Is Your Smartphone an Antidepressant?

The next thing that helps with depression and anxiety might already be in your pocket. Smartphones stopped being just phones a while ago. They carry so many tools now that they can play a real part in how you manage your mood from one day to the next.

Mindfulness meditation keeps coming up as a way to stay grounded in the present, and guided meditation videos make that practice easier to actually do. Set aside twenty minutes, press play, and let the day's noise settle. When your attention stays on right now, you stop feeding the worry about what tomorrow might bring, and you loosen your grip on whatever went wrong yesterday, which is often where depression likes to park itself. YouTube has more of these videos than you could watch in a year.

Inspirational apps are another option. You download them, then dip in throughout the day for a little push. There are far too many to list, but Daily Bible Verse is one. Plenty of other Bible apps and quote collections exist too, pulling lines from motivational speakers living and long gone.

E-reading can lift a mood as well. Kindle, Nook, and Google Play Books all run as apps, and reading a single chapter a day can be enough to get you moving. The Bible works here, with the poetry of the Psalms and the plain wisdom of Proverbs. Beyond that, there are endless devotional books, both old and new, waiting on Amazon or Google if you want to buy one.

Music does something to a person. It softens things, loosens the shoulders. Research suggests that people who spend time with the arts, music included, tend to understand their own feelings better, partly because the act of listening relaxes them. Some jobs even let you keep your phone plugged in and music going all day. It motivates, and it has a way of pulling people together. Pandora, TuneIn, iHeartRadio: take your pick.

If you want something closer to actual therapy, a handful of apps offer one-on-one counseling, usually for a monthly fee. There's also a text line run through dosomething.org. Text START to 741741 and someone responds. Face-to-face support beats a screen, no argument there, but when you only have a few minutes in the middle of a hectic day and need to unload, this does the job.

You can even track your moods on your phone. Answer a handful of quick questions and the app gives you a read on where your head is, or reminds you when it's time to take any medication you use for anxiety or depression.

Games count too. Most people are hooked on at least one, and that's not entirely a bad thing. Dropping into a game pulls your mind off whatever's gnawing at you and burns off some of that heavy, negative energy. You meet people in game rooms, chat with them, maybe move to a call or video, and sometimes those online strangers turn into friends you see in person. Messenger apps work on the same idea, letting you connect one-on-one or in groups through a private box with people on sites like Facebook.

So the point is this: your phone does a lot more than make calls. It's a small computer you hold in your hand, good for reaching people across the world or doing almost anything from reading to gaming. And for anyone wrestling with anxiety, depression, anger, or bipolar disorder, the mood trackers, counseling apps, and daily inspiration apps are all sitting right there to help you start the day. - Erwin Bishop

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