Aged 18-24? Get FREE access to mental health app 87 Percent.
87 Percent is a mental health app that helps you get to know yourself a bit better. You can see how you change with time. Developed by psychologists, it’s free to use with the link below if you are 18-24.
It’s not easy to be kind to yourself. It can be hard to recognise how you’re doing. And if you’re doing – well, not great – it’s so hard to explore that, especially if you’re low on energy and/or self-esteem.
A mental health app isn’t going to change the world, but if it can help you in any small way at all, isn’t that in itself something special? The more support systems you have, the more you can work with yourself. And, when it comes to mental and emotional health, you deserve to keep progressing to a place where you can feel better, more trusting of yourself and more resilient.
The 87 Percent mental health app. What is it?
- A new way to measure and understand your mental wellbeing
- Coaching and guidance to help you build your mental fitness
- Lots of programmes and exercises to help you build self-awareness and become more resilient over time
- Monthly reports that help you understand how you’re getting stronger, and track your progress
The 87 Percent mental health fitness app was built by psychologists as part of a research project with the Aviva Foundation and Youth Employment UK. It styles itself as a mental fitness gym, which is in itself interesting. It’s a concept and turn of phrase that plays a small but welcome part in removing the stigma of mental health, and that is very welcome indeed. Use personal research and expert tips and activities to learn how you’re doing then try out measurable ways of raising your initial personal scores over a period of time.
You can use this little mental fitness app to…
- Measure and understand your mental wellbeing, using scientifically-backed questions on specific areas of your health.
- Better understand your mental wellbeing, through lots of helpful content to support your learning.
- Establish healthy habits so you can maintain your mental fitness, or improve over time.
- Track your progress and spot patterns that help you think about your mental fitness regularly.
Far too often, we mentally punish ourselves for feeling bad about feeling bad. And, when the mental weather is really foggy or stormy, we might tell ourselves that it will never, ever get better. But mental health is a spectrum. It can ebb and flow, with healthier periods as well as less healthy ones. This little app gives us the chance to see when we’re doing well, not just when we’re struggling. The social stigma around mental health needs to be broken down until it’s no longer there – both in terms of society at large and in our own internalised sense of stigma.
How does the 87 Percent mental wellbeing app work?
You can use the app to look at seven areas of your life: overall quality of life, emotions, body, relationships, self-esteem, work, and growth.
When you first log in, you go through the seven life sections and answer a range of questions. Some of these questions are really, really good questions. The kind where you think “I’m glad somebody asked me that”.
It is easy to be honest, because no-one is looking over your shoulder or judging you.
The app is easy to use at your own pace, too. And that’s important. You can stop and start as you please. It saves your progress so if you don’t have the energy or urge to fill in your profile in one go, that’s fine.
Here are a few screengrabs to give you an idea of what it’s like to complete your mental health profile when you start using the app:
Every time you complete a section, you get a score. It’s not intended to be scary. Just a useful starting number to work with. You can also find out more about what that section of life (e.g. ‘Relationships’) is all about and how it can affect your mental health.
Once you’ve filled in your profile, congratulations! You did a thing –
You will then get all kinds of ways to use the app with activities and ideas for self-reflection over time.
You’ll get a fitness routine and a bite-sized daily workout – for mental health, not for physical health.
And yes, you can do this at your own pace. If you don’t use it daily, so what? It’s fine. Your personal energy ebbs and flows, and every day is different.
Remember, you can absolutely go at your own pace.
Use it like a mobile phone game you enjoy, just dropping in and out whenever, or go deep and use it like you’d delve into doctorate research if you prefer. Try it your way.
The main thing – the only important thing – is that you will have a bit of online support in your pocket. A little app that you feed like a Tamagotchi pet with how you’re feeling, how you’re doing, and what you’re doing to help you develop your mental health, a little bit at a time. Except, unlike your Tamagotchi pet, this app has a bit more to say for itself. It can give you structured and personalised support, not just plaintively indicate that it’s tired/bored/hungry.
Help yourself… help others
In using the app, you are contributing to a research project that will help general employers know how to better take care of their employees. Days off for mental as well as physical wellbeing, more opportunities for remote and flexible working… these sea-changes are really, really important. The more employers understand that literally everyone could benefit from mental health support, the better. If mainstream culture can finally acknowledge that everyone falls on a spectrum of mental wellness, it helps to end mental health stigma.
YOUR PERSONAL DATA AND PRIVACY WILL BE TOTALLY RESPECTED.
Hopefully the research will result in a greater social (and commercial) willingness to explore mental as well as physical support to workers.
We’ve certainly heard worse reasons for conducting research.
Exploring ways to know yourself and develop your mental health in small ways is always useful.
We’re culturally trained to understand the concept of physical fitness and how it can be improved and maintained in small ways. Why not explore that with mental health, too?
