Our new vision
What began as a pioneering mindfulness based meditation app has evolved to be Australia's go-to digital mental health organisation representing children and young people, promoting and enabling lifelong mental fitness.
Evolution is ingrained in our values, and we’re expanding our focus beyond mindfulness to give you a comprehensive, evidence-based mental fitness program, and tools to support generational change in mental health.
Smiling Mind has been at the forefront of mental health innovation for over 12 years, helping minds thrive with evidence-based tools and resources. We’re proud to have impacted the lives of millions of people globally.
Smiling Mind is evolving its vision to create generational change in mental health, providing proactive tools and programs that help every mind thrive. To do this, we aim to revolutionise the way people think, feel, talk about and nurture their mental health.
Smiling Mind’s new mission, Lifelong Mental Fitness, is built on evidence showing positive mental wellbeing can be proactively developed. We intend to empower everyone with the skills they need to build and maintain mental wellbeing.
To support our new vision and mission, we will be expanding our programs beyond mindfulness and adopting a fresh and evolved look for our brand. Our new look is a reflection of our next chapter and reflects the modern, proactive, positive and energetic organisation Smiling Mind is as we forge a new path in mental wellbeing.
Our new vision
Our new mission
Mental fitness reflects our ability to be at our best each day, navigate challenges, and support a state of mental wellbeing.
Evidence shows there are a range of skills that underpin mental wellbeing; just like we train different muscles to build physical fitness, we can practise a range of skills to build mental fitness—our foundation for thriving.
Everyone can practise mental fitness—it's never too late, or too early, to get started.
Following extensive research and testing, Smiling Mind has created a new evidence based model for building mental fitness.
To create our Mental Fitness Model, our mental health experts including psychologists, researchers and content creators undertook a comprehensive process involving:
Literature and evidence analysis
Creation, validation and assessment of the proposed model, including consumer testing and feedback
Intervention mapping aligned to specific skills, cohorts and contexts
Smiling Mind will continue to assess, review and evolve the model to achieve the greatest impact on mental health and wellbeing.
Our model supports you to develop mental fitness through five core skill sets, empowering you to: Live Mindfully, Embrace Flexible Thinking, Grow Connections, Act Purposefully and Recharge Your Body.
Mindfulness remains a core part of Smiling Mind's new Mental Fitness Model. Our team of psychologists and mental health experts have incorporated additional skill sets you can add to your regular practice to develop your overall mental fitness.
Proactively developing these mental fitness skills gives you a head start to managing the ups and downs of everyday life to respond to setbacks, sustain healthy relationships, navigate change and uncertainty, and make effective decisions.
We know you love seeing the evidence as much as we do, so we’ve made our library of research available to the public.
Featuring content mapped to our new Mental Fitness Model, the Smiling Mind App supports your lifelong mental fitness with interactive, accessible and fun content for minds of all stages and ages.
Featuring over 700 sessions, including 230 new sessions, in formats such as meditations, learning modules, soundscapes and videos. Content is structured for you to learn, meditate and practice. You can either navigate individual sessions or access curated collections. You’ll also be able to download content and maintain your routines even when you’re offline.
The long-awaited search bar is finally here! In Explore, you can easily search content by title, need or goal and filter by type, place or age group (children, teenagers and adults).
Access content across over 50 collections for adults and children, designed by psychologists. Focus your mental fitness practice around a specific goal or need such as managing stress, enhancing focus, sleeping better or growing connections.
Create a mental fitness practice that’s uniquely yours in Routine. You can build a custom plan and set reminders on days and times that fit in with the rest of your schedule to build achievable habits.
In the new My Fitness tab, you'll be able to see how you're tracking. Discover what skillsets you've engaged with, how often you're practising, and visualise your progress over time. Reflecting on the skills you’re building is an important part of creating healthy habits, plus, it's rewarding to understand the progress you're making!
If you’re already one of the millions of people who use the Smiling Mind app, you’ll receive a prompt to ‘update’ in July 2024. Once you complete your update, you’ll automatically be upgraded to the new app.
You’ll be able to reset your preferences, search for your favourite content and explore the range of new features and sessions at your leisure! Got specific questions? Explore the FAQs on this page for more information. Don’t have our app yet? Download it below.
As a not-for-profit organisation, Smiling Mind exists solely to create positive impact. We believe everyone should have the tools to thrive—that’s why the Smiling Mind App has remained free for individuals and families to access for over 12 years.
The way we look and feel will be changing, but our commitment to creating generational change in mental health remains unwavering. All funding feeds back into our mission—not into pockets.
The Smiling Mind app has remained accessible through the support of our generous community of philanthropists, corporate partners and users. We do not and have not ever received federal government funding towards our free app, despite supporting millions of Australians every year.
Uniquely Australian
Founded in Australia, our roots have helped us grow as a brand that embraces the beauty, warmth and mateship of our homeland. We’re all about connecting communities and offering a uniquely Australian experience.
Breadth and depth
Our app, programs and resources offer education and practise from a beginner level through to in-depth skill development. Our content is always led by evidence and backed by research.
For purpose, not for profit
Smiling Mind operates for the collective social benefit and all funds earned feed back into our mission—not into pockets. Your support helps us keep mental wellbeing tools in the hands that need them.
Creating generational change
By spearheading a positive transformation in the way people think, feel, talk about and nurture their mental health, Smiling Mind aims to create generational change.
We know you’ll have lots of questions, and we’re ready to answer them. Check out these frequently asked questions and if your still need answers, submit a question to our team directly.
Following extensive research and testing, Smiling Mind has created a new, evidence-based model for building mental fitness, your foundation for thriving. Mental fitness reflects your ability to be your best each day, navigate challenges, and support a state of mental wellbeing.
Featuring new content mapped to Smiling Mind’s new Mental Fitness Model designed by psychologists and mental health experts, our evolved app supports your lifelong mental fitness with interactive, accessible and fun content for minds of all stages and ages.
The new Smiling Mind App supports you to develop your own personalised approach to building a range of wellbeing skills, to navigate challenges and meet your goals. It’s your daily workout for life, in your pocket.
You can explore over 700 sessions, including 230 new sessions, in formats such as meditations, learning modules, soundscapes and videos to discover how to Live Mindfully, Embrace Flexible Thinking, Grow Connections, Act Purposefully and Recharge Your Body.
To better reflect our new vision and mission, we’re changing the look and feel of the Smiling Mind app to give you a friendlier, more personalised experience.
The Smiling Mind team have listened to your feedback over the years and have introduced a range of new features that can help accelerate your mental fitness:
Explore: Easily search content by title, need, goal or keyword and filter by type, place or age group.
Routines: build a custom mental fitness plan that's uniquely yours, with multiple pieces of content and reminders.
My Fitness: Discover which skillsets you've engaged with, how often you're practising, and visualise your progress over time.
Collections: Discover bespoke mental fitness collections to help you focus your mental fitness practise around a specific goal or need.
So, what will it look like? You’ll be able to see for yourself by updating your Smiling Mind app when you receive a prompt to do so!
If you don’t have the Smiling Mind app yet, you can download it in the app store. We can’t wait for you to try it!
As a not-for-profit organisation, Smiling Mind exists solely to create a positive impact. We believe everyone should have the tools to thrive—that’s why the Smiling Mind App has remained free for individuals and families to access since day 1 - over 12 years.
We do not and have not ever received government funding to keep our app free, despite our app supporting millions of Australians every year. It has remained accessible through the support of our generous community of philanthropists, corporate partners and users.
To sustain our organisation’s vital work supporting the mental health of future generations we had intended to launch a combination of free and premium paid content for adults with our new app (children and family content would remain completely free, forever). Recently however, we made the decision to instead launch the app with free access to our premium content, for all users as we are dedicated to supporting our community who are doing it tough in the current cost of living crisis.
Over the next year, we’ll be doing everything we can to keep the Smiling Mind app free, long term by engaging government, philanthropists and corporate partners to keep Smiling Mind free.
If you are able to, you can make a donation to Smiling Mind here!
Smiling Mind began as one of the first mindfulness based meditation apps in 2012, and has evolved to be Australia's go-to digital mental health organisation representing children and young people, promoting and enabling lifelong mental fitness.
The Smiling Mind App has been the gym for your mind for over 12 years, and we’re evolving to become your new, comprehensive mental fitness gym.
Our Mental Fitness Model will help you Live Mindfully, Embrace Flexible Thinking, Grow Connections, Live Purposefully and Recharge Your Body, promoting holistic mental wellbeing support. The Smiling Mind App includes a wide range of activities, practices and strategies to improve your overall mental fitness and wellbeing.
We are uniquely Australian and run as a 100% not-for-profit with a mission to create generational change in mental health by providing lifelong tools to help every mind thrive.
We offer a wide range of evidence-based content to support a holistic approach to mental fitness, with a dedicated team of psychologists and mental health experts informing all of the content within our app.
By choosing Smiling Mind, you’re not just investing in your wellbeing—you’re investing in the mental health of future generations.
Smiling Mind’s new app will start rolling out from July 2024.
You won’t need to download a new app—simply update your existing app when you receive a prompt to do so!
You can login to the new version of the Smiling Mind App with your existing account details! If you don't remember your login, now is a good time to reset your details so that you have everything you need to get started once you've updated your app.
Once you’ve updated your app, your usage data and progress in the existing Smiling Mind app will be reset. Unfortunately this was an unavoidable part of creating a new app.
We understand you may feel a little disappointed about losing your streak and progress. But we hope that having a blank slate to begin your mental fitness journey will help you to set new goals and better reflect on how you're progressing towards them.
It's a fresh start for you with our new, evidence-based Mental Fitness Model!
The new Smiling Mind App supports mental fitness to develop psychological health and wellbeing. The Smiling Mind Mental Fitness Model includes mindfulness which improves and maintains executive functioning and memory. These are key parts of cognitive training.
In the Smiling Mind App you'll learn how to Live Mindfully, Embrace Flexible Thinking, Grow Connections, Act Purposefully and Recharge Your Body.
The Smiling Mind Mental Fitness Model has been created through extensive research, taking into account the evidence, effectiveness and impact of various mental wellbeing practices. It is not designed to address brain injury or dementia.
If you need additional support, there are a range of services and resources available. You can find out more at https://www.smilingmind.com.au/support-services.
The new Smiling Mind app is a universal change, so after a period of time the original version will no longer be available to use.
The team at Smiling Mind has rigorously researched and tested the new app to ensure it will provide a friendly experience to everyone in our app community.
Every change made to the app has been informed by our desire to meet your mental wellbeing needs and goals effectively, so we hope you enjoy the new app experience!
If you have any concerns at all about what the new Smiling Mind app could mean for you, your family or the children you support, please get in touch with us at info@smilingmind.com.au.
The changes to the Smiling Mind App and our expansion from mindfulness to a broader Mental Fitness Model won't have an immediate impact on the Smiling Mind Schools Program or Primary Classroom Curriculum in terms of implementation and delivery, with the exception of where the curriculum refers to content within the Smiling Mind App.
All of the Integrate worksheets directing to the Smiling Mind App will be updated to reflect these changes, and we can’t wait to share more with you about the new mental fitness content coming to the Smiling Mind Primary School Program for 2025!
The Smiling Mind App complements the Primary School Program, offering a range of in-class meditations and activities to help calm and focus your students before learning. You'll still be able to use the Smiling Mind App on desktop as a front of class resource.
All of the classroom resources in the app will remain free to use! We know how valuable these meditations and activities are to teachers and students alike. As a teacher, you're a key influencer in children's lives, and we're committed to keeping the right resources in your hands to bring calm to the classroom and support students' wellbeing.
Yes! Along with the existing classroom content that remains available, we have also released 57 new child-facing lessons, activities and meditations. Teachers can use any of the 224 children's sessions to support students' wellbeing at school.
The new and existing content in the app has been diversified across the Smiling Mind Mental Fitness Model, meaning you’ll be able to find content to target specific student needs or learning goals—like emotional regulation, managing worry, finding calm or enhancing focus.
We know how valuable these meditations and activities are to teachers and students alike. As a teacher, you're a key influencer in children's lives, and we're committed to keeping the right resources in your hands to bring calm to the classroom and support students' wellbeing.
The implementation and delivery of our school programs remains the same, with the exception of where the curriculum refers to content within the Smiling Mind app. All of the Integrate worksheets within the Primary Classroom Curriculum that direct to the app will be updated to reflect these changes and ensure you’ll be able to find everything you need easily!
For now, our content in the Learning Hub and Primary Classroom Curriculum will remain in Smiling Mind’s existing brand while we work through a phased roll out of our new brand. We can’t wait to share more with you about the new mental fitness content coming to the Smiling Mind Primary School Program for 2025!
Mindfulness remains central to Smiling Mind's new Mental Fitness Model. Our team of psychologists and mental health experts have incorporated additional skillsets that everyone can practise to develop their overall mental fitness.
In the same way that physical fitness requires regular practice, mental fitness involves proactively and intentionally developing the resources and skills we can draw upon to respond to setbacks, sustain healthy relationships, navigate change and uncertainty, and make effective decisions. Practising mental fitness gives us a head start to managing the ups and downs of everyday life.
Evidence shows there are a range of skills that underpin mental wellbeing; just like we train different muscles to build physical fitness, we can practise a range of skills to build mental fitness—your foundation for thriving.
Smiling Mind's Mental Fitness Model is built on the key skills of Living Mindfully, Embracing Flexible Thinking, Growing Connections, Acting Purposefully, and Recharging Your Body. These skills feed into curated collections in the app that target specific needs and goals, like regulating emotions, enhancing focus and sleeping better.
These collections streamline holistic mental fitness practises to help children and adults alike develop the mental resources they need to meet their needs, improve their resilience and feel good.
Everyone can practise mental fitness—it's never too late, or too early, to get started.
We’d love to hear from you! Follow the link below to submit any questions or feedback and the Smiling Mind Team will get back to you.
