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How Minder is different?

A project log for Minder

An open source smart watch built for anxiety and panic disorder.

austin-marandosAustin Marandos 04/21/2018 at 13:160 Comments

Something in common with current existing technologies is that they do not provide the user with coping strategies and instructions on how to deal with their panic/anxiety attack. Similar anti-anxiety smart watches are very good at monitoring the symptoms of a panic attack however from personal experience and from professional advice from psychologists, the only way to lower the severity of a panic attack is to sit with the symptoms and using your breathing and mindfulness strategies deal with the panic attack. Monitoring is very useful for both the user and their psychologist, however personally applying anti-anxiety techniques whilst experiencing a panic attack is perhaps the best non-drug related method of dealing with anxiety and panic disorder. My device will set out to do just that. 

All of the pre-existing technologies are also expensive (eg: Apple watch). Thus making such devices out of reach for many people.     

My project will focus on exposure. One of the most efficient ways of dealing with anxiety is to not respond to the ‘fight or flight’ response. That is, if you are experiencing a panic attack you need to stay in the environment in which the panic occurred and using your techniques (given to you on the watch) wait until the panic lowers down to a stable level. This ensures that if the user goes back to the same environment in the future their anxiety levels will be much lower.

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