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There’s a lot to be anxious about these days. And finding ways to keep your anxiety in check can be hard, especially if you can’t afford to get professional help. So, if you’re looking for a few free options to help you relax, we’ve reviewed the eight best free anxiety apps to get you started.
Check them out below.
(Pssst… don’t love any of these apps? Check out more anxiety apps here)
1. Mind Ease: Anxiety Relief
Pros: Mind Ease works quickly, which is key when you’re experiencing a sudden attack of anxiety or panic and need to feel better fast. The app offers a wide choice of strategies—more than just variants of meditation—including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), progressive muscle relaxation, gratitude practice, writing exercises, self-discovery activities, anxiety defusion, sleep hygiene tools, quizzes, and more. All exercises have support in research literature, have been written by clinicians, and are easy to understand and follow.
Cons: You’ll have to do at least three exercises to let the app’s machine learning algorithm learn which approaches work best for your type of anxiety. The exercises sometimes involve active thinking and introspection, which can be a surprise for those used to meditation-only apps.
Who it’s good for: Everyone who experiences anxiety, whether strong or mild. Especially suited if you like measuring and tracking your improvement and are curious to try a variety of anxiety relief approaches. Mind Ease soon will be adding more content to help you work on long-term mental health, including feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and low-self esteem, including feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and low-self esteem.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play.
2. Sanvello (Formerly Pacifica)
Pros: It’s easy to use, all tools are absolutely free (!), it’s great for tracking your mood and your progress, it’s customizable so you can pick your own goals to focus on, and it has chat groups for support as well as meditation options.
Cons: Nothing specifically for in-the-moment panic.
Who it’s good for: Everyone! This is pretty close to the perfect app — it’s basically an all-in-one anxiety killer. It’s also super easy to track your progress over time, which is a plus. It’s also super easy to adjust your daily goals depending on if you’re majorly depressed or just stressed out.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
3. Headspace
Pros: It has visually appealing graphics, topic-specific meditations, and it’s easy to track your progress
Cons: Only a few of the meditations are free
Who it’s good for: It’s perfect for someone who is simply looking for a meditation app, and nothing more. It’s also helpful for keeping you motivated and track your progress.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
4. Calm
Pros: The 7 Days of Calm program helps you exercise your meditation muscles. Plus, there are lots of different background sounds and visuals.
Cons: Limited free meditations
Who it’s good for: The beginning meditator! It’s a great tool for anyone just getting started in meditation and would like a little help getting into the practice. Also good for anyone who is looking to get back into meditation after a hiatus.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
5. Self-help for Anxiety Management (SAM)
Pros: It has great tools for when you’re in the middle of an anxiety attack, has places for you to learn about yourself and your anxiety, and it has places for you to track your mood.
Cons: There’s no place for setting individual goals
Who it’s good for: Someone who really wants to focus on learning about their individual anxieties and what truly helps them to feel better.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
6. Happify
Pros: There are tons of different tracks for personalizing your experience, bright graphics, as well as a variety of different activities to try.
Cons: There’s no specific help if you’re suffering from a panic attack.
Who it’s good for: Anyone who works well with goals would find this app helpful. It’s probably best for someone with low-moderate stress or anxiety.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
7. Anxiety Relief Hypnosis (Formerly End Anxiety)
Pros: It offers a 30-minute anxiety hypnosis audio file and it’s easy to to use.
Cons: With the free version, you have to listen to the 3-minute instructions every time you open up the audio, which can get annoying.
Who it’s good for: Someone who’s interested in trying something new! The hypnosis is perfect for listening to right before bed or to help you fall asleep.
Click here for Google Play
8. Stop, Breathe, & Think
Pros: There are lots of different meditations included in the free version, including a quick 2-minute meditation if you don’t have much time.
Cons: No other skills offered besides meditation
Who it’s good for: Perfect for someone dealing with extra stress and needs help on the go. The app offers lots of brief, positive meditations.
Click here for Apple and here for Google Play
One Final Note
While all of these apps can be great tools, it’s important that you have more than one tool in your belt. Other things you should consider are talk therapy, medication, yoga, meditation, and CBD products (like Delta 8 THC, for example). You might have to try out a few things before you find what works for you.
