Best apps for emetophobia (fear of vomiting) (2026)

Two apps are built for fear of vomiting and come with ready-made exposure steps for it: Calmena (£17.99 a year) and Bia (£149.99 a year), and Calmena is the one to try first. Most of the other apps that turn up for this search help you calm down, keep a journal or, in the case of the one r/emetophobia names most often, check films for vomiting scenes so you can skip them. Conquer Fear, which is ours, comes third: it writes real-world steps for the situation you're avoiding, but it has nothing to look at or listen to built in.

What we found first

There is no independent round-up for this search. When we ran "best app for emetophobia" through one AI search tool on 24 October 2026, its answer was built from App Store listings and a university thesis. So it repeated each app's own description of itself, including Bia's outcome percentages and GritLife's claims about its methods. GritLife's emetophobia course is still on sale for £9.99. The app was last updated in January 2023.

Then we looked at what people with the fear actually name. We searched every post on r/emetophobia in the Arctic Shift archive (posts only, not comments). 47 posts since April 2020 name Does The Dog Die?, a free site and app that tells you whether a film or show contains vomiting. People use it to check before they watch, or to find the timestamp to skip. Six posts name Bia, and three of those come from people working on it. None name MindShift CBT or Calmena.

That is not a criticism of anyone who uses it. But it shows what the most-used app for this fear does: it helps you avoid the thing. One poster in August 2023 wrote that the site "helps, but not every time. I want to be brave and to face my fear".

Why that matters for this fear

Professor David Veale's page on emetophobia says safety-seeking behaviours "maintain your fear as you never find out whether you need to use them or not", and lists checking and reassurance seeking among the things to look at. Anna Christie's Emetophobia Help site lists "asking someone for reassurance, when you know what they'll say every time" as one of them.

So for this fear, the useful question about an app is not whether it's calming. It is whether it gives you something to face: the word, pictures, sounds, real places and the feeling of nausea itself. Or whether it gives you one more way to check, settle or steer around the feeling.

• Sets you steps to face

  Exposure steps for vomiting, built in or written for you

  • Calmena
  • Bia
  • Conquer Fear
  • GritLife (not updated since 2023)

• You write the steps, or watch VR

  A general ladder or 360 degree video, not built around this fear

  • MindShift CBT
  • oVRcome

• Calms or settles the feeling

  Breathing, audio, grounding, a journal, a panic button

  • Anchor
  • Balemind
  • Dare

• Helps you skip it

  Tells you where the vomiting is in a film so you can avoid it

  • Does The Dog Die?

The comparison

Prices and update dates are from each app's UK App Store listing, checked 24 October 2026. They vary by region.

What each one actually does

Calmena is the most complete thing we found for this fear, and its yearly price is well under Bia's or ours. Its listing describes a 14 day course with nine short lessons, nearly 200 exposure items across four levels (single words first, then descriptions, images, and finally sounds and videos) and more than 130 everyday challenges. Its website adds body-sensation exercises such as spinning and pressure on the stomach, food challenges and situations like public transport and hospitals. You rate your anxiety before and after each session, and it tracks the safety behaviours you want to cut down. It also has breathing and relaxation "available at any time" and a quick help button. Those have their place, but if you find yourself opening them every time a feeling starts, notice it. Calmena launched in April 2026 and had no UK ratings when we checked.

Bia was started by someone who lived with emetophobia for more than 27 years, according to its listing. Its emetophobia page describes over 55 exercises and 19 lessons, moving from words to images to sensations, with tracking of safety behaviours, custom exposures and a separate version for children aged 5 to 13. You can link it to a professional you're already seeing. It is the most expensive option here by some distance, and one r/emetophobia poster in December 2025 said they downloaded it and "was given a paywall instead". It has five UK ratings. Its listing leads with its own outcome figures, which we can't check and don't repeat.

Conquer Fear is ours. You name a goal and the fear in the way, such as eating out again, getting on a coach or being in the house when someone's ill, and it writes a ladder of small real-world steps for that exact situation. It shows you one step at a time and you rate your fear from 0 to 10 before and after. If a step is too big, it splits it. Steps you turned up to but didn't finish still count. There's a worked example on our fear of vomiting page. It has no audio, no video and no lessons, so the pictures and sounds Calmena hands you, you'd find yourself. The free tier covers one ladder and its first three steps. Conquer Fear is on the App Store for iPhone only and needs a connection.

MindShift CBT is free with nothing to buy, on Android, and well maintained, with 224 UK ratings. Its fear ladder is general: you write the steps for vomiting yourself. If you already know what your ladder should look like and want to pay nothing, it does the job.

oVRcome delivers exposure as 360 degree video on your phone. A University of Waikato master's thesis from 2024 evaluated an emetophobia programme inside it with six people. Its current UK listing and homepage don't say which fears it covers, so check that vomiting is still in there before you pay £174.99 a year.

Balemind is a journal where you write down what you feared would happen and what actually did, and it shows you how often the feared thing didn't come true. That is different from a calming app. But it sets you nothing to do, and its emergency mode is breathing, grounding and distraction. It has one version, released in June 2026.

Anchor is a panic tool built for emetophobia. Its listing describes a five step relief flow that starts with reassurance, followed by breathing, grounding and coping statements, plus a panic button and emergency contacts. For this fear, reassurance on demand is the pattern the sources above warn about.

Dare is a large, long-running anxiety and panic app with hundreds of audios. Its listing doesn't mention vomiting.

GritLife sells a fear of vomiting course for £9.99 as an in-app purchase. Its last update was on 5 January 2023, and it has no UK ratings. We wouldn't pay for a course nobody has touched in nearly four years.

Does The Dog Die? is not an anxiety app, and we're not suggesting you delete it. We include it because it's the app this community names most. Its job is to tell you where the vomiting is so you can avoid it.

When to see your GP first

If you're eating less or cutting out foods, losing weight, or no longer leaving the house because of this fear, see your GP before you start an app. Professor Veale's page notes that some people restrict food so much they become very underweight. The NHS says to see a GP if a phobia is affecting your life, and that you can refer yourself for NHS support without a GP referral. An app can sit alongside that. It shouldn't replace it.

How to choose

• You want everything built for this fear, at a low price. Calmena.
• You want an emetophobia programme from someone who lived with it, and the price is fine. Bia, or use the 7 day trial to see the steps first.
• You know the situation you're avoiding (a meal out, a flight, a school pick-up) and want steps written around that. Conquer Fear.
• You want free and you're happy writing the ladder yourself. MindShift CBT.
• You want something for the moment itself. Dare, but watch whether it becomes the thing you reach for every time.
• Daily life has shrunk around this fear. Your GP first, then an app alongside.

Where we are not the answer

We build Conquer Fear, so weigh all of this with that in mind.

Calmena and Bia both ship exposure material made for this fear. We don't. We have no images, sounds or videos, no lessons and no body-sensation exercises. We don't teach breathing or any physical technique. We're iOS only, we need a connection, and we have one UK rating. If you want the words, pictures and sounds handed to you in order, use Calmena.

The case for us is narrower. If what you're avoiding is a real place or situation, you type it in and get a ladder for that, from where you are now, in steps small enough that you'll do the next one.

How we tested

We could not install any of these apps for this article, and we didn't view their in-app screens. Prices, developers, ratings and update dates come from each app's UK App Store listing and Apple's public lookup data for the UK store, read on 24 October 2026. Android availability comes from Google Play listings we found. Feature descriptions come from each app's own listing and, for Calmena, Bia and oVRcome, their websites. Conquer Fear is described from our own product. The Reddit counts come from searching r/emetophobia posts in the Arctic Shift archive on 24 October 2026; comments weren't searched, so the real numbers are higher. The AI search check was one query on one tool, on one day. We are not judging whether any app works, and none of the vendors' outcome claims are ours to repeat. We build Conquer Fear, a competing app, so read this as interested rather than neutral. If any app changes, tell us and we'll correct it.

Sources

All checked 24 October 2026.

• Conquer Fear: App Store link above
• Calmena: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id6758100773, https://calmena.app/en/ and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calmena.app
• Bia: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id6740422896, https://biajourney.com/emetophobia and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mytherapy.bia
• MindShift CBT: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id634684825 and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bstro.MindShift
• oVRcome: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id1545526126, https://www.ovrcome.io and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.ovrcome
• University of Waikato thesis on oVRcome's emetophobia programme (Wallace, 2024): https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/entities/publication/cfc08b2f-ac0b-4873-a5f4-99d7083b3f3e
• Balemind: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id6781280989
• Anchor: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id6761376766
• Dare: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id1034311206 and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.armour.dare2
• GritLife: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id1584050998
• Does The Dog Die?: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id1507381938 and https://www.doesthedogdie.com
• r/emetophobia post search: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com
• Paywall post on r/emetophobia, December 2025: https://www.reddit.com/r/emetophobia/comments/1ptmj2n/support_groups/
• "Helps, but not every time" post, August 2023: https://www.reddit.com/r/emetophobia/comments/15qb3fg/im_just_so_tired_of_my_phobia/
• Professor David Veale on safety behaviours and food restriction: https://www.veale.co.uk/?p=4313
• Emetophobia Help on safety behaviours (Anna Christie, 2020): https://emetophobiahelp.org/tag/safety-behaviours/
• NHS on phobias, seeing a GP and self-referral: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/overview/

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Conquer Fear is a self-help tool inspired by exposure principles. It isn't therapy or medical care, and it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If fear or anxiety is affecting your daily life, check with your GP or a qualified professional.