If you’re active on social media, you might have seen ads for the Bloom app. Its ads claim that it’s a tool to improve your mental health or even to replace a therapist. If you’re curious about this tool, be sure to explore this Bloom app review because we spent a week with the app to find out if it’s actually any good.
What Is Bloom?
Bloom is an app designed to replace the need for a therapist. It’s based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. Bloom helps you learn to manage mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The Bloom app is not free. You need a subscription, but you can try it out using a free trial.
Download: Bloom for iOS (Subscription required, free trial available)
How Can the Bloom App Help?
Bloom offers several features within the app that can help improve your mental well-being. It’s essentially an app that educates you on improving your mental health and building healthier habits. It also teaches you skills that you can integrate into your daily life.
The first feature is the Daily Check-in. You start by rating your mood on a scale from one to five. This isn’t just to collect data to show your progressions and regressions, but it helps you define your emotions and what you’re currently feeling. Labeling your feelings is the first step in CBT.
The Bloom app also offers a Daily Habits section, with healthy habits that can help improve your mental health. These habits include a daily inspirational quote, daily gratitude practice, and a section to add custom habits.
You can create daily habits like a personal mantra, breathing exercises, or a feel-good challenge to enjoy Bloom every day. You can add up to 10 habits in total. Logging in every day and completing these habits daily can help you improve your mental well-being one step at a time.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Bloom
While the habit tracker and feelings chart is helpful, Bloom’s main feature involves its courses. These courses provide education on CBT and mental illness. All you need to do is watch a video and follow along to enjoy Bloom's content. You will be given skills to practice in real-time.
The video will educate you on why you’re feeling the way that you are, and provide insights into your mental illness. Then, the video will pause, and you will get a chance to practice skills that are proven to help. Most courses take under 15 minutes to complete.
After the video, you can practice those same skills in a real-world situation. For example, in the section on panic relief, you will learn how to counteract a panic attack with deep breathing. Then, if you experience one in real life, you can use this same skill to help manage it and recover.
As time goes on, you will start to practice these skills automatically when negative emotions come up. If all of this sounds a bit complicated, there’s no need to worry. Bloom offers a course specifically for beginners, which is a great way to get started. This course explains the science behind CBT and why Bloom works.
Is the Bloom App Worth It?
Bloom is a subscription-based app that costs $59.99 for your first year or $14.49 per month. With this price, you might ask if it’s worth it. While Bloom may seem expensive, it’s important to note that professional therapy can cost upwards of $100 per week.
With Bloom, this cost is greatly reduced, and you can work on improving your mental health from home. While it clearly advertises that it can’t quite replace a therapist, it is incredibly helpful and has a lot of benefits for the price.
If you’re still curious about Bloom and whether it’s right for you, consider using the seven-day free trial. This is more than enough time to use the app daily and see if you are getting benefits from it.
If you do want to subscribe, signing up for the annual subscription is a great deal compared to the monthly price. If you need to cancel, you can learn how to cancel subscriptions on your iPhone with ease.
Improve Your Mental Health With Bloom
Bloom is an affordable way to improve your mental health. Using science-backed exercises, Bloom can be a great supplement to therapy or even a way to replace therapy if you can’t afford it at the moment.
With so many available courses, you can be sure to find some that address your specific situation. While improving your mental health may sound complicated, this review of the Bloom CBT app shows that it could be a useful tool for adding these skills to your daily life.