Mental Health Influencers Sharing Support on Social Media

Social media sometimes has a bad reputation when it comes to the general public’s mental health — and that’s completely understandable in some cases. But there are many behavioral and mental health experts, life coaches, therapists, and mindful influencers that have stepped up to use their social media platforms (mainly TikTok and Instagram) to do the opposite. 

They seek to heal, guide and bring awareness to mental health. There are the big names, but there are also a slew of other mental health influencers from all tiers that aim to spread mental health awareness.

Top mental health accounts that are informing, inspiring

If you’re looking for influencers that are using their social platforms to bring awareness to mental health, here are 10 of the best.

Julie Menanno

Julia is a licensed marriage and family therapist who brings her expertise from the office setting to social media. Her 655K followers on social media are shown relationship healing practices, skills, and scripts. While the majority of her content covers relationship issues, she also discusses the types of attachments — secure, anxious, and avoidant — that we experience as human beings and shares tips on how to manage. She does all of this through branded illustrations that are fun and easy to understand. She uses carousels often to tell a story and keep followers engaged. She also uses unique characters, such as birds, to explain a conversation that might happen between two people. 

Eddie Pinero

Eddie is the voice behind the podcast “Your World Within,” where he shares daily thoughts, life learnings, and thought-provoking messages. But it’s his TikTok videos that really make an impact. What makes them unique is that he uses his own voice along with music that he’s created. The videos easily get 10,000 views, but his original audio files also get thousands of uses each. Eddie also has 51 million followers on YouTube. This Bostonian is truly a jack of all trades: word lyricist, musician, TED Talks speaker, podcaster and mental wellness champion. 

Ryan Holiday

Ryan has built a following based on many of the popular stoics of the world, including Marcus Aurelius and Confucius, and has developed a podcast and book from them, both called “The Daily Stoic.” He is consistent, clean and simple — all important factors for reaching those dealing with mental health issues. The point of each post is more about the message than any flashy graphic or video. And specifically on Twitter – where he has 443,700 followers – the more direct and shorter the message, the better. Oftentimes, it’s just the message with no visual and he still gathers high engagement from his followers who are seeking guidance, inspiration and self-soothing messages.

Dr. Mariel Buqué

Mariel Buqué is a New York City-based holistic psychologist, trauma expert and professor at Columbia University with a following of more than 237,000. Her goal is to help people deepen their resilience and heal all types of emotional wounds. Her content is a mix of face-to-face videos (always holding some coffee or tea) and custom graphics. Dr. Buqué focuses on a wide array of behavioral health topics, including trauma, developing healthy coping methods and boundary setting practices.

Beth Evans

Everyone likes a good visual, especially when there’s an inspiring or positive message attached. Beth uses her art to create custom graphics about mental health issues. Her posts do a wonderful job at making followers stop, read, engage and think. The topics that Beth draws are tough, and often serious, but the artwork helps deliver them in a light manner. What’s interesting is that she doesn’t include a caption on the post or hashtags. She’s grown a loyal, large — 373,000 followers — Instagram following.

Sheleana Aiyana

Sheleana is the founder of Rising Women, a 2.5 million follower account sharing relationship, positive messages and spiritual writings. Her focus is to heal relationship patterns with yourself and others through conscious relationship thinking. What’s unique about Sheleana is that she also uses astrological signs and movements, including new and full moons or changing of signs, when developing content for her followers.

Nedra Glover Tawwab

Nedra is a certified relationship and boundaries expert and author who uses her Instagram account to help people build healthy relationships. She doesn’t lecture her 1.3 million followers; she provides easily digestible, educational, diverse and useful practice techniques for couples. Her content creation ranges from short quotes or messages to longer lists of tips or life lessons she’s learned.

Evan Sanders

Evan of The Better Man Project is a professional life coach and writer who, per his Instagram, helps “people get from where they are going to where they really want to be.” He uses his vibrant voice, smile and calming facial expressions to connect with his audience in videos. When he’s not face-forward, his posts show simple messages that are crisp, clear and concise. 

Emily Mendez

Emily, a former therapist, runs a blog that focuses on mental health and wellness. She shares content that is trustworthy and relatable. Her mental health advice and tips, like how to calm an anxious mind with the sound of rain, have been featured in many national sites including Bustle, Healthline and Family Circle. She’s available to collab with wellness-related brands on Shake!

Drew “Petey” Robinson 

Drew Robinson, former professional baseball player and mental health advocate, turned a personal tragedy into a journey of resilience and hope. After surviving a suicide attempt in 2020 that cost him his right eye, Drew returned to baseball before retiring to focus on mental health advocacy within the San Francisco Giants organization. Today, alongside his service dog, Ellie, he shares his inspiring story and champions mental health awareness to his 57.3K Instagram followers, embodying the courage and strength that defines his life.