We tried Apple App Store's 2022 award-winning wellness app; here's what happened

With literally a million, 1.8 million to be exact, on the Apple App Store available for download, we're constantly spoilt for choice when it comes to finding tools that can help us enrich our lives. From entertainment and education to creation and self-improvement, you'll likely find an app that can make the experience easier, better, or simply more enjoyable. 

Apple recently announced a number of apps that stood out in 2022 as having a positive and lasting impact on people's lives. The well-being app How We Feel is among the four App Store Award Cultural Impact Award winners. I decided to try the app for two weeks to see how it works and if it'll teach me 'new ways to help myself in the moment', as the app suggests.

How it works

The concept behind the app is simple: daily prompts are sent to users to encourage them to check in and keep track of their emotions. Emotions are categorised into high energy pleasant, high energy unpleasant, low energy pleasant and low energy unpleasant. 

Within these four categories, users can more closely log their feelings at a specific moment during the day, detailing where they are, who they're with and what they're doing. Users can also add a photo to the entry to help capture the moment. 

And depending on how you feel during each check-in, the app offers short guided lessons, prep talks and other tidbits of information from wellness and mental health specialists to help users handle specific emotions brewing in that moment. 

The 'self-report app', as its creators call it, was born out of a desire to help people get a handle on their emotions. The non-profit organisation's group of scientists, therapists and designers came together to create this visually inviting and easy-to-use interface to help people understand themselves and get the help they need at the moment without delay. 

The app recommends checking in twice daily and will collate your check-ins to provide a bird's eye view of what your week, month or year looks like from an emotional standpoint. 

The Journey

I wanted to get a fuller picture of my mood over a period of time and look at whether I might benefit from more personal and in-depth face-to-face therapy. 

The app suggests checking in at least twice a day, but there's also the option to customise more or fewer check-in notifications. As much as I was committed to logging my feelings for two weeks, I knew I couldn't rely on self-discipline or memory to remember to check in daily. I made a point of allowing notifications for the app on my Apple Watch, which I only do with a few apps because it can get quite overwhelming. With just two daily reminders, it was entirely manageable. 

The app's interface is quite simple; tap one of four emotional categories, and then the option of logging any additional information in a few words meant it took less than 30 seconds to put in each entry. 

At the end of each entry, the app offers a short, optional exercise to help destress and dissect your feelings. 

One of the most helpful of these therapist-guided videos was on a day when I had been feeling particularly irritated. After filing it under high energy, unpleasant, the app suggested a short audio visualisation exercise that instructed me to close my eyes and imagine how this particular moment and cause of this irritation would feel like a day, a week, a month, and a month a year from now. 

It gave me some much-needed perspective on how, as much as we should enjoy and live in the moment, it's important to understand any single moment in life has much less weight than we perceive them to have in the grand scheme of things.

The Verdict

One of my biggest takeaways from reviewing my two weeks' worth of check-ins is that I'm much less stressed out than I thought. A good 60 per cent of my check-ins fall under the pleasant category, though not consistently high energy, which is understandable.

It made me realise perhaps I let those infrequent moments of negativity, stress and anxiety rule my life, and I've fooled myself into believing I'm constantly battling these emotions when, in fact, I actually feel pretty good most of the time. 

I also found reviewing the remarks I put down for each check-in helpful, especially about who I am with when I experience positive moments. Unsurprisingly, I have the best time when I'm surrounded by loved ones, in settings like dinner or at a park, where I'm able to engage them at an emotionally intimate level. 

The lessons also provided a good dose of calm especially during difficult times; the video on identifying the theme of anger gave me the tools to control my negative feelings more effectively. Suggesting that rage is often tied to feelings of injustice and not reaching our goals made it much easier for me to understand how to deal with that anger in a constructive and gentle way. 

I would by no means suggest logging your emotions on this app replaces more targeted and personalised therapy and other types of professional support for those experiencing mental health concerns at a deeper level. But it is a good place to start to reign in your feelings and identify potential causes of the emotional strains you might be experiencing. For some, that might be enough; for others, it's an excellent start to understanding the state of your mental well-being and a tool to help convey your emotions more accurately and concisely to a professional.

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