Anti-anxiety apps offer a cure for depression, but do they work?
Improving your mood could be just a download away. David Wilson explores the world of anti-anxiety apps
Fast-moving Hong Kong is a hotbed of "mental distress", according to the Integrated Medicine Institute. If you are feeling the pressure, the good news is there's an app for you.
In fact, there are many amusing anti-anxiety apps. One, the quirky animation Personal Zen, simply asks you to focus on a friendly, fleeting face. Another, the multifaceted Happify, presents quizzes, polls and a gratitude journal.
There are also meditation tools such as Buddhify and Equanimity, plus the serious, military-designed Positive Activity Jackpot, an app which uses a therapy technique called "pleasant event scheduling".
Some are unsure whether these apps work. "It's too early to be 100 per cent certain, but the evidence is mounting," says game developer Scott Crabtree, who points to a Norwegian study titled Better Days.
The study, released by , gauged the impact of internet-based positive intervention involving about 200 people. It explored gratitude, acts of kindness and mindfulness. The result was encouraging: there was a small but significant positive effect on mood.
Another study, published in , assessed an emerging cognitive treatment for stress, called "attention-bias modification training" (ABMT) - the basis of Personal Zen. For the study, about 75 participants, who scored highly in a stress survey, tracked two moving onscreen characters.