How Self-Harm Tracker Apps Can Support Your Recovery Journey

Are you struggling to quit self-harming? Self-harm tracker apps may help you meet your goals. Keep reading to learn more.

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Trigger warning: Self-harm, suicide. If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts or are in danger of harming yourself, this is a mental health emergency. Contact 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 24/7 by calling or texting 988.

Many people engage in self-harm as a way to deal with overwhelming, difficult emotions. While self-harm may provide some immediate relief, it often results in guilt and shame, leading to a vicious cycle of more and more self-harming behaviors.

Quitting the habit of self-harm isn’t always easy, but there are tools that can help you break the cycle, including self-harm trackers. These apps are designed to help you track patterns, practice coping skills, and celebrate your progress. Here’s what you need to know about self-harm trackers, plus other tips for preventing self-harm and information about professional help.

What is a self-harm tracker and why is it useful?

Self-harm trackers are apps that can help you gain insight into your emotions, urges, and frequency of self-harm incidents. “They help people to track their urges to self-harm, allow you to look at specific triggers or patterns that may increase self-harm urges, and they can help to remind you of specific skills that can help to calm urges and emotions,” says Kathleen Douglass, LCPC, a Charlie Health Primary Therapist.

If you don’t keep track of your moods, urges, and self-harm incidents, it can be hard to identify patterns — both positive and negative. “It also helps us to keep track of progress made in terms of the number of days without self-harm — all a win — or can show us that urges are increasing, indicating that we need to make some adjustments in our plan or course of action,” Douglass says. This is especially helpful to share with your therapist so you can unpack these trends together and take action.

These trackers can help reduce the risk of you self-harming, as long as you are actually putting in the work to make a difference in your behaviors. “The tracker can’t prevent self-harm completely, but it can reduce the likelihood that you will self-harm because it provides resources to help reduce and deal with urges and will let us know who to reach out to for support,”   Douglass adds.

Additionally, although self-harm is not always linked to suicidal ideation, it’s crucial to reach out for immediate help if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself to the point of suicide. In these cases, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for 24/7 crisis support.  

Self-harm trackers to try

Here are a few examples of self-harm tracker apps that you can use. Keep in mind that these are not specifically endorsed by Charlie Health clinicians, but they are frequently downloaded and highly rated in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

While these tools aren’t a replacement for therapy, they can be a powerful part of your self-harm recovery journey. You may want to try a couple of different options and play around with them to see which one best suits your needs.

1. HarmLess

With over 8,000 ratings and an average of 4.8 stars in the Apple App Store, this app is a top choice. Some features include:

• Daily pledge to avoid self-harm
• Shows you how many days (and even hours, minutes, and seconds) you are self-harm free
• Understanding the emotions behind your urges to self-harm, and then giving you healthy coping tools to try when you have the urge  
• Helps you track your urges, giving you a visual overview of how often they are occurring
• Visual breathing exercises
• Guided meditations
• Badges and achievements to celebrate your progress

Download on the Apple App Store here.

2. Calm Urge

Similar to HarmLess, this app helps you monitor moods and track your progress all in one place. Features include:

• Daily pledge to avoid self-harm
• In-depth mood tracking (how hard your day was, what emotions you felt, and what areas of life were troubling you)
• Shows you how many days (and hours, minutes, and seconds) you are self-harm free
• Provides analytics tracking your urges and urge difficulty over time (ranging from seven days to 90 days)
• Visual breathing exercises
• Calming activities in-app, like a popping bubble wrap simulator or playing a virtual instrument

Download on the Apple App Store here.

Download on Google Play here.

3. I Am Sober

This app has a whopping 163,000 ratings on the Apple App Store (average rating 4.9 stars) and 123,000 on Google Play (average rating 4.8 stars). Although primarily marketed as a sobriety app, you can use it for quitting any addiction or bad habit, including self-harm. Features include:

• Shows you how many days (and hours, minutes, and seconds) you are self-harm free
• Ability to track sobriety from multiple addictions/habits (for example, if you’re also trying to quit vaping or smoking weed)
• Space to add photos and text to help remind you why you want to quit
• Community support from other app users, where you can share stories and learn from each other 
• Analyzing your triggers to spot patterns 

Download on the Apple App Store here.

Download on Google Play here. 

4. Calm Harm

Although this app doesn’t have as many ratings as the others, there are promising reviews. The app stresses that self-harm urges are like waves, and helps you learn to “ride the wave.” Features include:

• Counting self-harm free streaks
• Options for either five-minute or 15-minute activities to help distract yourself and ride out the wave of your urge
• Visual breathing exercises
• Mood tracking to identify triggers for urges

Download on the Apple App Store here.

Download on Google Play here. 

Other tips to prevent self-harm

On top of using self-harm tracker apps, here are five tips to stop self-harming.

1. Distract yourself

Urges tend to be strongest as soon as they come on. By distracting yourself, you can keep your mind occupied as the urge passes. It’s a bonus if it’s something that keeps your hands and/or body occupied, too. Douglass suggests the following ideas:

• Going for a walk
• Journaling how you’re feeling
• Drawing
• Watching a favorite TV show
• Popping bubble wrap

Experiment with different distractions to see what works most effectively for you. 

2. Develop healthy coping skills

Explore different coping skills and practice them so that you can use them when you’re feeling triggered and tempted to self-harm. Some examples include:

• Practicing mindfulness or meditation
• Doing breathing exercises to calm down your nervous system 
• Finding a creative outlet for your feelings through art, music, or writing  
• Engaging in intense exercise to release pent-up emotions like anger or stress
• Getting cold exposure by holding ice cubes, taking a cold shower, or dunking your face in a bowl of ice water

3. Lean on your support system

It’s important to ensure you have a support system in place to lean on when you’re triggered, says Na’Keora Bryant, LPC, a Charlie Health Group Facilitator. Whether you choose a group of close friends or trusted family members, it helps to have a list of people handy so you can contact someone when you’re triggered. They can help distract you and motivate you to resist the urge to self-harm. 

4. Ramp up self-care

If you engage in self-harm, it’s likely that you’re dealing with some underlying mental health struggles, whether that’s anxiety, depression, OCD, or trauma. Taking care of your mental well-being can help improve your mood and potentially reduce the urge to self-harm. Douglass recommends the following:

• Eating a healthy, balanced diet
• Developing an exercise routine
• Getting enough high-quality sleep
• Keeping track of your accomplishments and things you’re proud of
• Engaging in at least one activity you enjoy every day

5. Seek professional support

Self-harm is a maladaptive coping skill — meaning it’s a way to cope with difficult emotions, but not in a healthy way. “While many people find immediate relief when self-harming, the relief is short-lived, and is often followed by a range of other emotions like shame, guilt, and the return of the painful emotions that were there before the self-harming episode,” Douglass says. 

For this reason, it’s crucial to seek help for these emotions that are driving you to self-harm and to develop healthy, safe coping skills. A therapist, especially one with experience helping people who self-harm, can help you with this.

Two types of therapy that are helpful for treating self-harm are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), Bryant says. 

• CBT helps you recognize the thoughts and emotions that lead to self-harm. You will learn how to cultivate more helpful thought patterns, resulting in healthier emotions and behaviors. 
• DBT is a mindfulness and skills-based therapy. You will learn tools to manage difficult emotions and coping skills for distress tolerance. These skills will help you directly manage self-harm urges and cope in healthier ways. 

Bryant also stresses the importance of seeking trauma-informed therapy, especially if you have underlying trauma that could be contributing to your self-harm urges. 

How Charlie Health can help

If you’re stuck in a cycle of difficult emotions and self-harm, Charlie Health can help. Our virtual Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) provides more than once-weekly mental health treatment for people who are dealing with serious mental health challenges, like self-harming behaviors, and any underlying mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, trauma-related conditions, and more.

Our trauma-informed clinicians incorporate evidence-based treatments into individual counseling, family therapy, and group sessions. Additionally, we provide medication management when needed. With this kind of holistic treatment, you can find relief from mental health challenges and stop self-harming. Fill out the form below or give us a call to start today.