Optimism App Reviews

This can be an invaluable source of self knowledge and communcation with doctors, when used accurately and consistently. Over the past four years Ive seen this app grow from a simple OSX application into a multi-device masterpiece. It syncs with iPhone, iPad, and my computer. Im grateful to have this masterpiece of software engineering at my fingertips

First things first, this app is really, completely FREE, with no hidden premium subscription fees that turn out to be indispensable afterwards, I appreciate that. Secondly, you can create an account, and sync your status and records on your mac to their server, and when you dont have your mac with you, you can simply login to your account online from another computer at their website and make entries/ survey past records online (all of which, too, is completely free). I suffer from mild depression and severe ADHD, and always wanted to keep track of my mood, since a) it tends to change very rapidly day to day with no discernible pattern, even though the onset and offset of depression is supposed to be gradual b) I use several prescription drugs (and sometimes change), and several supplements supposed to help with ADHD/depression, and want to keep track of their effects c) I want to see what activities/routines work well with my mood This app provides a wonderfully simple,yet perfectly customizable set of checklists, and additional note fields for keeping those records, and various ways to evaluate your records over a time period. Give it a shot by all means.

Really helping with my depression as I deal with caregiving for my sick child.

Wonderful app for those who wanted to better manage their time in turn their life.I am impressed with the efforts of the developers behind this. Thanks for your efforts..

This application has been great! I am excited to take it to my doctor for my next discussion about medications. I think it really helps you get to the bottom of what is causing you unrest in your life. I really appreciate that this company seems concerned about the wellbeing of people by making this application free and if you look at their site, there is a way for providers to track all of their patients so therapists know how you are doing on a day to day basis. I believe that just looking back at your day helps you make the next day that much better and this tool helps you do that. I am excited to try any of the tools they have available for mental health and really appreciate the ease of use of the program as well as the support they have for it. I am really impressed.

After trying a few other apps with some of the same features I found this App is pefect for keeping a mood diary whether its for depression, ocd, or just keeping track of day to day feelings, mental and physical health. All the signs, symptoms and triggers are fully customizable to suit your particular needs, so you can delete what doesnt apply and add your own. Im currently using it as a DBT mood diary. There is also a web app that syncs with the OS version so I can update it on different non-apple devices. So far its been very helpful and I purchased the CBT app by the same developer. Thanks!

I dont speak to much english, but let me try… "The World Needs This App…Must Be Translated In All Languages"...

Using this app to see where my mental blocks are as far as exercising, getting more sleep, and managing anxiety. Used it for a week, along with other tools and am finding it helpful to see my behavior on a chart. Makes my issues more pronounced and I SEE the urgency to make changes. Im looking for those slight changes that will make a huge difference.

My shrink told me I should start journaling again and I dislike the j word greatly. It sets expectations (in my head) that I consistently fail at meeting, giving it the potential to make me feel unnecessarily bad about myself, and I also dislike counterproductive activities that dont involve costumes. Journal - PASS. This app, however, is JAMAZINGNESS. Super simple setup (perfect for an ADD brain) yet the "design" is yours for the taking: 1. You call the categories. 2. You decide which categories benefit (you) on a 10 scale. 3. You determine what factors contribute to your well being 4. Logging short and/or long term goals - optional. 5. Looking at/tracking those goals - optional AND - you can add a note (i.e. journal entry) on the days you feel like it or not at all, without facing glaring gaps (like blank pages or missing dates in a traditional journal) if you decide not to use your words. Im OPsessed.

I have recently been diagnosed with social phobia and depression and as part of my therapy Ive been tasked with monitoring my moods on a daily basis. This application is amazing when applied to that purpose. The ability to rate your quality of sleep and your overall mood with a simple number scale makes it easy, and the resulting charts make it easy to spot trends. Furthermore, the optional notes tab can act as a type of journal, so if you dont know your own triggers, you can write about your day, look through your moods and what happened, and figure out what they are. Being able to synchronize with the iPhone version is just the cherry on top.

Life happens and I got Lupus this year… booo. I fully tailored this app to rate pain levels, joint stiffness and specific "staying healthy" measures, triggers and symptoms. This app has been AMAZING to track all of this on a daily basis. I LOVE the charts and reports so I can look up what I am consuming that triggers symptoms. I am so thankful for the maker of this app… you are making my life much more managable!!!

My main problems I’m trying to track for both my own benefit and to communicate with my doctors are not mental health issues although the app lets you customize what you are tracking so you can work with it. It also does make you think about the effects that your phyiscal problems may be having on your mood, which we sometimes forget to do. I like it and find it easy and quick to use. you can just do the click type tracking each day and you also have the option to write notes if you feel like it. If you have a chronic health issue that you are trying to manage more effectively, I would recommend this app.

This app is great for tracking my symptoms, triggers, and mood. Its very customizable. I did have a problem with a small glitch at one point, but customer service was awesome! I highly recommend this app to anyone struggling with any mental illness.

This app is great in that it connects with a desktop app as well as the internet, BUT it would be 5 stars if there was a way to force sync in the iPhone app like there is on the desktop app. Actually, regular automatic syncing would be the best thing—every 5 minutes, 30 minutes, even every few hours, whatever. My data doesn’t always get saved when I input it in my phone, which is really annoying (maybe I am missing something?). Also, if the “core data” trackers allowed for more customization, that would be helpful—like if all of them could be made sliders with customizable scales or radio buttons or just simple numerical input (user choice for each item, basically).

I have major OCD, ADHD, and Bipolar, and am taking medications for all three. So far I love this app. At the end of the day you put down details about your day, and it records them into a sort of graph that you can look back on later. Its a mental health journal, and works really well. Thanks for the app!

The app is extremely handy and provides a great resource in monitoring mood swings in relation to Bipolar disorder. My only issue is the lack of true customization. Yes, you can chage the titles and naming of the core data but that’s it. You cannot add core data elements or change the type of control; such as changing a slider to a check box, etc. I found that this limited me in my tracking. I need to track my mood, irritability, anxiety, sleep hours, and sleep quality as part of my Bipolar treatment. Sadly, I had to give up on this app because it did not enable me to effectivly do this. My other issue is the rating scales being set at 1-10. Commonly mood disorders are scaled with an eight point scale; severely depressed, moderately depressed, mildly depressed, basline, mildly elevated, moderatly elevated, and severly elevated. All in all this is a really useful app, would be great if the customization claimed is actually valuable.

This is an outstanding application for monitoring the most essential aspects of an individual’s experience of mental illness over time. It makes it easy to input relevant data such that one is more inclined to be faithful in doing so which is necessary to reap the benefits of the exercise of tracking your moods, effectiveness of various coping strategies in individual use and more. While this could be useful to someone who is simply curious about themselves, where this app really shines is in it’s ability to provide a lot of useful data to a therapist, physician or both as a helpful part of treating illness and promoting wellness for someone. It’s a wonderful thing that they offer this for free to help people. Inevitably, it is simply impossible to design a one-size-fits-all app for this purpose that will precisely meet the individual needs of every single person trying it out. I would argue however that this app does provide a simple means to track a wealth of highly important information over time and the degree to which it can be customized and made one’s own should be enough for most individuals to benefit significantly from using it as an adjunct to professional care. For anyone in therapy not already keeping some form of mood journal or even if you are, I would recommend downloading this app and taking the time (it is very easy to do) to customize it with the key things you want to track and discuss with your caregivers. It allows you to produce very helpful reports for them which can be brought with you, emailed or even just shown to someone on your mobile device since this app is available on the app store for iOS. Syncing is very simple and works very well. Naturally, you need a login to do this and if you are willing to share your data anonymously you can help with research too but the default option opts you out of this. So you have complete choice there. I find this feature very helpful but you can of course simply skip it entirely if you desire to for whatever your own personal reasons may be. Core items are fairly fixed which is fine with plenty of opportunity to track everything else elsewhere. In my own setup, I changed all three major areas of input to suit myself, keeping roughly half of the suggested items, deleting most of the other half and adding my own which are best suited for my own needs. These areas are Stay Well Strategies, Triggers and Symptoms. Each item has a checkbox as a yes/no thing and an optional 10 point scale you can use. Keep in mind, you can define the meaning of this scale for you and it can vary by item. For example, under caffiene consumption you might use the scale to indicate total cups of coffee consumed on a given day while for another item like a symptom the scale could simply indicate severity that day if you check that one off. Lastly, you can skip the scaling altogether if you like. The way I do it is to use scaling for Stay Well items, not use it for triggers which either happen or don’t (in my view) and Symtoms I do rate severity of as appropriate. Another very good feature is optional daily notes where you can get into some detail about anything relevant such as more detail on your feelings, your sleep pattern, life events, etc. One feature I have not seen in any app of this type is the ability to track sleep in multiple sessions versus one single period of sleep. My solution here is to roll my own with a simple Numbers spreadsheet that lets me easily input this data so I can see it over time along with what Optimism tells me. Another substantial feature this particular app is not designed for (which I think is good actually given its comprehensiveness) is data entry multiple times per day. I set a reminder with the OS X Reminders app to cue me to do this each night at 8:00 PM. There’s nothing saying that you cannot use another or even a few apps together as a suite to suit yourself without making it a very time consuming project. This only takes a few minutes a night usually including the spreadsheet. Sometimes I spend more time looking at reports but often I just input my stuff and that’s that. If you would like to make brief entries about general state of mood, etc. thoughout the day as things happen, there is of course an app(s) for that. I’d highly recommend checking out one called Moodnotes on the app store which is excellent for this purpose. It is in development by a skilled team of iOS developers working in conjunction with clinical professionals and is very well done and offers other very helpful features too. So in summary, I see this as a five star app easily and highly recommend it as a great starting place with the advice to not hesitate to make your own little suite of apps that works best for you. Lastly, I cannot stress enough that if you are doing this in response to any serious issues, don’t go it alone with just apps. They are great as helps but they are not enough by themselves and they aren’t supposed to be either for the most part. These are a great way to actively participate in helping yourself and helping your caregivers to most effectively help you. I hope you found this review helpful and wish every good thing for you.