Flow - Depression treatment

Flow Neuroscience

About this app

The Flow depression treatment is a free personal guide to help you understand, treat & prevent depression and improve your mental health.

Flow represents a new chapter in the understanding and treatment of depression, based on the latest psychology and neuroscience research.

The app can be used on its own and offers a therapy programme with over 50 therapy sessions. The sessions cover a range of topics from behavioural therapy and lifestyle habits, such as, meditation, sleep, diet and exercise. To track changes over time, the app includes the MADRS-s depression test.

Together with the Flow brain stimulation headset, the app offers a holistic approach to treating depression. The type of stimulation used in the Flow headset, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), has long been used in clinical settings to treat depression. With Flow, you can now access tDCS in a remote device from your own home. To use the headset you will need the app.

The Flow treatment is based on decades of clinical research and is supported by more than 20 randomised double-blind studies. The Flow headset is approved as a medical device (CE) in the EU and UK for the treatment of depression. Order it at: https://flowneuroscience.com

The programme contains over 50 sessions split into 7 courses, covering topics such as:

- Exercise

Physical exercise has been shown to have a similar effect to antidepressant medication when it comes to reducing and preventing depressive symptoms. Flow will tell you what type of exercise is beneficial and the optimal “dose”.

- Meditation

Meditation is practised by many people around the world as mental “exercise” for the brain. Flow will give you concrete exercises to follow but also show you the neurological basis of why meditation is good for managing stress in your everyday life.

- Sleep

Did you know that sleeping for only six hours each night for two nights in a row is equivalent to being continuously awake for 24 hours? Flow will educate you on sleep hygiene, why we sleep and why sleeping is one of four important pillars for overcoming depression.

- Nutrition

The nutrition sessions will advise and encourage you to eat in a way that science has proven reduces inflammation in the brain, thereby alleviating depression. Spoiler alert: sugar is one of the big villains.

Ratings and reviews

I very much appreciate the app and its contents. It shares complex and deep knowledge through a seemingly shallow and easy to understand dialog. My problems with it are few: 1 you cannot go back if you wrongly click an option so you have to restart the entire lesson in case you miss click 2 I hate talking to bots especially when the illusion of a dialog is present 3 some functions of the app are incomplete like playing memory games while we wait for the session to be over.

I reduced my rating to four stars because it appears that I can see my previous sessions and re do them. I'm returning to the app after over a year, and I can't remember most of the stuff I've learned, which are referred to sometimes. I would like to retake those sessions but apparently I can't

Thought I'd explore the app before buying the headset. No chance of that now! The pretend conversation is pointless and patronising. The text input did not always work. I had to restart several times but eventually gave up in frustration: 'frustration', 'pointless' and 'patronising'. Three words that shouldn't come up in therapy! Lastly, the one video I managed to get to via the silly attempt at an AI chatbot wouldn't even play. No faith in a headset if the app is this poor. Back on Sertraline!

What's new

The most complete app for depression treatment has just gotten even better.
- The main menu has been redesigned.
- There is a new profile page where you can pan and zoom in your treatment progress graph.
- The archive menu item has moved into the redesigned settings page.
- Bug fixes and stability improvements.