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A Free App for Anxiety Management Tools

Nowadays there is an app for everything and the field of psychology is benefitting from digital counselling.  The researchers at UBC, who are behind the invaluable website www.anxietybc.com, in joint collaboration with BC Mental Health and Addictions Services, have now created MindShift – a free app to give “in the moment” tools to help youth and adults cope with various forms of anxiety.

Why Managing Anxiety is Counter-Intuitive and How MindShift Can Help

We all have anxiety, which is important as part of our survival mechanism when we are in dangerous situations. However, for many, anxiety is over-active and when it takes over in non-emergency situations, it stops a person from functioning.  The instinctive reaction is to AVOID.  However, avoidance fuels anxiety.  Managing anxiety is counter-intuitive because we normally trust the signals that we receive from our body.  For example, if our stomach “growls”, we know we are hungry, if we are sweating we know to take off a layer of clothing, if we touch an element on a hot stove we quickly remove our hand.  With anxiety, our body gives us the message to fight, flight (avoidance) or freeze (which can also look like avoidance).  In a highly anxious moment, it is challenging to access our prefrontal cortex part of the brain, which helps us to think rationally, problem-solve and self-regulate.  Therefore, the use of the MindShift app is very helpful as it acts as a surrogate prefrontal cortex, guiding one through anxiety management strategies.

The Components of MindShift

Anxiety 101: Background information on anxiety.  What happens in our bodies physiologically, in our mind and with our actions

Check Yourself:  A section where one can rate his/her anxiety symptoms on a scale from 0-10

My Situations: Allows one to select the stressful scenario, such as test anxiety, perfectionism, social anxiety, performance anxiety, worry, panic, or conflict and then it leads you to the following categories:

Thinking Right:  For each scenario, it will give a list of helpful, rational thoughts to challenge the negative, irrational anxious thoughts.  To individually tailor the program, one can star favourites for quick and easy reference.  For daily practice, there is a section called “Realistic thinking for everyday”, which gives rational and encouraging messages for positive self-talk.  The following list is a sample:

• This feeling will pass – it never lasts forever
• I can get through this
• I can’t predict the future so stop guessing
• These are just my anxious thoughts.  I don’t have to believe them

We can all identify with feeling anxious or stressed and this app will help one calm down in common stressful situations and act as a portable coach.

And to close, an inspiration quote from Dr. Seuss, from the Mindshift app:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those that mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind ~ Dr. Seuss

For more information on my summer groups for children and youth to teach these anxiety management skills and self-regulation skills please see the link to my groups below.

Have a wonderful week,

Warmly,

I’d like to receive parenting tips and the free eBook: 7 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Your Child Is Anxious