Want to start the new year right with the best apps for first responders in 2024?
It’s been a crappy few years, no doubt. Most people aren’t looking for amazing transformations in the new year anymore. You just want to have a year that doesn’t suck. You want a year to get yourself together, organized, healthy, and maybe even fit. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel better about yourself and have that positive outlook everyone tells you to have?
If only there were an app for that—but there is. In fact, there are several, and we’ve laid a few out right here for you.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into the best apps for first responders this year.
Best Apps for First Responders in 2024
The best apps for first responders that we found are listed below, but depending on your personal needs, you may know about more. Here’s what we found and what we think of the popular apps out there today.
Calm
Calm claims to be the number one app for meditation and sleep and it might be true. With everything from guided meditations to relaxation soundtracks and daily programs for things like building better habits, this app has something for everyone.
While the narrated sleep stories may not be for everyone, the soundscapes feature nature sounds like rain that has been used for years as a soundtrack to help people sleep. For those into Mindfulness, there are quick meditations, daily wisdom, and even full courses to listen to. Calm even has practical tools for relieving stress and anxiety such as breathing and grounding exercises.
Calm offers a premium subscription for $14.99 a month, $69.99 a year, or $399.99 for a lifetime.
You can also check out Calm Health, their mental health wellness product which offers screenings, personalized care plan recommendations, and condition-specific programming for things from anxiety and depression to heart conditions and weight management.
With all the stress of first responder life, Calm is easily one of the best apps for 2024.
Ahead: Emotions Coach
Ahead calls itself Duolingo for emotional intelligence. You get three journeys to select: Get things done, Be confident, or Keep your cool. Through a series of quick, daily sessions, you get to learn what you’re feeling, why you’re feeling it, and what practical things you can do about it. You don’t just learn about your triggers, but how to not be triggered and, instead, learn to be cool under pressure.
Ahead uses science-backed techniques to break bad habits, build better ones, and increase emotional intelligence so you can feel you again, and better about the “you” you are. Because Ahead is so personalized, it’s quickly become one of the best apps and most popular for self-improvement.
Ahead offers three subscriptions: a premium version for $4.99 a month, a family plan for $9.99 a month, and a premium family plan for $14.99 a month. You can try it free for 7 days, but need to cancel 24 hours ahead of the 7th day to avoid billing.
Balance
Winner of Google’s Best App of the Year Award, Balance is currently free for a year. From the creators of Elevate, Balance has a rating of 4.9 stars on the Apple App Store and is easily the most popular meditation app out there right now.
It works by creating personalized meditations for you every day. You start by answering a few questions each day, then it creates your daily meditations. The more you answer, the more personalized the meditations become over time.
If meditation isn’t your thing, it’s still worth a try. While it’s free for a year, you can decide if you like it. If you do, once the year is up, it’s $11.99 a month or $69.99 a year for US customers. Other countries will need to check their pricing. This app is rated one of the best for reducing stress and improving sleep, and who couldn’t benefit from that?
BetterHelp
One of the hardest obstacles in the mental health world is the lengthy waitlists for therapists. BetterHelp works to bridge that gap by providing online therapy to make services more available. Serving couples, individual adults, and teens, BetterHelp uses online support for therapy sessions, bringing access to so many who previously had to wait for an available local therapist. With this connection, so many more are finding the support they need more quickly and feeling better sooner.
The best part? Therapy typically costs $100-150 per session, but BetterHelp ranges between $60-90 per week with unlimited text, video, and audio messaging, and you can cancel at any time. Take that, traditional therapy—we’re in an age of high-traffic communication now!
Shmoody: Mood & Habit Tracker
Shmoody is the fun mental health tracker that tries to take the doctor’s office feel out of mental healthcare. With a playful tone, Shmoody offers action plans, challenges, and a supportive community. With over half a million users reporting an average of 38% percent better, this app takes on a new approach to mental health with a light-hearted feel.
The best part about Shmoody is that you can use it absolutely free. If you want to unlock more features, you can get a premium subscription for either $14.99 per month, $59.99 per year, or $99.99 for a lifetime. We’d recommend trying it for a week or two to see if this app is a good fit for you, and then you can decide to keep the free version or go premium.
If you’re a playful personality type, you might want to give Shmoody a try and see why it’s one of the best apps for 2024.
Ultiself
The newest self-improvement app that’s making waves is Ultiself. Referring to itself as the biohacking app, Ultiself has a more rigid and straightforward feel. Once you answer some questions and decide what habits you want to make or break and any goals you have, your personalized journey can begin. The AI suggests habits and routines and you can decide which to follow. You don’t even have to follow an entire routine; you can pick and choose parts that work for you.
Each day, you rate how your day went and the app tracks what habits were completed or not against how you felt at the end of the day. Ultiself gamifies self-improvement by using streaks and metrics to motivate you to stay on track. You can even choose text reminders as well as app notifications.
The premium subscription is $59.99 per year, but you can always try the free version first. With so much customization, no wonder this is one of the best apps.
Feel Better Now
Whether you’re reading this in January of 2024 or August of 2027, it’s never too late to start feeling better about yourself. You were built for more than the stress and drudge of first responder life. You have value and worth and it’s possible to feel good about yourself and improve your outlook starting right now. No matter your situation, no matter your past, choose to be better now. Find the tools you need, get the support you need, and choose to feel better wherever you are starting now.
It’s important to note that these apps do not replace traditional mental healthcare or medical care. Always seek professional treatment if you need it and use these apps supplementally for maximum success.
These are the best apps we found for first responders, but we know there’s more out there. What have you used that works for you? Share with us!