4 useful mental health tools to help you combat burnout
Neglecting one’s mental health can be easy when deadlines and workloads start piling high, and stress begins to become unmanageable. After all, it’s important to stay on top of work. But looking after yourself should always be a number one priority.
After all, the machine can’t run if you don’t add petrol to it.
Alongside making sure you are sleeping enough, eating healthily and exercising, there are additional tools you can introduce to your daily life to help you look after your mental health and wellbeing.
Having searched the internet far and wide, below are four of the best mental health tools currently on the market:
Moodfit - mental health exercises
Moodfit is an application that helps you track your mood through daily exercises that seek to help you acknowledge and then tackle the negative emotions and thoughts you might experience on a daily basis.
Perhaps you're worried a presentation will go poorly, or your imposter syndrome is causing you anxiety in the workplace. With Moodfit, you can keep your mental health ‘fit’ just like you would with your body through physical exercise, but with the added benefit of helping you understand yourself and how you feel.
Moodfit runs using cognitive behavioural therapy and uses a questionnaire to assess your mental health on signing up, so that the app can help you address your thoughts in the best way possible.
Pros:
The benefits of Moodfit are many, including its customisable features such as the goal setter and daily progress tracker. It also sends you reminders to complete exercises, to help keep you motivated to open the app and work on your mental health.
Cons:
However, keep in mind that Moodfit doesn’t offer access to mental health professionals. On top of this, mood-tracking has been criticised as being fairly time-consuming, which can negatively impact you if you are already stressed from a large workload.
Price:
The app is free to download, but does have paid additional features and in-app purchases.
Headspace - meditation app
Headspace is a mindfulness application that focuses on meditation exercises. They have a broad range of options, for beginners to more experienced users.
The sessions range from 3 to 20 minutes long, so you can do a quick class in between assignments or meetings, making it very accessible to those with hectic schedules.
Some of the sessions are also centred on helping you deal with specific problems, such as improving your sleep schedule, tackling cravings, and dealing with distractions.
Pros:
Headspace has a good range of problem-focused sessions for a wide range of mental health problems. The app is affordable and also tracks a really high user-satisfaction rating, with some incredibly positive reviews.
Cons:
The one criticism is that exercises can get a bit repetitive. However, this is a great starting place if you are looking to be introduced into the world of meditation as a form of mental health aid and stress-relief.
Price:
Unfortunately, there is no free version. Subscription starts at $12.99 a month, or $69.99 a year.
Happify - mental health gaming app
Happify is a research-backed, gaming app that seeks to help people work on improving their anxiety and stress through a series of science-based activities. These work to build a more positive mindset, helping the user develop more resilience and healthy thinking.
Evidence-based interventions in the fields of psychology, mindfulness and cognitive behaviour therapy, and decades of research have gone into the development of this app.
Pros:
The games and exercises are simple and effective, so there is really no excuse to give up on doing them. On top of this, the app was developed by real experts in the field, who have experience and expertise in several different areas of psychology.
Moreover, it is really fun to use, encouraging a ‘live in the present’ mindset that can be highly beneficial to those of us who get caught up in the minutiae stresses of everyday tasks.
Cons:
Unfortunately, if you don’t have the premium version, the games and exercises on offer are pretty limited. It is also somewhat expensive in relation to other mental health app options, although many are not nearly as fun and helpful as Happify is.
Also seeking to help motivate you, some have criticised the many challenges and deadlines as being stressful in themselves.
Price:
There is a free version, with the premium version starting at $14.99 a month.
Mind Resources - workplace targeted
This is a series of free resources offered by the mental health charity Mind. They seek to help people improve their mental wellbeing in the workplace, and are free to read online or download.
There are wellness action plans, manager guides to mental health (for those in positions of authority), supporting staff experiencing mental ill-health, promoting mental wellbeing, and tackling causes of workplace-related ill health, amongst other resources.
Pros:
Whether you own a business or company, or simply work within one, learning to look after yourself and others in professional settings is incredibly important. As is promoting wellbeing and safe spaces to discuss mental health.
This resource has a wide-ranging series of wellness packs on a tonne of different areas of workplace mental health, and each resource is comprehensive. They also all have a practical approach, recommending courses of action and further resources for those looking to expand their understanding and learn more ways to look after their mental health in the workplace.
Cons:
Only seeks to target workplace-related mental health promotion, not any other context. If you feel like your personal life is causing you more anxiety at the moment, then perhaps another of the resources would be a better option.
Also, it is a more general resource, and therefore doesn’t target specific mental illnesses.
Price:
Entirely free!
Looking after your mental health matters
Looking after your mental health needs to be a priority. You can’t be the best version of yourself if you don’t ensure you are checking in with yourself and how you are feeling and reacting to the daily stresses of life.
These are just a few of the mental health resources available on the internet, some at a cost, and some offering free versions. The Industry Leaders have researched 15 of the best of these, the details of which can be accessed by our premium members.
Lastly, these resources are not targeted for those suffering from severe mental health problems, but rather are centred more on helping to cope with day-to-day anxiety and stress. Please seek professional advice from your doctor if you feel you may be suffering from severe mental ill-health.
Caroline Winter is a current MA student in Creative Writing, based in London. She has experience working as an editor, translator, and writer on a series of different projects and topics.
She is excited to be collaborating alongside The Industry Leaders as a content creator, and can be found on LinkedIn.
