Over the last few years, Instagram and other social media platforms have come under fire for the negative impact they can have on mental health.
Influencer accounts that depict picture-perfect lives, flawless bodies, and unattainable beauty standards can feed into anxiety and insecurities – especially among young people – and lead to poor mental health.
But Instagram can also be an excellent tool for improving mental health and breaking down the stigma around mental illness. There are heaps of inspiring, intelligent, and empowering accounts that promote self-care, seeking help, and creating healthy habits.
Curate your feed, so your daily scroll brings you new ideas, life-affirming messages, and stories that remind you: you’re never alone. Here are ten of our favorite mental health Instagram accounts to get you started.
1. The Millennial Therapist
The Millennial Therapist is Sara Kuburić, a psychotherapist, clinical counselor, and millennial. Her account is a stylish collection of gentle reminders, daily practices, and ideas from psychology. She makes difficult concepts like imposter syndrome easy to understand and offers strategies for tackling things like self-criticism and unhealthy boundaries. link
2. Recipes for Self-Love
Beautiful illustrations and empowering messages make Recipes for Self Love a must-follow account. They post regular reminders to practice self-love and self-care, and tips on how to do so. The gorgeous illustrations that accompany each post celebrate diverse women and remind us that mental health affects us all. link
3. Sad Ghost Club
The aim of the Sad Ghost Club is to raise positive awareness of mental health. Their cute, funny comics normalize talking about mental health. Each post is relate-able, sweet, and realistic. The Sad Ghost Club doesn’t gloss over the difficulty of overcoming mental health challenges but gives hope that you can keep going and heal. link
4. Journey to Wellness
Journey to Wellness manages to load heaps of useful information into every one of their comic-style posts. Whether they’re teaching you how to say no, providing journal prompts, or explaining unseen symptoms of mental illness, you’re sure to learn lots from adding Journey to Wellness to your feed. link
5. Sit with Whit
Whitney Goodman is a psychotherapist who prides herself on being radically honest. Her account is a deep dive into difficult topics that affect us all: boundaries, relationships, and trauma. As well as helping those struggling with mental health issues, Whit also teaches how to best support friends and family through mental health challenges. link
6. Therapy for Black Girls
Therapy for Black Girls was created by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford and is a vital space for black women in the traditionally-white world of mental health (the vast majority of psychologists in the US are white). Dr. Joy offers practical advice, reminders to be mindful, and creates a community for black women to talk openly about their mental health. link
7. The Anxiety Healer
The Anxiety Healer takes a deep dive into anxiety, one of the most common mental illnesses in the US. From busting myths around what anxiety looks like, to providing self-care tips for people with anxiety, every post offers hope and solidarity to those with anxiety. And if you don’t struggle with anxiety yourself, you might learn a lot from giving them a follow. link
8. The Blurt Foundation
The Blurt Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and understanding of depression. Their website provides useful resources for people who are experiencing depression, as well as those who don’t yet understand what depression really is. Their Insta feed mixes inspiring quotes with funny cartoons and links to their useful blog content. link
9. Nedra Glover Tawwab
Nedra Glover Tawwab is another therapist you should follow on Instagram now. She’s an expert in helping people create healthy relationships, and uses her account to share empowering knowledge openly. She doesn’t shy from hard truths, but instead offers clear, evidence-based ideas on how to improve your relationships, starting from what you can control, not what you can’t. link
10. Amber Rae
An author and artist, Amber Rae, combines cute graphics with friendly reminders and useful ideas that are sure to help your mental health. Her account is all about self-love, compassion, and choosing wonder. Sometimes these ideas can seem radical in our busy, never-good-enough world, so Amber offers a daily reminder that you’re okay just as you are. link
