Using Mobile to Mellow Out
The inclusion of mobile devices into everyday lives can be stressful. A device that was meant to make life easier and simpler can make it much more stressful for some. Getting billing updates to your phone, constant communication, and streams of sensational news can increase stress in some people’s already stressful lives.
However, thanks to research being done at Hunter College of The City University of New York, mobile devices can now be used to reduce anxiety through the use of a science-based mobile gaming app.
The app is a game that uses an anxiety-reducing method called attention-bias modification training (ABMT). ABMT is a cognitive treatment beginning to gain traction due to ABMT's success at reducing stress in high-anxiety sufferers. The treatment works by training patients to ignore threatening stimulus and to focus attention on neutral or positive stimulus.
So, what ignited the research for the anxiety reducing mobile app? It was the desire to develop an alternative system for delivering treatment—more cost friendly, easily available, and interactive—for individuals affected by stress and anxiety.
“Millions of people suffering from psychological distress fail to seek or receive mental health services. Many evidence-based treatments are burdensome - time consuming, expensive, difficult to access and perceived as stigmatising,” claims Tracy Dennis, the lead researcher for the project.
The study had nearly eighty participants interact with a mobile app before giving a stressful short videotaped speech. Half of the participants were given twenty-five to forty-five minutes on the AMBT app; the other half were given a dummy app that was similar in nature to the AMBT app but did not employ any of the cognitive treatment’s stress-reducing techniques.
The findings were promising. "Even the 'short dosage' of the app - about 25 minutes - had potent effects on anxiety and stress measured in the lab," noted Dennis.
The research team at The City University of New York has published its study findings in the Journal of Clinical Psychological Science and plans to continue their research to see if their app can be used as an ongoing treatment—with shorter sessions but with more exposures over the course of a month—to reduce stress and anxiety.
This study might be great news for on-the-go people who find themselves tethered to their mobile devices—especially for those who find their active lifestyle filled with stress and anxiety.
