Consider Water

Note: This title is not set in stone and I am open to suggestions

About

This is a project aimed at creating a web app that would provide an interactive experience with the goal of helping pass the time for users who are feeling anxious.

The name is inspired by David Foster Wallace's commencement speech to the Kenyon College in 2005: This Is Water.

Description

The components that I am trying to build draw from my own experiences in trying to find self-guided techniques to help myself get through difficult moments. There are a lot of times where there is no need to reach out to another person because I know it is just a mood that will pass. Nevertheless, a constructive, compassionate and dynamic way to work through the time is important. This can be difficult to self-implement. The two options that I typically encounter are pre-recorded guidance, which is sometimes a good fit and oftentimes not- as I have to try to match my pace and intensity to the pre-recorded thing. In searching the web, there are a lot of techniques provided, both from professional sites and personal blogs. But most of these techniques are wrapped in walls of text and they can be really challenging to work through in an anxious time.

By trying to build up components that are reflective of common and typically helpful activities, such as journaling or breathing exercises, in a way that a user can have some control of the activity (such as being able to have control of a metronome to help with timing breathing ), it may be possible to provide something that could be somewhat helpful in passing the time, at times. (this is a sad run on sentence that I need to fix)

Components

This is a current list of things I want to build into the app

• A journaling aspect that allows a user to write about what they are experiencing and thinking.
• A mood ranking system on a scale of 1-10 that lets a user mark where their mood is and perhaps will give perspective of how their mood changes over time- whether it be in one session or in a longer span of time.
• Ten breaths - a simple visual guide for a user to focus on to help complete taking ten deep breaths, with some speed control to make the experience more tailored to the needs of the individual.
• Sounds - the ability to have no sound or some sounds (like that of a metronome, that can be sped up or slowed down (or possibly other relaxing sounds without speed control - like the sound of the ocean or a babbling brook)) if a person finds sounds comforting helpful, but by default off for those where sound is not an aid.
• Colors - a series of prompts (that can be started and stopped) to get the user to look away from the computer and identify the colors of things around them ( a strange sounding technique (especially for a web app) that I find quite helpful, often). The goal of this is to get the user to connect with their environment in the here and now and maybe get out of their minds a little bit.
• EMDR-esque - based on an EMDR activity, EMDR involves bilateral stimulation, which is done by a user moving their eyes to the left and right or by hearing sounds alternating on the left and right side, and during this stimulation a user focuses on giving the uncomfortable feeling a shape, color, size, temperature, texture, sound etc. There would be an animation that would go from left to right across the screen (or alternatively a sound that would go back and forth from left to right speakers)
• Defusion - based on ACT therapy, in where a main principle is to transition the tendency to give thoughts immediate authority and belief that they are true into accepting that they are just thoughts and may or may not be important or true. A user would be able to write down a thought and then have that thought abstracted away by adding the words "I am having the thought that " put in front of what the user wrote, then have that change to "I am noticing that I am having the thought that " and then, possibly allowing the thought float around the page. Again, as an attempt to abstract the thought into just words and help the user detach the authority and automatic truth that is typically associated with any thought that pops into one's head.
• Timer - some people find it helpful to see the amount of time that has gone by during an anxious period. Other people find it induces more anxiety. The timer would be able to be viewed and hidden, depending on the desires of the user.

WDI- Final Project components

The goal is to create a journal, a mood ranking system for a logged in user, and the ten breaths component for the final project. Additional components will be worked on an implemented as time permits.

URL

https://arcane-taiga-14002.herokuapp.com

Goal (from original ideas notes)

To create an interactive web site to provide simple activities for anxious people to do.