Coronavirus: Naomi applauds mental health App after coming through depression, anxiety and insomnia

The designers of ‘Soultime’ say that many Apps offer different approaches to mental health, but that this is the first which helps with the best therapy of all - getting a call from a friend on a bad day.

Soultime already offered meditations, music and sophisticated mood tracking, but its designers wanted to find a way to incorporate the support self-help groups have long provided; using nominated friends, a function which it has just launched.

Writer and voice artist Naomi Trenier, who is from Coleraine but who now lives in London, is one of the contributors.

“I write and record meditations on various topics such as despair, or anger, as well as our daily 3-minute meditations,” she told the News Letter. “In other work I also record bedtime story extracts from books like Les Miserables, or Anne of Green Gables.”

She got involved with the App after meeting its founder, Mark Wagner, at a church in London.

“I have struggled with mental health issues myself, including depression, anxiety and insomnia, much of which was a result of my upbringing in a very religious environment in Northern Ireland. It had a really negative effect on me because of its oppressive emphasis on guilt and shame. The key message I picked up was that God was constantly angry with me and nothing I did was good enough. It took a lot of hard work, therapy and support to untangle these damaging messages.

“It is a joy to work for Soultime and be able to share with people the techniques that have helped me in my mental health journey, and hopefully be able to do it in a format that connects people to God in a positive way.”

The App already has users in 150 countries. It contains a ‘mood tracker’ function which asks you to identify how you’re feeling on a given day in quite a lot of detail. If the App detects that the person’s mood is low, it sends a message to a nominated contact saying, your friend “could do with a call today”. It never divulges information about moods.

The App comes from a faith based perspective but she does not believe people without any faith should feel excluded from using it.

“I think the issues we cover are relevant to everyone; feeling anxious, hurt by people, frustrated by where we’ve ended up, finding it hard to sleep, or feeling grateful for things or people in our lives.”

Actress, comedian and writer Miranda Hart has given her endorsement to the App.

“Well it certainly feels like the time for some Soultime and they do it beautifully,” she said. “There’s always a time to listen to our soul, and ever more now. Soultime is a beautiful, unique way to meet our ever important core needs of connection and peace.”

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury has also put his weight behind it. “Soultime is a wonderful app, it is a beautiful and quiet and accessible way of drawing close to God. I warmly recommend it,” he said.

Soultime can be dowloaded free from all App stores.

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