The Happy Apps Review

Got a headache? Suffering from insomnia? Are you feeling depressed? What if you could cure all of these things with your iPhone, iPad or iPhone Touch? That's what Happy Apps claims to do.

Happy Apps (yes, that's its name) is a light therapy app that's designed to treat these ailments as well as many others.

The idea of using light therapy to cure certain conditions is not an idea born out of this iOS app, however. Rather, it has been around the medicine community for a long time. The basic concept behind light therapy is that exposure to certain wavelengths of light and color can be used to treat some medical conditions, including circadian rhythm disorders, seasonal affective disorder, sinus-related congestion, skin problems and even some psychiatric disorders. Of course, there is no absolute proof that light exposure works. But for some people, it seems to.

The app itself is well-designed and easy to use. When you start it up, you have several options as far as your light therapy goes. Once you start a session you simply sit back and watch the screen. The Light Therapy Box allows you to set up a session of simulated natural light exposure, which supposedly relieves symptoms of depressions and seasonal affective disorder. Or you can use The Color Therapist option to read about how each color of light affects you and what each color is used to treat, as well as start a specific color session. There is also The Help Yourself Happiness Guide, which lets you either use a body map to locate Chakra points and suggested color therapy for ailments affecting those points, or you can use a search feature to look up the suggested light therapy for a specific condition.

In addition to all this, there The Happy Sleep Toolbox, which uses a combination of lights and sounds to improve the transition between sleeping and waking. This exposure is said to "promote peaceful transitions from night to day and day to night," according to the app. You can even choose your sound effects, with choices such as gentle rain, rolling waves, white noise and more. Lastly, there's The Happy Health Regimen – a 70-minute color and light therapy session, which can be used while you "eat, read, talk on the phone" or do anything else you like as long as you're next to your device.

If you're wondering why I'm giving Happy Apps such a high score, despite that it may not even do what it says, it's because it is a well-designed, intuitive application. Does it actually work? I'm not sure about that. I had a slight headache when I started testing it, so I tried the suggest green light exposure for treating headaches and it didn't improve my headache whatsoever. But some people claim light therapy works. And if it does for them, Happy Apps offers a cheap, portable way to get what they need – hence the four-star rating.