Optimism Self-Help Applications for Depression Recovery

What are the Optimism applications?

At their core the Optimism applications are mood charts, designed to help with managing mental health. They are used as self-help or self-improvement tools, for depression, bipolar disorder, and other mental health conditions.

The core purpose of the apps is to help you discover what causes mood swings or other symptoms, to find the warning signs of a decline in health, and learn strategies, often specific to you, that help you to remain well.

The Optimism apps help you to be proactive. A continual feedback loop, in the form of charts and reports, improves your understanding of your mental health and the things that are helping or hindering you.

Who are they suited to?

The Optimism apps were originally developed as electronic mood charts. Mood charts have long been recommended by psychiatrists and therapists, for their clients to use in monitoring their mental health. Traditionally they have been used by people with a mood disorder, like depression and bipolar disorder.

Our experience is that Optimism is used much more widely. The second most common use is for self-help or self improvement. They are also commonly used for PTSD and other anxiety disorders, ADHD, and a range of physical illnesses.

Why would I use Optimism to track my mental health?

In a nutshell, the purpose of self-tracking is to learn more about yourself and achieve better health. By using the Optimism apps you can monitor the patterns in your life, to identify the negative influences (or "triggers") that impact on your health, and the early warning signs that your health is deteriorating.

Optimism can help you find the small things, as well as the big, that help you to stay well. It can show you the impact of positive strategies that you adopt on your well-being.

It helps you to plan for better health. By bringing together your knowledge of your triggers, early warning signs and symptoms, and wellness strategies you can develop a plan for remaining well. That is the key. The purpose of the software is to plan for wellness, not just keep a record of illness.

Rather than be a passive recipient of treatment, or just seek treatment in reaction to a new episode, Optimism can help you to have more involvement in your health and a greater sense of control. In general people achieve better health outcomes when they educate themselves and are proactive with their health.

There are many health professionals who love Optimism. By tracking your mental health you can provide your clinician with a precise, detailed history. It removes the problem of memory recall and gives an accurate picture of what has been happening. It gets to the bottom of what is or isn't working, which helps them to give more relevant, appropriate advice and treatment.

Every person's illness is different. "One Size Fits One". For many people treatment is difficult, a slow process, or not entirely successful. Optimism is designed to help increase your chance of success.

How does the desktop software differ from the web version?

The online and desktop versions are functionally the same, and we are developing them to be very similar going forward.

There is an advantage with the web application in that you can access it from any computer whereas with the desktop version you are restricted to one computer or otherwise need to synchronize between computers (e.g. desktop and laptop).

If you decide to use the iPhone or iPad app then there is an extra step for synching to the software because the data needs to be downloaded from the online database. Nothing extra needs to be done for the web app.

How much does it cost?

It is FREE!

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