I used the mental health app Shmoody for 2 weeks. Here’s how it affected my mood and self-care routine.

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• I tried the mental health app Shmoody for two weeks to improve daily self-care routines and habits.
• I loved the Community feature, but I thought the 7-Day Challenges could use some work. 
• While I did find Shmoody helpful and fun, it won't replace therapy or support from my loved ones.

Mental health apps are becoming an increasingly popular way to access tools and activities for boosting your mood and overall well-being. 

You can use some of these apps to connect with a therapist online. But other apps provide science-based self-care tools, routines, and communities you can use to support your mental health outside of therapy. 

I stumbled upon Shmoody while searching for an app to help me stick with routines and build better habits.

As someone with ADHD who works from home, routine is a non-negotiable for my well-being — and also the bane of my existence. With the COVID-19 pandemic removing so much structure from my day-to-day life, healthy habits fell to the bottom of my to-do list. 

Shmoody is a playful, self-guided app that offers just the personalized self-care routines I was searching for. Not only that, it comes with an assortment of other features, including:

• Peer support and accountability
• Basic mood tracking
• Journal prompts 
• Soundscapes
• Wellness challenges
• Personalized self-care routines and plans 
• Memes 

I tested Shmoody out for two weeks. Here's what the app did for my mental health.

Shmoody benefits

"Shmoody is designed to help people with depression and anxiety, as well as people feeling stressed or just feeling down," says Nathan Thomas, the founder of Shmoody. 

If you currently work with a therapist, mental health apps like Shmoody can promote ongoing well-being between sessions by encouraging peer support and helping you build positive habits. The app also offers action plans designed to help you improve regular self-care.

Thomas and his co-founder Mike McSweeney wanted to build an app that "people like us who deal with mental health issues would actually want to use, instead of something corporate and boring," Thomas says. 

Of course, mental health apps don't replace therapy with a trained mental health professional. 

Still, the one hour you spend in session each week needs to be reinforced outside of the office, says Daniel Wysocki, a therapist in private practice. 

Over time, using mental health apps with mood tracking and toolkits may even reduce your need for weekly therapy visits, Wysocki says.

How it works

The app opens to a zen-like visual and meditative music. It immediately prompts you to choose a color theme you like and the main reason you're using the app. These reasons include:

• Improving your mood
• Building better routines
• Self-care tools
• To feel less lonely

I chose the "routines" path. 

From there, Shmoody suggests two features that may fit your needs: action plans designed to help you feel better in the moment and custom plans to help you build your own routines.

It asks your age and top goals, while sharing benefits users often get from the app. 

The app highlights a few major features:

• Challenges based on weekly goals, like "abstaining from negative thinking for an entire week"
• Soundscapes, binaural beats, and sleep stories
• Breathing exercises and meditations
• Life coaching, which features pre-recorded talks on self-care and how to take control of your thoughts and emotions
• Community forums to connect with other users

What's the cost? 

Shmoody is a freemium app, so you have immediate access to the free version with limited features before choosing whether to spend money on a subscription. Since every brain is different, I recommend trying the free version for a week to see if it's a good fit.

To get access to every feature in the app, you can upgrade to the premium option, which costs: 

• $14.99 per month 
• $59.99 per year
• $99.99 for a lifetime membership

You'll also get premium access to Shmoody when you share your app link with a friend.

Before upgrading, I could access soundscapes, make my own action plans, and participate in communities. I had to upgrade or use the three-day free trial to access challenges and life coaching.

Feature I loved: Community

The app's community area gives users space to open up on topics ranging from relationships to addiction. This is where Shmoody users can support each other anonymously, Thomas says.

You can use this anonymous place to vent or get input from other users on anything from gratitude to music to loneliness. Think of it as a subreddit for anyone invested in their mental wellness.

I like that Shmoody breaks down the peer community into different areas based on what you need at a given moment. I wouldn't visit the "Motivational Quotes" community when I need to release frustration — that's what the "Space to Vent" group is for.

Then, I can visit a growth-oriented community like "Aspirations and Goals" when I'm done processing and feel ready to move forward.

Feature I didn't love: 7-day challenges

I expected to love 7-day challenges since I'm competitive and I like routines, but I found a few usability drawbacks.

At the time this article was written, Shmoody offers seven challenge paths.

The app only let me try one 7-day challenge at a time, which felt limiting — particularly since challenges like "Combating Loneliness" and "Daily Acts of Kindness" seemed like they'd work well together.

I also found it tricky to switch challenges, since you can't switch from the "Challenge" page. Instead, I needed to unenroll from a different page, go back to "Challenges," and then choose a new one.

I also found the phrasing in some of the challenges guilt-inducing. For instance, the lists of rules in the "Social Media Detox" felt harsh — especially phrases like "Absolutely no opening any social media for the next 7 days. At all." 

While yes, I did want to cut back on my social media use to stop mindless scrolling, I still wanted to use it on occasion to message friends.

What's more, overarching statements like "Social media is a garbage fire" imply that sending memes back and forth with friends is shameful or a waste of time. This felt counter-productive to the "connecting with others" goal I selected when making my account.

I'd rather a mental health app offer some benefits of using social media less often — instead of falsely assuming I only used it to check up on exes. 

Week one benefits

A week into using the app, my smartwatch alerted me that my resting heart rate dropped from 75 to 70 beats per minute.

I contribute this small win to the "Self-Care Basics" coaching series, which consists of eight recordings emphasizing the importance of meeting your basic needs. 

With the narrator's voice reminding me daily to check in with myself, I found it easier to recall basic care tasks like eating. (Yes, I apparently forget to eat unless I'm reminded.)

It was like having a concerned mom or a good friend on hand. These recordings don't do the work for you, but they remind you what you need to stay healthy.

My biggest benefits in week one included:

• Remembering to do things like eat breakfast and take my medication on time
• Lower resting heart rate
• Reduced stress 
• More deep breathing during moments of high stress, especially right before finals

Week two benefits

My daily routine seriously improved by week two. I averaged eight hours of sleep a night by day 11 — significantly more than my usual six hours. 

I no longer needed the app to remind me about daily habits like eating or taking medications on time, since I was so used to the voice telling me about self-care.

By week two, I'd stopped using the 7-day challenge feature. But I found other features I enjoyed, like listening to binaural tones while working to help me stay focused. 

I also replaced my daily social media scroll with Shmoody's Gratitude community, which helped me appreciate little things I enjoyed, like good morning texts from my partner and cardamom lattes. 

This assortment of tools may explain why Shmoody users report, on average, a 38% improvement in mood while using the app.

My biggest benefits in week two:

• Settling into a daily routine, which lowered my stress levels and helped me stop rushing around as much
• Self-regulating with short meditations 
• Feeling more connected and thankful because of peer validation in the anonymous communities
• Recognizing that self-care isn't just another to-do on my list — it can feel like a soothing ritual, not a punishment
• When to consider professional support

While mental health apps can help improve your mood, they're not a substitute for professional support. 

A professional can help you address mental health symptoms like:

• Abrupt or unpredictable changes in mood
• Persistent feelings of anxiety, fear, or sadness
• Trouble managing alcohol or substance use
• Thoughts of violence 
• Feeling like you can't trust anyone
• Seeing or hearing things others around you don't notice
• Flashbacks
• Panic attacks
• Trouble concentrating or completing daily tasks
• Thoughts of self-harm or suicide

Therapy can also help you improve your self-esteem, get an objective take on major life issues, and learn new ways to express yourself authentically and respectfully. 

I still see my therapist every other week, but Shmoody supported my mental health between sessions. I felt less indecisive and less isolated on days I used the app.

As someone with ADHD, I also appreciated the app's variety and fun imagery. This app didn't overwhelm me with questions before suggesting ways to feel better — who wants to answer 20 questions when feeling unmotivated? Not me. 

Thomas emphasizes that the app doesn't "cure" mental health conditions — as there's no cure for depression, anxiety, or stress. 

"The best pathway to long term recovery is daily positive actions, taken with community support," Thomas says.

Insider's takeaway

While mental health apps like Shmoody don't replace professional care, they can improve access to mental health support and help you stay on track outside of weekly therapy sessions.

I found the Shmoody interface difficult to navigate at times, but the guidance from this colorful self-care toolkit app still went a long way toward helping me stick with healthier routines.

While my go-to mood supports are still therapy and my loved ones, Shmoody showed me an app can provide a great option for mental health support. If you're looking for an app to build new habits or track your mood, Shmoody might be worth a try.