Desmond Smith 4/5/19 Desmond Smith 4/5/19

Grapefruit: Mental Health Tracking App

Often, meetings with a therapist begin with a recap of what has happened and how a client has felt since the last session together. Lots of therapists recommend journaling or mood charts as a way to help clients actively process and track their own progress towards goals. Everyone has their own way of doing this, but recently I discovered an app that has been really helpful as I’ve begun to track my own moods and I think it could be really helpful for clients as well.

Grapefruit from developer Angus Woodman is an app that allows you to “do a daily mental health check-in.” The basic idea is to journal and answer a few questions each day and, over time, you can view visualizations of your results that can help you identify trends, triggers, and more. I’ve been using it daily now for over a week and have been really happy with the results that I’m seeing and the flexibility the app allows in tracking my own custom datapoints.

I’ve been using the iOS version of Grapefruit which comes preloaded with some helpful questions to get you started on tracking your daily progress. Each day, you can identify one or more feelings that you had throughout the course of the day. The app is preloaded with a lot of feeling words but if you’re a feelings word nut like me, you can add your own really easily. Some of preloaded questions are great writing stems for journaling (e.g. Today I…, What’s one good thing that happened today?, etc) and others are just fun (e.g. Which of the seven dwarves did I feel most like today?)

You can track more than just qualitative data; it’s not just about journalling. The app also allows you to add rating questions (e.g. “How was work today [on a scale of one to five]?”) or other numerical data too that will get tracked over time. For example, in an effort to better understand if my own alcohol or caffeine consumption impacted my mood, I added questions like “How many alcoholic drinks did I have today?” or “How many cups of coffee did I drink today?” As those data get entered, the app will keep up and give you some helpful insights.

Each question comes with it’s own sort of summary and a visualization when possible. You can view a bar chart of your top emotions, or see the short-term and long-term trends around how satisfied you were with your day. You can see your overall ratings based on a day of the week. So far, I know that Tuesday tends to be my lowest rated day. Tuesday, is usually my first day back to work after the weekend since I often see clients on Saturdays and take Mondays off. With this data, I can start to figure out if there is anything else about Tuesdays that might be worth looking at to help me feel happier on those days.

I can also see things like the average response for my custom questions like how many drinks did I have. In addition to showing me the average consumption, Grapefruit also ties these data into the emotions that I’ve indicated for those days so I can associate my alcohol consumption with feelings over time.

I really like this little app for lots of reasons but, more than any, for the flexibility and customization. If you want to track fitness with your mental health, for example, it’s incredibly easy to add a question like “How long did I work out today?” or “How satisfying was my workout?” or “How would I rate my food choices today?” Because I can add whatever qeustions I want to add, this seems like an app that could have a ton of supportive uses for our clients and a great way to both track, visualize, and then act on the things that they learn about themselves.

How are some of the ways that you’re using apps like this to track your own well-being? Are there other apps in this space that you like?

Desmond Smith 11/5/17 Desmond Smith 11/5/17

Three of the Best Apps for Your Relationship

As a couples therapist, I often have couples that tell me how much their phone is interfering with their lives and their relationship. When they reunite after a day at work, couples say that their phones serve as an all-too-easy distraction that reduces the quality of their time together. It can keep them from having important conversation. It can keep their mind partially at the office instead of being fully present at home. It’s a real problem – we’ve talked about it a previous blog post, too.

“Before technology allowed us to be anywhere anytime, conversation with other people was a big part of how we satisfied our brains’ need for stimulation.”
Sherry Turkle

This is a big year for for smartphones. It’s the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. Everyone knew that Apple would do something big to mark the occasion. Google has been involved too and has released their new Pixel phone. It stores all of your photos in the cloud so you’ll never run out of room.

For all of their features, though, most people would likely say that their apps are what really make their phones worth using. Without the apps that we love to use, our phones would just be fancy slabs of glass and aluminum that send really gorgeous text messages. Apps open up the ability for me to make FaceTime calls, or do my banking online, or track my mountain biking, or write this blog post.

As a couples therapist, I often have couples that tell me how much their phones are interfering with their lives and their relationship. When they reunite after a day at work, couples say that their phones serve as an all-too-easy distraction that reduces the quality of their time together. It can keep them from having important conversation. It can keep their mind partially at the office instead of being fully present at home. It’s a real problem – we’ve talked about it a previous blog post, too.

In her book, Reclaiming Conversation, researcher Sherry Turkle talks specifically about the impact that phones are having on the quality of our relationships. She enjoys technology and all the benefits it brings – and I do too! – but she knows that it’s important for us to realize the cost it has for our relationships. From parenting to physical intimacy, the type of relationship we have with our phone impacts the relationship we have with the humans we love.

Are there apps that can help? Maybe, but I’m not sure they’re the downloadable kind. Instead, there are three apps that might be helpful in keeping a positive perspective on the device that you have in your hand.

1. Be Approachable

Your phone might enable new, dynamic forms of digital conversation but it can be a barrier to the intimate and in-person. Turkle’s research shows that that the mere presence of a phone, even if it is turned off and laying face down on a table, can change what people talk about. It’s a powerful social and even physiological cue. Knowing that a person is within an arm’s reach of their phone signals that they are only partially or temporarily available to us. Why would we begin to have a conversation about the things that matter to us when we might get interrupted at any moment?

Being approachable is really about putting the phone down and being available to others. In-person conversation allows emotional connections that are simply unavailable in digital form. As Turkle puts it, “When we invest in conversation, we get a payoff in self-knowledge, empathy, and the experience of community.”

It might be worth installing this app right away!

2. Apologize In Person

If you’re investing time and energy into building a relationship with someone you love, at some point, you will say or do something that offends them. They will be angry with you. A conversation that involves making amends and owning up to the mistakes that we make – especially if we’ve hurt someone else – is a difficult conversation to have. It is so much easier to send a text that says “I’m sorry.” Include a few heart emoji and it can feel like we’ve done what we needed to do.

People don’t generally like having difficult conversations. Turkle, however makes the point that the difficulty inherent in these conversations actually makes us healthier, more empathetic human beings. The guilty person is able to see the pain in the face of the person that he hurt; these cues become a reinforcer to keep the same thing from happening again. But the person receiving the apology also gets to see and assess the genuineness of the regret in the apologizer’s face and actions. In Turkle’s words, “It is this realization that triggers the beginning of forgiveness.”

When you realize that you’ve done something that has hurt a person that you love, move towards them. Put down the phone and use this app to start you on the road to restoration.

In Turkle’s words, “Conversation cures.”

3. Appreciate the Present Moment

You can go anywhere. Sure, the virtual experience may not be as good as the real thing. With your device in hand, though, you can literally escape to any destination, real or imagined. You can experience what it is like to walk on the surface of the moon or you can get lost in the fictional worlds of your favorite characters. Today, you can even augment the reality of what is around you by summoning objects that appear to be sitting on your coffee table but only when you interact with them through your phone. You can share time and space with someone but yet be immersed in a completely different world.

You don’t need to wear augmented reality glasses or be lost in a Kindle book to escape the present moment. The dozens of notifications you get each day to your phone or the visceral buzzing of a smartwatch can take you away to another place. It can change your frame of reference to another relationship or work engagement. It can take you from a place of boredom to a place of excitement or a place of anxiety to a place of calm.

It can keep you from appreciating the value of the present moment.

Turkle says that we now have the opportunity “To avoid life’s challenges and boring bits.” She goes on to make the case, however, that it is in these moments – when we stay engaged with boredom or anxiety – we have opportunity to grow. Both, in fact, are signs that we are moving towards something that can help us to develop or to see the world in a different way. When we disengage from these things, we are forfeiting amazing potential.

And that’s just for ourselves.

When it comes to our relationships, being present is essential. It’s critical that we make eye contact or that we reach out and touch our partner. It’s not enough to occupy the same physical space. We need to learn what it is like to share our emotional space with our partner as well. Empathy helps us to understand the things that frustrate or frighten the people that we love. Having a new experience of someone can be anxiety provoking, but we have to stay engaged if we really want to move to the deepest levels of connection. We can’t bail out. We can’t escape to another place. We have to be present for the good times as well as the challenging times.

Appreciating the present moment might be the most important app you ever install.

I want to let Sherry Turkle wrap things up with one more quote from Reclaiming Conversation.

“Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit of stimulation, a neurochemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend, teacher, parent, lover, or co-worker just said, meant, felt.”

Don’t neglect the people that you love. Install these three apps in your relationship today.

Recommendation: Reclaiming Conversation is a fantastic book to help you get an idea of the power of conversation. Highly recommended.

Photo Credit: "apps" by Sean MacEntee is licensed by CC BY 2.0

Desmond Smith 4/1/17 Desmond Smith 4/1/17

There is Something Between Us

There is a deep-down part of us that has evolved to need human-to-human contact. This is the contact that comforts our spirits and let’s us know that we are not alone in the world. In reality, we can have enormous lists of friends and still feel completely alone. According to neuroscientists, when we really connect in face-to-face conversation, parts of our brains literally begin to synchronize. This keeps us attached to each other. It can help keep us securely coupled together.

How to Disconnect from the World and Connect with the People You Love.

Where is your phone right now? Is it in your pocket or on the table nearby? Are you literally holding it in your hand as you’re reading this? It’s hard to believe that 2017 marks ten years since Apple first introduced the iPhone. Is there any other device that’s been this much of a game changer? There have been plenty of other phones created since then, of course, but the release of that first iPhone will go down in the history books.

Buy Now

As it turns out, it may also mark a moment when the way that we interact with our world changed forever too.

I’ve started to read a book called Alone Together written by Sherry Turkle. Turkle is an expert in the ways that technology – from smart phones to children’s play toys – impacts our sense of well-being and the quality of the relationships with those around us. At the core of the book is the idea that the way we use and interact with technology has an impact on our own intellectual and emotional development.

Here’s a simple example that she gives. Remember Furby? Turkle starts out by talking about toys such as these – intelligent toys that can respond to us depending on what we do. In explaining some of her research, she discusses how, when turned upside down, Furby might say something like, “Oh no, me scared!” Have you ever wondered how this impacts a child’s play? What does it do to their imaginative exploration to have a toy that respond to them? What if they were making Furby fly through the air but Furby seemed scared? Would the child feel guilty and stop? Would they feel sad that they scared their friend? Does this actually stifle imagination?

It’s fair to say that technology impacts our lives in lots of ways.

And it doesn’t stop with kids. The capabilities of the devices that we use as adults change our behavior too. We can get instant access to our business email, our personal Facebook page, or our favorite YouTube channel. It’s relatively simple to crunch numbers or create new documents on whatever device is nearby. Our levels of productivity and our levels of distractibility are through the roof.

Think about it. It’s always there. When you come to a red light, do you find yourself reflexively reaching for your phone? What happens when you’re sitting at the dinner table with your family and you get a text message alert? Some of us even share our bed with our partner and our electronics.

Do you ever get the sense that this is all too much?

Downtime is important. With the technology that we use today, it is tempting to have less and less of it. We’re never bored and we’ve come to see empty time – where there is nothing to do – as a bad thing. We try to reserve this time for the one or two vacations we take each year, but inevitably there are emails to read or respond to. In times of stress or anxiety, we can retreat to our screens and the comfort of our self-curated content. We never give ourselves an opportunity to really sit with our emotions.

Your brain is healthiest when it has time to unwind and process the day.

From your brain’s perspective, virtual reality is very different from the real thing. Connecting with a loved one via a text message is not the same as embracing them and connecting face to face. Coming home and untethering ourselves from our electronic world allows us to vent about the stresses of our day and celebrate the accomplishments. It’s incredibly helpful for us to process these things. It’s a far more healthy process than trying to match our emotions to an emoji.

So how can you start to detach from your device and start to connect with the one that you love? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Out of Arms Reach

My wife and I have both realized that we reach for our phones every single time that we are driving and come to a red light. Keep those phones out of reach while you’re commuting to work. Leave it in your purse or put it a compartment on the passenger door. When you do come to a red light, look around. Notice the world around you. See the flowers in the median. Notice how many other people are navel-gazing into their phones just waiting for the light to turn.

This also goes for meal times. Keep the phones away from the table. Not in your pocket. Not on the counter in the kitchen. Leave them in your bedroom or office on the charger. The people that you’re eating dinner with – no matter who they are – are interesting and complex people. Be curious about their day and tell them about yours. If you’re eating alone, be mindful of the food that you’re eating. Take time to slow down and relax – eat slowly. It will be good for your brain and your belly.

No Phones Before Bed

A psychiatrist named Dan Siegel recently shared a video said that when you use your phones before bed, you’re short-circuiting your sleep circuitry. Your screens are bright and when you stare at such a bright screen you’re sending your brain the message that it’s not time to go to sleep yet. An hour before you go to bed, you should be starting to wind down, relaxing, and letting the biological process of your body get you ready for a good night’s sleep. Whatever is on there…. it’ll keep ’til morning.

Don’t Argue Via Text

Some estimates say that only about 7% of the information that your brain takes in during conversation is the actual words that are said. 93% is made up things like non-verbals (facial expression, body movements) and tone of voice. There is so much more room for misunderstanding when you speak over text and when the conversation gets heated…. you’d better believe that something is going to go wrong. Texting is convenient for sharing grocery lists and changing calendar appointments but it is a counterproductive way to have most conversations. Instead of texting, make a phone call or, better yet, discuss the issue at home when you are able to take in all of the other 93%. It might seem harder but it will be so much better for your relationships in the long run.

Having the internet in our pocket is absolutely amazing. We literally have access to all of the world’s information at any time and any where. But, the flip side is that we can sometimes let all of that distract us from the people we love. It’s hard to connect when put the world between ourselves and our loved ones sitting on the other side of the couch.

So, wherever your phone is, whatever is happening on Facebook, I can guarantee you it isn’t as important or as amazing as the person across the room. Put down the phone and spend some time really making a connection.

Photo Credit: "Distracted" by micadew is licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0.

After ten years in digital media and marketing, Desmond Smith recently graduated with a Master's in Marriage & Family Therapy from Pfeiffer University and is currently working towards licensure in the state of North Carolina. His wife, Kristy Yetman, is the owner of Yetman Counseling Services. Desmond writes about relationships and life at his blog, PartSaintAndPartSinner.com. He also helps therapists and helpers understand technology and marketing at SurfingOnTheCouch.com.