that for learning technical topics the web has become a heaping pile of garbage. It used to be you could find some great insights on even advanced subjects, but now searching a topic make it more likely for me to find incorrect insights.

So my advice is: If there's a topic you like chatting about online, order some books on that subject. If you want to relax, start reading more fiction. And aggressively start building out a library of technical/text books (used is pretty cheap), so that you can start browsing your own "web" of useful content instead of content marketing created trash.

You can read on the toilet, that's what people used to do back in the 90s and before!

I love Medito[1], it's a free app to learn and practice meditation. It offers a ton of packs ranging from first guided meditations to beginners to very focused topics (i.e. sleep, manage pain...) from research collaboration with universities.

Ah, and it's available for Mac and Android.

1. https://meditofoundation.org/medito-app

You could use Greg [0] to learn how to grow plants. Disclosure: I'm one of the co-creators :). There's also a thriving community [1] that has become honestly surprisingly healthy/supportive. Think "Strava for growing plants".

We're still early, any feedback is appreciated. We raised our seed round [2] last year, check out that announcement for more info on our long-term mission.

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[0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/greg-easy-plant-care/id1512912...

[1]: https://greg.app/community/

[2]: https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/27/greg-an-app-for-plant-love...

Few links to mental health cultivating apps on my phone:

Plum Village: https://plumvillage.app/ Free, extremely comprehensive meditation app. Does not require subscription or mine data like most such apps.

WOOP: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/woop-app/id790247988 Free. Simple app with text prompts.

Point of information: (W)ish (O)utcome (O)bstacle (Plan) is a deeply researched and effective approach to working with goals, habits, et al. More info here: https://woopmylife.org/en/home

Streaks: https://streaksapp.com/ Nicely designed habit tracker. Responsive developer.

Perhaps these prove useful to someone.

I've taken the opposite approach a lot of times. So instead of asking what you can add you might want to look at what apps / bookmarks that you can remove. Do you need a link to the reddit frontpage, or can you narrow it down to one or two specific subreddits that you want to check, or maybe remove it entirely if it does not add much value to your daily life.

Apps that I would recommend however are many of the apps that tries to gamify physical activity. I use Garmin, but I am not sure if the app works without owning the accompanying smart watches and there are plenty of alternatives, and the gamification and accountability that it offers around physical activity makes it a lot easier to get out of the door (which is always the hard part). Physical activity has long been known to have a huge positive effect on mental capacity and health so well worth spending an hour or so every day on.

* Anki * Duolingo

Now Duolingo is gamified so you need to ignore those aspects. If you don't feel like studying today, then don't let the Streak stress you. What is nice about Doulingo is that you can actually skip a day or two and pay with "gems" to keep your streak. The gems are earned when actually studying.

Get rid of all the apps where you consume content, except for maybe an eBook reading app. Reading books is still good.

Fill your devices only with apps that allow you to create content. Don't even worry about sharing the content. Just get apps that let you create. Photography, video, code, drawing, writing, music, whatever.

Audible: I listen to 2-3 books a month while exercising, cleaning, eating, etc. Often ones I've already listened to. Almost exclusively biographies and other historical non-fiction. My main frustration is that there are so many great books not available on Audible. But there is a lot of good stuff.

Podcasts: People like Sean Carroll, Dan Carlin, and Sam Harris are regularly having amazing public conversations and interviewing amazing people. There's also some funny podcasts like Conan O'Briens or David Spade/Dana Carvey's.

I find listening to good content more exciting, fulfilling, and relaxing than any other form of brain stimulation.

There are no mentally healthy apps to have. You also have to enforce any rules you make and are always already in a fight that you cannot loose. The smartphone is net negative on mental health. I would only make arguments that you can get distracted really easily if you are too focused on something bad. Like today if you become a stalker you really need to be ill because there is so much distraction with the phone that it's hard to see someone healthy become a stalker.

My solution is to do activities where you don't have your smartphone. Something like swimming or riding your bike is great.

DuoLingo for learning languages. Works up to a point and is useful as a starter.

+1 for your question. I am at a constant struggle with my news addiction to the point where I am not achieving my life goals and I end up being mentally stressd constantly reading sad stories on CNN, WSJ, NYT, CNBC etc. I am also addicted to HN and probably spend more than 3+ hours surfing it everyday (at least I get a good value out of using HN) and everyday I just dream about not opening any news apps on my phone browser but as soon as I wake up, the first thing I go for is the browser on my phone. Would love to see how others are dealing with this news addiction?

Google Podcasts (or really, any podcast app, as long as it has access to what you want). Learning stuff while being able to get OFF the couch is huge for health, mental and otherwise. I just got back from a 4 mile walk during which I got my updates on the economy and a history lesson on the Jomun period in prehistoric Japan.

Audible, for largely the same reason.

As for stuff you need to look at, I find puzzle games of various sorts to be handy. I'm partial to various tsumego apps (Tsumego Pro being the one I've used longest), either standalone or built in problem sets with full Go clients for playing online. In many cases games in this vein can be had without the ads, streak mechanics, or other such cruft we've come to expect from mobile games, and they're generally good for mental elasticity and problem solving abilities in an abstract manner.

And then there's neat stuff for identifying or otherwise providing information in the world around you. Plantnet is decent for identifying random plants I come across while out walking (and listening to podcasts). Alltrails has been great for locating more wilderness than I thought existed so close to the city. And Yahoo Finance tends to be my go to for idle thoughts that come into my head about investing ideas, with very quick access to a watchlist, stats, and financial information on the go, so I'm never stuck losing those thoughts as they randomly come to me.

The list goes on, but that's a decent start.

Some apps I've found genuinely useful.

1. A Simple habit tracker

2. Stock Google apps - Calendar, Mail, Maps, Keep, Meet (or whatever it's called now)

3. C25K for running

4. A few investment apps for crypto and stocks

5. Messaging - Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, Discord

6. Audible - For those long drives

7. NewPipe - A much better Youtube/Spotify client

8. Brave - I try to use sites instead of apps for most things (twitter, Amazon, other shopping, bank etc.)

9. Password Manager

10. Dropbox

With the messaging apps, how you use it can decide whether they're going to kill you or improve your life. Your boundaries need to be especially strong here.

On top of my head.

- Sky Map: point at the night sky, it tells you which stars are there. Dim screen, offline, perfect.

- Samsung's "Ultra power saving" mode. Turns your smartphone into a dumb phone: phone calls, SMS only, black and white screen. Internet access requires action on your part (i.e. opening the browser). And as you may guess from the name, it really saves battery. Other manufacturers most likely have something similar.

- For most of what you are doing, you don't need any apps. Social media, news and things to learn can all be done on a browser. Pick one with an ad blocker when you are at it (Firefox, Brave, ...).

- On Android, there is a root feature that allows you to freeze apps. I use Titanium Backup for that, but there are other apps that can achieve a similar effect without root (Greenify, Island,...). Frozen apps stay in storage, you keep your data, but they can't be accessed and don't run in the background. It you have some social app that annoys you but you are not sure if you really want it gone, freeze it, and unfreeze it when you need it, if you need it. It saves battery too.

It's not news or anything but Strides has probably given me the greatest quality of life boost this year. It's a pretty simple app where you list habits you want to foster and you then mark them off each day (or are reminded to do so when you don't). Keeping up streaks of certain good habits has done me a lot of good the past few months :-)

Koala Sampler. It’s incredibly fun and you’re actually creating things instead of just consuming. No music background required.

It used to be social media apps for me like facebook and twitter, but now I find others like YouTube and Reddit as equally or even more toxic. Especially reddit, their discussion sections get toxic quick after a few seconds of scrolling. YouTube hiding the number of dislikes also makes it hard to filter videos, as well as youtube likes to recommend world news even for new google accounts, and with such news the recommendations quickly gets political.

Surprisingly, I find tiktok a breath of fresh air. Its algorithm is good as well as it's also designed in a way that you dont need to look at the discussion/comments section, which I find is the biggest time waster. In comparison, other social media apps and even the youtube app will give you a glimpse of the comments section for each post.

I installed a parental control app on my phone to make it automatically turn off at 10:30 PM. It's a small move that made a world of difference and I've been going to sleep much earlier as a result. (The "parent" doesn't need to be an actual parent, it can be a friend too.)

> Can I learn something while I’m bored on the couch?

I have two very generic suggestions, but I offer them in good faith since both goals you listed are related to learning.

1.) Wikipedia. My knowledge on most topics is a mile wide and an inch deep. If you're anything like me, going down a wiki rabbit hole is a pretty satisfying time-waster. If you want something more structured, Khan Academy is amazing.

2.) Reddit.. Except it's critical that you unsub from all default subreddits and big subs like r/technology etc, and only subscribe to niche subreddits for whatever hobbies or interests you have. These communities aren't as active so you won't have a million links to click on each day.

The other suggestions such as learning a new language, or playing puzzle games, are obviously good options as well.

I can recommend Plant Net and Bird Net. They're recognition apps for plants and bird songs respectively.

They've given me a way to be more curious about the natural world around me and get me out of the house and actively engaged in my environment.

It's a bit like an educational alternative to Pokemon Go.

>But I’m not at a point where I want to just toss my phone in the corner and forget about it either.

Why not? it works.

The meditations on Withsara are nice, after that my go to free option is Insight timer.

https://www.withsara.com https://www.insighttimer.com

> I’m in a battle to minimize social media and related apps influence over my life.

What worked for me is getting into the most stupid internet arguments possible.

The dread associated with seeing the notification indicator show new replies is keeping me off Facebook for now.

I agree about what others are saying about internet access being a pandora's box of stress and depression, so I think creative apps would fit your description a bit better.

Even if you're not the artistic type, you should try Townscaper:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.OskarStalb...

It's a bit like meditating, you lay out these tiny little island villages that add all of the extra little details for you. It helps me cope with the world.

Try Calm. I started using it few weeks back because I was facing sleep issues. It's totally worth the monthly price you know. The speakers are great and the white noise effects work like a charm to calm your senses.

I use Waking Up for guided meditations (if you can stand Sam Harris). There are a few promo code around Google for a few free weeks. It's a 'how to meditate' course followed by daily meditations, with a bunch of podcast-style interviews and collections of recordings. The course has really helped my shape my meditation practice, and I usually do the daily meditation, which has really helped me focus myself.

(Another guided meditations app is Plum Village - free, but a bit worse quality, with a bit more random order of things.)

- Inoreader, with few sources such as BBC that don't focus on sensationalism - Lichess

I dropped all the social media except for Twitter, just because I use it really rarely (less than once per day)

Calibre, for me - And then choice books to read. Finished quite a few in the last 6 months, topics ranging from Linux internals, to philosophy, to financial management, to health...

I choose to invest my electronic time in learning more skills or relationships in why something seems to be the way it is.

Recent kick has been practicing the Roman Trivium, then I will tackle the Quadrivium.

And I use an Amazon Fire that my wife bought for me, permanently in airplane mode, as well as night-time (easier on the eyes). I transfer content via USB.

YMMV.

I did three things that really helped:

1. Delete all social media apps and remove bookmarks of frequently visited sites so I’d have to type them in instead of just clicking.

2. Bought an Apple Watch. This allows me to know when I have a call or text without needing to have my phone next to me all the time. The watch is more limited than a phone and you can’t browse the web on it.

3. I use an app called “OffScreen” which helps set targets for maximum hours or pickups per day and then it nags you if you exceed them.

I`m working in a startup which helps people with focus and productivity. We are building this mobile app - AppBlock, where you can basically set up which mobile apps you want to block and when. It also was reccommended for some people with ADHD issues by therapists and it has some other nice use cases like parental control. Feel free to check it out.

https://www.appblock.app

Or more specifically if you’re looking for an app to help track and improve your *mental health* I definitely recommend Sensive [1].

You can add a quick log into how your day was, and answer a few questions to record your total mood disturbance score. Very productive and helps you reflect on ways you can be more positive day to day.

[1] https://sensive.xyz

I would recommend reducing your activity spent in the online world. It's mostly not reflective of anything in real life and the business models of everything that usually gets our attention there is manipulative enough to be a drain on your energy, mental health and sanity. Treat it like another world that is sometimes fun to jump into, but one that should not ever be taken seriously.

This is how I started in 2014 and I have given this to so many people, and they love it. Start by disabling notifications everywhere except for critical ones that are key to you.

https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activi...

I've just been using Instagram as a place to browse art. I think you can't really unfollow toxic people (you technically can but your brain won't let you). But what you can do is flood it out with positive vibes.

My Instagram feed is full of e-commerce memes, AI generated art, and hand drawn dungeon maps.

It's not exactly useful but it keeps me inspired for the next day.

Good apps:

Pandora: Don't share your channels, just enjoy some tunes.

Non F2P Games: Dream Quest (Great rogue-like). Sentineles of the Multiverse, most all the Inkle games.

Soulver: Great for quick calculations, with units.

Weather: For when you go outside. (Gasp)

Lyft/Uber: Need a ride?

If you are a traveler, airline apps can be handy. Some credit card apps are decent.

Overall, just avoid social media and free to play games, and you'll have a good time IMHO.

I would say none, having a dependence on a app to be "mentally" healthy is just code for addiction and dependence. Removing the addiction to phone usage, and the feedback of notifications is the better way.

This goes in with what I feel about those "headspace" and meditation apps, making "welness" a subscription as a service. Disgusting.

Libby - endless ebooks from your local library Zotero - I save interesting papers I come across to Zotero and then read them when I have free time. C25K - I hate running. I’ve probably restarted this a dozen times over the past 5 yrs but the ease of the first few workouts makes it easier for me to restart when I stop exercising for a few weeks.

I moved all the apps into the app library rather than delete them. That way I have to swipe down and type the name of the app I want. It's been very effective.

Once I took away the icon I forgot the app existed! If I forced myself into not using any apps I'd be thinking about then constantly and using them more

I start my day by checking the kindle daily deals and my ebook wishlist for discounts.

I keep the drafts app on my homescreen and calendar app but I honestly don't use the rest of my home screen apps except pikmin bloom.

Pikmin bloom is amazing. I like that it has a finite number of things you can actually do in the game before you have to get up and walk somewhere to progress. There's no real 'goal' to it. You find seed pods, walk to grow them, level up the pikmin with nectar you get from sending them out on little missions then they get little decorations and you can collect petals. The expeditions bring more seed pods and you grow more pikmin. Then if your out for a walk you can plant flowers. It's honestly so random and simple but I've done so much more walking because of it.

It also has built in journaling which is the longest I've stuck to a journal!

I'm going to be controversial here and say tiktok is an essential for me. But I am fairly disciplined with it and can go days or weeks without opening it because it's not on my homepage. I find that people who don't like tiktok typically had a bad experience with the algorithm which is hugely telling about the person they are - tiktok knows you! What I like about it is I don't have to think about what I want to consume. If Im in the mood for education if I quickly skip past other videos and only watch ones on bird ringing or reptile care then that's all I get for that session. Other times I'll want silly fun videos and sometimes i watch the ones on mental health.

Tiktok has been amazing for me as a form of therapy I've found so many open people on there in the comments as well and it's just nice to know I'm not alone! I've made more progress in my mental health struggles since downloading the app than I have in years of therapy!

I also like that it's connecting all the older and younger generations and at least on my side of Tiktok everyone is welcoming it's a safe space there's no gatekeeping and everyone looks after one another. Plus I get to keep up with the trends as a side bonus!

My wife complains about it, but I use my Chess and Go playing apps quite often. I like being able to adjust play so I win or lose about half the time.

I recommend https://freedom.to to block social media sites during a few long periods a day.

Finding alternatives to screens is probably a good start. You don't need to toss your phone, just put it farther away from you. Have books/magazines/newspapers with easy access as an alternative. Legos/brain teasers/puzzles/rubix cubes, etc are also great.

iPad: Alo Moves, Books, The Economist, Notes

Apple Watch: Fitness

A few years ago I made it my personal goal to pick up my phone only when absolutely necessary and that has done wonders for my mental health. For photos, I have a Canon G7 X and appreciate that it only has one job and it does it very well.

Kindle

I have an app for cryptic crosswords, and a few puzzle / card games (Venbrux Software, and stuff by Zach Gage, are good). I also turn off almost all notifications (I can get actual text messages and phone calls and my alarm clock and that's it).

RunKeeper's icon makes me remember I run. So I sit with better posture, maybe eat a little better. Because I will be less happy on my next run if I don't. Having that help with my physical health benefits my mental health pretty directly.

Calendar, maps, clock/timer, dictionary.

As for learning: Coursera was good years ago, Stepik might be a good site/app too. I haven't tried edX on mobile.

Duolingo to learn languages. Your Youtube feed can be curated to something almost sensible.

I sit outside™ on my deck™ app, and practice my guitar™ app. Sometimes I bring my chicken™ app into the house, hug it, feed it snacks, and clean up its poop™ using my paper towel™ and water sprayer™ apps.

Using attention-consuming apps in a toilet is not healthy (trust me I know).

I found out there are full audio books on youtube a year ago. I just pick a random book that "sounds good" and play it in the background.

Learn a lot from background noise on various random topics.

Download books and read them. Also academic papers. Between archive.org and libgen you can get almost everything. For books I'll reread forever I buy paper copies.

The best app I have actually paid for is the Gibson (guitar) App. Playing the guitar with the app or without the apps has made me even happier!

Calm / Headspace or other meditation apps with settings tweaked to turn off things like streaks and only show notifications for your goals.

> I’m in a battle to minimize social media and related apps influence over my life.

Get rid of the social media apps. You don't need them. You're lying to yourself if you think that you do. Nobody is going to miss your Instagram or Facebook posts. TikTok is a stupid waste of time and likely algorithmically programmed to make you hate your country (why we let China ban our social media apps and then let them operate in our country I'll never understand) and Reddit is a cesspool of awful, uninformed opinions and if you really need to visit a special interest community there you can just visit that manually. You don't need an account and you don't have anything interesting to say so there's no reason to post.

Instead, fill your home screen with apps with positive goals. For me, this includes having Downdog, btwb, Fitness (Apple), Wikipedia, Maps, my local newspaper, and similar style apps with all red dot notifications turned off.

> But I need to sell things on Facebook marketplace so I'll have to keep my account.

No. Use eBay or Craigslist, sell it at a yardsale, or stop buying stuff you don't need. If you can't stomach that then you delete your actual Facebook account and create a new one specifically for marketplace.

> But how will I stay in touch with all of these groups and influencers that I follow who post entertaining content?

You won't. That's the point. Otherwise stop stressing about being addicted to social media and just embrace it. There's no separation of "people I like to follow" and "I feel addicted". You cannot have one without the other.

> I'm going to lose touch with friends and family.

Good. People come and go, including close friends and family members. And if the primary way you stay in touch is social media, well, you're just lying to yourself about your relationship with them. Let it go. It's unhealthy to cling to past relationships.

> Yea but I do stay in touch but I also like to see their new baby pictures

Well great, instead of seeing all of this stuff beforehand, just see them in person like you regularly do and ask them to show you pictures and then you can sit down and have a meaningful interaction.

Yes I understand that HackerNews and LinkedIn and other sites that I use are also social media. There are degrees of addictiveness. I don't believe you can only "minimize" top social media apps. They do provide value to a lot of people, but if you feel that you're being pulled away from your real life and you're literally posting asking how to win the battle over social media apps and their influence, the best thing you can do is start disengaging with the most addicting ones.

Some people can buy a bag of M&Ms and eat just one and put the bag down. Most people can't.

Put your phone in airplane mode and live it in your pocket. Get a Kindle with you, for the times you want to consume content.

I have on my phone:

Google Maps, Waze, LinkedIn, Reddit, a monitoring app for my car and Edge browser. Reddit isn't used frequently.

For me, AllTrails is great for biking/hiking, and lets you share things with some light social media features.

Tumblr, for me and a couple friends atleast, is an app that we can use without feeling like garbage afterwards.

Not exactly what you’re looking for, but I’ve had fun checking the Oblique Strategies app every now and then.

PlantNET, BirdNET, kiwix a good sensor readout and a map. Use the tool, don't be used by it :)

Libby, if you're a member of your local library and it supports borrowing books through it.

Merlin. The bird identifier app from Cornell. Take some time to stop and smell the birds.

An ebook reader (ideally not an app but a separate device that is only for reading books).

You mentioned unbiased news, I read Reuters daily on my phone and think it fits the bill.

this https://www.enjoybloom.com/ - the exercises really helped me to gain mental stability and a year later I'm now flourishing from it

YouTube, of course

edX, Coursera, Brilliant, Khan Academy

Wikipedia

Perfect Ear

Cinco Paus

MtG / Gwent / StS / Faeria / etc

Chess / Poker / Go

Mindustry, Mini Metro

Through The Ages

FL Studio Mobile

The Powder Toy, Poly Bridge

Thought I'd be an outlier here, but the themes in the comments resonate with what my 2 cents would be.

The biggest change was moving to a phone that ditches all Google Play services. This included microG and other variations. The only play services emulator that is running is https://github.com/lukaspieper/Gcam-Services-Provider, which doesn't do anything really but simulate the presence of google services for the google camera to work. You can navigate the source, it's really short. I use it to get the Google Camera working.

I got a Pixel 2 a couple of years back and more recently a Pixel 4a. Then I installed Graphene OS (you can run that or Calyx OS, people might get into heated discussions, but for the purpose of this, you would install either of them with nothing Google related anyway, it's just whatever is completely stock and barebones).

Once you're at this point, you are forced to change your behavior, so the choice goes from "which of these apps should I use as there are SOOOO many of them" to "which apps do I need to add to the phone". After a few months I'm down to:

Signal, Fennec, Aegis, Mullvad, Tutanota, Termux, Unlauncher, Gcam port for my phone, Organic Maps, Syncthing. The background is black, the font is red. A big shoutout to all the persons working hard on all of these applications, do support them through donations or any help you can give them btw.

To get here I had at a point microG, google maps, YT Vanced, Dropbox and the usual slew of things, but I still kept picking up my phone and scrolling mindlessly. I think this is the first thing you should do. I know people might suggest going outside, watching movies, subscribing to your favorite blogs and other things like that, but the reality is, you need to change the association you make with your phone first. This goes for all your devices btw, not just your phone. It needs to revert back to being a tool that obediently sits somewhere away from you and is picked up to perform a specific task and then put down again. Constant entertainment shouldn't be our goal in general, but I digress.

Once you get the change (you can pick up older Pixels pretty cheap used - which is also great for the environment btw!), the next step is to look up 3-4 sources of information (I go with 2 or 3 that lean the same way I do politically and 1 that is the complete opposite) and assign let's say an hour in the morning or one in the evening when you might go through those articles.

I afterwards realized that nothing really changes by me going to several places to look up things. It doesn't matter if you read about something on CNN/Fox/The Guardian/The Atlantic/BBC/Al Jazeera, at the end of the day, it happened and 5-10-20-40 different sources will really talk about the same event. Will this event impact you? Probably not. If it does, i'd recommend you look for a source of news that's closes to you geographically, they might have some more localized insight. Chances are if cycling legislation changes in Berkeley, a local website/paper might have more relevant information than Al Jazeera (which, chances are, won't cover that event anyway). So this was the next step, once you start weaning yourself off of the endlessly repeating news cycle, look for something closer to you. Maybe at this point, you can do a quick read over some of the big topics once a week - how's the humanitarian crisis in Yemen? Is there anything you can do to help (pressure your elected officials/gov/etc, join an NGO and help that way)? This is, in my view, essential to being a good citizen. Once that's done, you can check maybe what happened locally, which will, invariably, impact your life to a greater degree than what happens half-way across the world.

First of all, congrats you're still here, you're doing well!

At this point I check HN a couple of times a day (this is one of those occasions), I look for anything that I'm interested in, try to limit it to 2-3 articles and that's me. This whole process probably took around 5-6 months from start to finish. The slower you go along with it, the better chance things will stick. I feel a lot better now than I did a few years ago when I was one of those people with a couple of screens of apps. I have more time, I look up what I'm interested in, I feel more connected to my local community and my local government. I have time to research a topic I'm interested in with greater focus instead of being devoured by a slew of panic inducing titles or gifs/videos that keep me scrolling endlessly.

We (and here I mean most tech/knowledge workers) are stuck in front of screens all day... We should by now have figured out that when they aren't helping you, they are DEMANDING your attention and they give very little in return. So the best mentally healthy apps are those that you don't use. Those that you uninstall and those that give you time back. Sorry for the long rant, hope it helps!

Wikipedia front page is pretty good. They have a news section too.

"App"reciation. The mentally healthy app. :)

We listen to podcasts. Ologies is fun to listen to.

Anything that's not connected to the internet.

The off button.

Cadoo - great bite sized workouts

I find this value in this one https://www.wakingup.com/ from Sam Harris

Elevate and Peak brain training

This might be a bit different from what you're looking for, but I highly recommend Dynalist.io; it offers every conceivable option for viewing anywhere any way you can imagine and offers 99% of the features for free (subscription plans are for duplicate backup versions as SimpleText on Dropbox or Google Drive, but I've never had any problems with their Amazon Cloud default).

The reason I say this is because I've read quite a few articles in the past on brain science stuff and apparently, the majority of brain anxiety most people encounter is from the brain running repeating cycles to simultaneously address/prioritize things that are on it's periphery radar that "can't be addressed immediately" ...

The simple act of quickly jotting everything down then acts as a sort of "Sudo Purge" and allows the brain to stop wasting cycles subconsciously trying to to address everything you have to deal with.

As an alternative, I find Cultured Code's "Things" app wonderful too.

Both of the services are as intuitive to use as a piece of paper with the option of dragging-and-dropping everything where-ever you want instead of endlessly copying-and-pasting and can be set up to either remain as simple as you wish or in the case of Dynalist.io (it was created by former Workflowy users who's versions they considered had become too full to easily navigate with Workflowy's "1-page is all you need" approach). To that end, Workflowy is great too, and both Workflowy and Dynalist not only allow for weblinks to interesting stuff you find/want to view/research later but Dynalist/Workflowy also have "save to" browser extensions so you can create your own private bookmarking service; in Dynalist you can pre-designate one of your pages as an "Inbox" where everything you clip is automatically saved to along with URLs and brief descriptions.

Dynalist in particular would be an "if I could only have one application" sort of deal ... you can use it for EVERYTHING from an organizer with due date reminders to project management to math (it has mathematical notation) to I believe music notation to coding projects to project management (you can designate pages for collaboration) to writing projects (it has a "word processing view" mode) to keeping notes/lists/recipes/images/whatever.

One of the reasons I would say it's invaluable for mental health purposes is that as you learn things that work for you, whether they be watching certain motivational videos or exercise routines or meditation routines or routines for taking whatever supplements/nootropics/whatever you find useful for your personal mental health, you'll more than likely want to have these routines written down and handy for days when "your brain doesn't feel that great" ... which is where an outliner-type list comes in handy for rapid reference.

Nirvana (sort of an online version of Things) is also pretty good, and if you find that too complex, "TeuxDeux" is great for clearing your head and making minimalist routines/shopping/to-do lists/weekly agendas in a very intuitive way.

Audubon and Merlin Bird ID.

Intro:

Why are you putting more apps onto the phone when you could live with the ones you have?

Body:

I haven't used Android in years but the high level concepts I'm describing probably apply equally, I've noticed a lot of cross pollination of ideas between them and us "iOS folks"[1][2]

Here are three apps you can use to improve your mental health, by reducing the chances your phone will be hacked and helping you plan your + make predictions.

1.) Notes app + emoji.

I have not used Android on a day to day basis for years, but on iOS, you can "pin" lists. Title the first line with emoji, then the second line with a description since titles are visible if someone forces you to unlock your phone.

Then add password to the notes.[3] A long one, stored in a password manager of your choice, or just write it down and put in in a safe place, like your wallet, or a physical safe. Or memorize it. Or use another technique I don't publish (because some things should be kept esoteric and offline)

Then set up a few lists like "Dailies" (stuff like morning pushups), "Groceries" (stuff you need from the store), Names (first name plus a few details about business contacts, lovers, and/or agents of foreign power).

2.) Clock app

Add a few time zones, and start checking them whenever you see an event in the news.

I currently have UTC, Zurich, London, New York, Toronto, and Tokyo.

(But I also have little mental hacks for each, like "Brussels is London plus one" so I'm not clogging the list with every single city that's on my radar.)

3.) Stock app

Add a few stocks you're interested and currencies. When you read a news article, check the time zone, then check the stocks and currencies. Try to guess if they'll be up or down. Don't record if they were -- you're training yourself to trust your gut.

Conclusion:

If you do these three things every day for a couple years, you'll start to get the same rush you get when you put a bullet in the center of a target, or successfully hack a server for the first when you confirm you were correct... but be careful -- on the rare occasions you're wrong, you'll probably need to smoke a strong indica to recover from the sad feelings you'll incur knowing you were wrong and will have to start the process over tomorrow.

Citations:

[1] I very purposefully chose an iPhone as my comms device. I don't want total control of my phone. I want a set of vetted apps to select from, protected by a strong passphrase so folks can get a warrant, spend millions or billions of dollars to get into my phone, or literally match me up with some catphishing goth girl informant who will probably go white as a sheet and panic when I just look her in the eye, tell her I'm not a serial killer, then go into the bathroom to turn off my phone as she rifles through my backpack.

[2] Ich besitze immer noch keine Schusswaffe, aber ich habe allen Spielern im Spiel gesagt, dass es kein Softplay mehr geben wird. Habt einen schönen Tag, wenn ihr könnt.

[3] https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-features-in-...

Extremely unpopular opinion from a software engineer on a tech forum but: mental health is as far away from the Internet as possible.

The more you can integrate the slower pace of nature and natural life, the better your mental health. Your physical presence is optimised for long days of doing fuck all, sitting in the grass, waiting for a deer to pass by.

Still struggling with this, but my long term life goal is living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with easy access to the unnatural and constantly accelerating flow of information that is the Internet.

Sorry if this sounds blunt but the question is a bit like "what's the least harmful kind of crack I can get to improve my health?" From the way it's phrased it sounds like you're struggling with mental health and excessive phone/devise usage. The two issues might be related, my advice would be no app.