Happify is a free mindfulness app that aims to help users overcome anxiety, stress, negative thoughts, and build resilience by breaking old patterns and starting new habits.
The app’s developers have incorporated recent research into interactive games, activities, and reflective exercises that have helped me build on what the app creators call the “5 key happiness skills”; savoring, thankfulness, aspiration, giving, and empathy. The guided tracks allowed me to focus on specific emotions or reflect on situations that were relevant to me that week, and the free play section allowed me to play and work through these various activities and reflections to help strengthen these skills further.
Instant play was a great part of the app that I used quite often. This allowed me to pick what skill I wanted to work on and do the daily activity associated with that skill. I was able to complete an activity when I had a few spare moments, and it helped me be more mindful of experiences and people in my life, whether it was by writing a reflection about something that I am thankful for, or sending someone a kind message of encouragement. The instant play would be great for nurses, because you don’t have to have a large chunk of time to benefit from the use of the app.
I think that the guided tracks would be great for someone who has developed a good routine, but to get the full benefit it required a fair amount of commitment. A lot of the app use was self directed, prompting me to set and evaluate goals which were sometimes hard for me to achieve each day. Because the tracks require you to complete the available activity before moving onto the next one, I felt it was sometimes hard to progress through tracks if I was particularly busy during a certain part of the week. The guided tracks allowed me to complete approximately 75% of the activities, and 25% were accessible to premium subscribers.
To have access to the Premium features such as full access to activities, and an analysis of your statistics and skill improvement, users must purchase a monthly, yearly, or lifetime membership. One year of Happify Premium costs $179.99, or $19.49 for a monthly subscription. Lifetime access carries a pretty hefty price tag of $599.99 which was one of my greatest criticisms for this app.