Apps can help track stocks, monitor the weather, arrange a yoga sequence, organize business contacts, and just about any other task you might imagine. But the
Mayo Clinic has unveiled an app that does more than provide time management: it helps users deal with anxiety issues.
Called Anxiety Coach, the app is available on
iTunes for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices, and is aimed at reducing worry for its users. Through a series of exercises, users can track their anxiety levels and determine their own progress in handling fears and agitation. Even if someone has a lower-level anxiety, such as fear of public speaking, the app can be helpful in minimizing the impact of those reactions.
The Mayo Clinic emphasizes that the app isn't meant to substitute for mental health services, but simply serves as a way to reduce anxiety between health care visits, or to address fears in general.
Developed by two clinical psychologists--Dr. Stephen Whiteside at the Mayo Clinic and Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz at the University of North Carolina--the app relies on cognitive behavioral therapy, which assists people in overcoming anxiety by gradual degrees.
In addition to a short test to measure severity of worries and fears, the app contains more than 500 activities related to specific fears, obsessions, panic attacks, social anxiety, compulsion, and trauma-related anxiety.
Dr. Whiteside notes that the app challenges people to face their fears, as opposed to other apps that tend to focus on relaxation strategies. Those types of apps "don't get the core of what is helpful in the long term," he says.
Source: Stephen Whiteside, Mayo Clinic
Writer: Elizabeth Millard