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Contributed by Lori Markland, Director of Communications, Outreach and Development, MDTAP

It’s been a week that this app, Personal Zen, has been on my phone and my severe anxiety is far from cured. For that matter, it’s barely under control. But I didn’t download this game with the expectation that it would somehow make all my anxieties disappear. However, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, it would help me find a way to stabilize during the worst of my panic attacks. And somehow, it has.

The concept is simple – there are two spritely faces that appear on the screen. An angry, unpleasant face and a calm, peaceful face. They appear in a field of green grass. Only the pleasant face moves and creates a trail of moving grass blades. All I need to do is trace the trail that the peaceful creature creates. After I trace these trails for about a minute, I receive a “badge.” Then the faces reappear and I do it over and over and over again, trying to beat my own time. The trick is training my eyes and brain to initially focus on the pleasant face every time they both appear on the screen. Easier said than done. And perhaps that’s the key to this game.

As someone who suffers from severe anxiety, my inclination is to always fixate on the worst, the catastrophic , the bad. It’s a real art to “see” the pleasant face first, and stay focused on it. Because I want to look at the other face. I mean really, really want to look at the “angry” face. But I don’t because that would slow me down and hurt my time. Inevitably, when I start the game, the first couple of times I focus on the angry face, but as I play longer and longer, I re-focus. I shift. I calm down. And that’s the key here. To find a way to bring my heart rate down, to focus (even scarcely) on something other than my worries, and try to see the positive in what is often an overwhelming sense of doom.

Thanks Personal Zen. It might not change me forever, but it calms me for the moment. Sometimes that’s all I need.

 

One Response to “What I’m learning from Personal Zen, 4/1/14”

  1. Tracy Dennis says:

    Hi Lori, I’m one of the developers of Personal Zen and I just wanted to let you know that I’m so very happy to hear you’ve had a positive experience with the app! Your insights into how it works for you are really great. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

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