A few years ago, Jason Owen found himself demonstrating a new app to a particularly demanding test audience: a group of U.S. military veterans.
Owen, a clinical psychologist at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD (NCPTSD), had gathered a group of former service members at a Veterans Affairs facility in Menlo Park, California. They were there to try the latest version of Mindfulness Coach, a mental health app designed to help people cope with post-traumatic stress disorder through mindfulness—the practice of focusing one’s attention on the present moment and viewing it without judgment.
For the dozen or so veterans in the room, all of whom were dealing with PTSD, the idea that relief could be found through an app was going to be a tough sell. “It’s a group of people who are skeptical of the VA system,” says Owen, who serves as the mobile apps team lead at the NCPTSD. “They’ve been through a lot of treatments, a lot of medications. And they don’t suffer any bulls—t.”
It’s not going to cure you, but it may be something that can help. And you don’t have to be a yoga instructor to do it.
—Jason Owen, clinical psychologist
In his talks with veterans, Owen came to understand what many of them wanted in a mental health app—and what they didn’t want: no jargon-heavy language, no hippie-dippie imagery.
“Veterans appreciate when somebody is genuine and tells them how it is,” says Owen. “And the Mindfulness Coach app does that. It’s not going to cure you, but it may be something that can help. And you don’t have to be a yoga instructor to do it.”
Modest app, major success
The first version of Mindfulness Coach, released in 2014, was about as bare-bones as a wellness app could get: no flashy graphics, no lulling mantras, no cooing affirmations. Just a few easy-to-use breathing and focusing exercises. And yet Mindfulness Coach version 1.0 garnered hundreds of thousands of downloads.
“It was surprisingly popular, considering it didn’t have much to it,” says Kelly Ramsey, the mobile apps program manager at the NCPTSD. “It was the little app that could.”
The revamped version of Mindfulness Coach arrived on the App Store in 2018 and proved to be even more popular. It’s now on its way to 366,000 downloads, almost all through word of mouth.
Its ascent comes as mindfulness has grown in prominence in helping those with PTSD, and as more people turn to mental health apps to deal with stress or pain. (The Department of Veterans Affairs has created other mental health apps too, including COVID Coach and PTSD Family Coach.)
The app does a nice job of concisely explaining why we can live with discomfort and how we can notice it without judgment.
—Katherine Taylor, clinical psychologist
The most recent edition of Mindfulness Coach relies on a few straightforward practices. In one, a narrator gently guides you to direct your focus inward while you’re taking a walk; another talks you through a low-key meditation.
There’s also a logbook for setting and tracking goals—no matter how modest they may be—as well as some simple explanations on the benefits of mindfulness in general.
“The message we’re trying to get across,” says Owen, “is that it’s a way of training your brain, almost like training a muscle. Through repetition, you’re strengthening those brain muscles that give you better control over your emotional and cognitive reactions.”
Going head-on
Mindfulness Coach doesn’t pull any punches. One of the app’s exercises, “Mindfulness of Emotional Discomfort,” encourages you to focus on the fear or pain that results from PTSD rather than pushing those feelings aside.
“When we think of mental health in American culture, we often think of moving as fast as we can to excise emotional discomfort from our experience,” says Katherine Taylor, a clinical psychologist on the Mindfulness Coach team. “The app does a nice job of concisely explaining why we can live with discomfort and how we can notice it without judgment. That’s a different lens than what a lot of us were exposed to growing up.”
The app’s success is another indicator of just how much the conversation about mental health has evolved in recent years. A series of ongoing global conflicts, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has brought PTSD to the forefront, as multiple generations of service members deal with their own long-term trauma.
“PTSD has entered the public space as a term,” says Taylor. “Unfortunately, with so many things happening in the past couple of years—COVID, the advocacy for social justice—there is a lot of trauma in the national consciousness. And young people and adolescents have started to pick up what trauma symptoms look like.”
That might explain why Mindfulness Coach has found such a receptive audience beyond the military.
“It was built for veterans but can be used by anybody,” says Owen. “A lot of the things that we do in clinical practice are becoming more mainstream. It’s in schools, it’s in pop culture, it’s in a ton of apps. And it’s fantastic.”
Get support
Connect with the Veterans Crisis Line to reach caring, qualified responders with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
‣ Dial 988 and press 1
‣ Send a text message to 838255 to be routed to a counselor
‣ Start a confidential live chat at https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/get-help/chat