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Looking for the best happiness apps to increase your overall life satisfaction?
Happiness has no universal definition—it varies depending on a person’s situation. But generally, it is something that people from all walks of life are entitled to.
In this post, we have gathered the best happiness apps you can use to try to improve your life’s potential. These apps can help you track your moods to give you a glimpse of what you need to improve.
(Side note: One proven way to improve your happiness and life satisfaction is to focus on goals that truly matter. To get started, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals.).
What You Will Learn
Let’s get to it!
1. Happify
Founded by three serial entrepreneurs (Tomer Ben-Kiki, Ofer Leidner, and Andy Parsons) in New York City in 2012, Happify aims to change people’s lives by providing ways to become happier. As stated by its founders, the purpose of the app is to use gaming and technology to build a better life for its users.
After you download the app and create an account, Happify will score your happiness based on a questionnaire. The questions are all about the smallest details in your life, particularly your health. Then, the app provides you with a series of tracks that you can use to start living a healthy, stress-free life.
Every track has a theme that is further divided into parts. Each part is then divided into various sets of activities, including guided meditations, writing assignments, and exciting games. As a basic free user, you are entitled to a few tracks with limited access. If you upgrade to the premium product (Happify Plus), you get to enjoy unlimited access to more than 30 tracks.
Happify is available on desktop, tablet, and mobile. If you want to start increasing your happiness based on scientific evidence-based research, you might want to try this app.
2. SuperBetter
SuperBetter was originally founded and invented by Jane McGonigal, a researcher and game designer. She is also a TED Talker and a bestselling writer.
In 2015, the game was acquired by Keith Wakeman, who turned it into a corporation now known as SuperBetter, LLC. Along with the game, Wakeman also acquired the trust of McGonigal, who is now the company’s chief science officer.
The app aims to help people build grit and resilience, and develop the ability to stay strong, persistent, and positive despite all the challenges that life may throw at them. It is based on a framework called Live Gamefully, which brings out your heroic strengths and gives you a better mindset.
SuperBetter works by providing you with daily activities that you can track until you reach your goal. It uses a point system, and you gain points for each step you complete. Such steps include taking a walk or drinking a glass of water.
What’s great about this app is that you can actually be a superhero if you like—you can collect power-ups, win against bad guys, and get help from friends and allies.
3. My Gratitude Journal
Gratitude makes people happier. There are a lot of things to be grateful for, and there are a lot of ways to practice being grateful. One of the best amongst these is journaling.
My Gratitude Journal takes journaling to a more advanced level. While some people may enjoy the traditional pen-and-paper method, there are those who would probably prefer to have a diary on their tablets or smartphones.
To use the app, you need to download it and then create an account through Facebook, Twitter, or an email account. For your first journal entry, you have to upload a photo, type a description of the things you are grateful for, and then add your location.
Every day, you keep track of five things you are grateful for. You will be sent notifications and rewards so you can develop the journaling habit. Likewise, you may set daily reminders, search for inspirational quotes, and revisit your past entries through the app.
Note, however, that the app is only available for iOS users. The company behind it has yet to develop an Android version.
4. Headspace
Headspace explains its purpose in its very short yet sincere tagline: “Your guide to health and happiness.” It aims to help you live a healthier, more rested, and happier life with its mindfulness meditation and exercise guides.
Through its guided meditation techniques, the happiness app has three main goals:
- Reduce your daily stress and anxiety.
- Help you stay focused and drive away distractions.
- Increase your compassion toward other people.
The Headspace app offers a variety of meditation guides—from basic to advanced—for the different aspects of your life. These include sleep, work, happiness, and a lot more. If you feel like you’re about to get burned out, the app has you covered—it has a meditation guide for that, too!
Overall, this happiness and meditation app teaches you how to breathe properly, meditate mindfully, and live your life fully. In addition to meditation guidelines, it also has exercise plans that can help you manage your stress, regularize your breathing, and generally make your life happy.
Even if you do not know how to meditate, the app can help you learn to do so. It offers courses that teach meditation, breathing techniques, and even better sleep quality and personal growth.
5. MoodKit
MoodKit was designed and developed by two clinical psychologists: Dr. Drew Erhardt and Dr. Edrick Dorian (the same creators as Moodnotes). It adheres to the principles and techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is considered to be one of the most effective methods of psychotherapy.
MoodKit is an app that allows you to track your mood and then assess it through journaling. It is like having your own cognitive-behavioral psychologist in your pocket.
Through this app, you can rate and record your mood throughout the day. Likewise, you can take notes of your observations about those moods and assess yourself at the end of the day. Additionally, the app provides a list of daily activities you can do and a number of tips you can follow to increase your life satisfaction and happiness.
MoodKit aims to develop self-awareness and healthy attitudes. Moreover, it wishes to change people’s lives by changing the way they think and feel.
6. Track Your Happiness
Invented by Matt Killingsworth during his doctoral research at Harvard University, this app aims to make use of modern technology to answer the age-old question: “What makes people happy?”
Killingsworth believes that the true meaning of happiness is different for everyone. The factors affecting happiness vary depending on what is important for each person, and these factors are exactly what the app wants to discover.
Every day, the app sends you questions about what you are doing and feeling at the moment. For every 50 responses, you will get a happiness report so you can recognize exactly what makes you feel the happiest. Moreover, you will know when and where you are feeling the best.
Track Your Happiness is an app approved by the Harvard University Committee for use with human subjects. If you want to know more, developer Matt Killingsworth has a TED Talk about it.
7. Unique Daily Affirmations
Brought to you by Gopher Apps LLC, this unique and creative app gives you “unique daily affirmations” to help you face challenges, succeed in your endeavors, and create a positive vibe in your life.
You only get one affirmation per day, which you need to say out loud. The developers recommend speaking the affirmation and repeating it over and over again to stimulate your mind. It has been scientifically proven that the more you repeat information, the more your mind retains it.
Throughout the day, your subconscious mind will preserve the affirmation. As a result, you will have a positive attitude toward whatever comes your way.
To use the app, just press the large gray button to reveal your affirmation for the day. You may share, save, view, or skip the affirmation by tapping the bottom left icon. You may also add your own affirmation by tapping on the bottom left part of the icon that says “Add Your Own.”
8. Daylio
If you want to try journaling without using too many words, Daylio is perhaps the best app to try. More than a simple happiness app, it is an award-winning, mood-tracking app that allows you to record your emotions by choosing the best videos.
Daylio offers you a variety of videos to choose from. These videos depict your moods, so you only have to select the one that best reflects what you are feeling. As such, the app is best for people who are more visual.
Daylio features a “statistics and calendar” tool that allows you to record what you are feeling. This way, you will be able to determine the patterns in your attitude, behavior, and feelings. You can include additional notes about your moods so you will have a broader view of what the patterns are trying to illustrate.
Other features of the app include reminders, backup entries, PIN locks, monthly and yearly statistics logs, and a lot more.
9. RealifeChange
RealifeChange aims to be a “portable life coach” by tracking your daily moods, activities, and experiences, and then analyzing them to give you feedback. It was designed to help you identify your life stressors and overcome them by:
- Living a mindful life
- Increasing your confidence
- Boosting your overall life satisfaction
The app uses a unique technology called “Life Autofocus®” that helps you build a better version of yourself by helping you scrutinize the insights of your experiences. It tracks your mood and experiences based on type, intensity, and location. You can use hashtags to easily track them.
RealifeChange is designed for busy people who want to improve their happiness and life satisfaction but do not have the time to do so on their own.
10. Yolife
Yolife is a relatively new happiness app that aims to increase people’s happiness by providing ways for them to live healthily. According to its founders (Tassilo Webber and Roope Kärki), the app’s goal is to “add 15 healthy years to 1 million people.”
Sign-up is via Facebook or a valid email address. After that, there are three steps to make the most out of this health and happiness app:
- Free health consultation – The app will ask you questions about your health, exercise, habits, social life, etc. Your answers will determine the most important health areas that you need to improve. The app will also provide you with an estimate of how long you will live if you are in good health.
- Personalized program – You will receive guidelines and instructions based on the answers you provided. The app offers classes on topics such as optimal sleeping conditions, sex habits to help you live longer, the purpose of life, and many more.
- Healthy lifetime – This is the maintenance level, where you simply need to apply what is in your personalized program. You will see a track record of the healthy days added to your lifetime.
The founders of Yolife believe that a person’s happiness is dependent on two things: purpose and health. If you know your purpose in life and are healthy enough to accomplish it, your happiness and life satisfaction will increase.
A final word on these great happiness apps
Life can be stressful. There are a lot of things to worry about, including work, school, home, and other issues..
But despite all the obstacles and challenges that life may throw at you, remember that there is always a reason to be happy. There is always something to be thankful for.
If you want to live a healthier, happier life, try one of the 10 happiness apps we shared above. Figure out which one best fits your schedule and personality, and then use it to add a dose of happiness to your life.
Finally, one proven way to improve your happiness and life satisfaction is to focus on goals that truly matter. To get started, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals.
