Harvard University scientists developed an app that breaks cycles of ruminative thinking, which is a key factor in depression.
Ruminative thinking is the repetitive cycle of negative thoughts that can worsen mood and amplify depressive symptoms.
The app consists of five mini-games that engage the mind in positive, thought-disrupting activities. As a result, players had more substantial improvements to their depressive symptoms than those who hadn’t played it.
How does the app fight depression?
Harvard Professor Moshe Bar and colleagues tested the app on select participants and found significant, long-lasting mood improvements.
The app had five mini-games that encouraged positive thoughts:
- Word-chains: Players arrange words in a chained manner according to associations.
- Zoom-out: It shows a large letter with small letters, and players must guess what the big letter is.
- Belong: The game shows an image, and players must provide two words depicting something related to the picture.
- Clouds: Players must choose the most creative interpretation for the meaning of a given abstract “cloud.”
- Speed-read: The game flashes a short text and then asks a related question.
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They observed the volunteers for eight weeks. Consequently, the participants exhibited noticeable mood and thought pattern changes after every weekly evaluation.
“The results indicate that across multiple clinical measurements… showed greater and faster improvement in depressive symptoms compared with their waitlist control counterparts,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
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They published their findings in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). Moreover, its benefits extend beyond the study’s duration.
Many continued to have reduced depressive symptoms four weeks after using the app. As a result, researchers believe it could become a powerful supplement to traditional therapies.
It could make mental health treatments more accessible as it’s free to use. Such innovations come at a time when depression and mental health crises are rising worldwide.
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