Fika – App for Emotional Fitness + AI Social and Dating App

“Exercise keeps us physically fit, but what about our Emotional Fitness?”

Fika is an app designed in the UK to help students be emotionally fit by developing skills for resilience, coping, active listening, and healthy relationships.

Fika app for emotional fitness
Fika is inspired by Scandinavian culture and draws on scientific evidence from Sports Psychology, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), Positive Psychology, ACT and Mindfulness to build Emotional Fitness.

“The world is emotionally out of shape. We all know the benefits of regular physical exercise, but what about the benefits of regular emotional exercise?” said Nick Bennett, founder of the app, on University Mental Health Day.

Bennett says it’s important to shift the mental health narrative from negative to positive. He says our emotional muscles need just as much training as our physical muscles and we need to use positive terminology when addressing these issues.

The belief is that essential emotional skills need exercise and that apps such as Fika can help students address mental health issues before they escalate to substance abuse or self-harm.

As of this writing, Fika is currently in closed trials and not yet available for download. However, interested parties can send e-mail to hello@fika.community.

See the website:  https://www.fika.community/

UPDATE: This post about Fika, an app for emotional fitness, has been here since March 31, 2019. Now, five years later, the URL for fika.community results in an error page. We noticed it a couple weeks ago and see it’s still the case.

However, we’ve learned about a different Fika, Asia’s first female-focused AI social and dating app – the #2 dating app in Asia. Yes, AI as in Artificial Intelligence… for real relationships. See FikaConnects.com

Turn Regret Into Self-Improvement

“Painful emotions such as regret can be powerful sources of inspiration,” writes Jennifer Taitz in the Smarter Living section of the New York Times on February 7, 2019.

She reports that researchers have found obsessing over regrets has a negative impact on mood and sleep, can increase impulsivity, and increase the risk of binge eating and misusing alcohol.

Taitz writes, “As a clinical psychologist, one of my most important tasks in helping people lead healthy, happy and meaningful lives is to teach them evidence-based strategies to manage their emotions. That includes how to use regrets to motivate them.”

See her article, “6 Steps to Turn Regret Into Self-Improvement”

See her website: https://drjennytaitz.com/

Jennifer Taitz is a clinical instructor in psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of “How to be Single and Happy: Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soul Mate” and “End Emotional Eating.”

How To Be Happy – Marcus Aurelius

This 10-minute video offers 10 of the most important insights for happiness from the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and devout student of the philosophy of Stoicism.

10 Important Insights for Happiness

1. Seek to build your own character
2. Stop seeking the praise of other people
3. Focus only on what you have control over and ignore the rest
4. Do Something Productive With Your Anger
5. Negative emotions are a result of negative thinking
6. Be Prepared for Any Outcome and Act with resilience
7. Be Insanely Grateful for what you have
8. Tolerance is in not judging
9. The peace you need is in you
10. Appreciate the shortness of life

The video’s producer writes, “Even though it is over 2000 years old, more and more people are discovering how Stoicism is not only relevant to modern times, but can be applied in very simple, yet strong ways.”

Note: Although a dictionary definition of stoicism is “the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint,” Stoicism, the ancient Greek school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC, taught that “virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.”

The Hi, How Are You Project

The Hi, How Are You Project is a non-profit organization inspiring new conversations around mental health issues by funding and creating media content, projects and events. The Foundation provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and education on mental well-being.

Hi, How Are You Project

The mission is to remove the stigma and shame around mental health, so people will feel open to communicate. “We believe it is not an organizational mission, but a worldwide community mission to make a difference.”

See the website: https://www.hihowareyou.org/

#hihowareyou

Combatting Mental Health Stigma

Lenard McKelvey, known professionally as Charlamagne Tha God, speaks with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show about what he discovered by going to therapy and why it’s important to be honest and upfront about mental health.

Charlamagne says, “It’s always important to share our experiences because they can help the next person.”

He says, “therapy is not embarrassing” and “getting help is your right” and “be confident in your own skin.” He also says, “Watch what you put into your brain… It’s okay to not be okay and it’s okay to say you’re not okay. What’s crazy is not going to get help for it.”

Charlamagne Tha God is best known for being co-host of the nationally syndicated hip-hop iHeartRadio program The Breakfast Club. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It and Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me.

Being shook is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne, it’s his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he is ahead of the game and should have nothing to worry about, he is still plagued by anxieties – fear of being weak; fear of being a bad dad; fear of being a worse husband; and ultimately fear of failure. Shook One is his journey to beat back those fears and to empower you to no longer be held back from your potential.

Video: https://youtu.be/F9kPu5eudjc

Website for Charlamagne Tha God: https://www.cthagodworld.com/

Benefits of Gratitude

In a 4-minute audio file heard on Morning Edition, National Public Radio reports, “If You Feel Thankful, Write It Down. It’s Good For Your Health.”

The report mentions Laurie Santos, who teaches a course on the science of well-being and happiness at Yale University and Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, whose research career has been devoted to studying human happiness, is also the author of, “The How of Happiness” and “The Myths of Happiness.”

NPR’s Maanvi Singh says, “Gratitude is being endorsed by wellness blogs and magazines. You can buy different kinds of specific gratitude journals, or download apps that remind you to jot down your blessings.”

According to Singh, “There’s a growing body of research on the benefits of gratitude. Studies have found that giving thanks and counting blessings can help people sleep better, lower stress and improve interpersonal relationships.”

However, “for all the research on the broad benefits of expressing gratitude, there’s also evidence that it isn’t for everyone. And it isn’t a panacea – it can’t make injustice, loss, or pain disappear.”

Nevertheless, gratitude can give us hope. “The research shows that focusing on the positive, in addition to the negative, can boost our mood more than we expect,” says Laurie Santos.

See: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/12/24/678232331/if-you-feel-thankful-write-it-down-its-good-for-your-health

Emotional Wellness Toolkit

“Emotional wellness is the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change and difficult times.” – Emotional Wellness Toolkit by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

See 6 strategies for improving your emotional health and read articles about each topic.

See: https://www.nih.gov/health-information/emotional-wellness-toolkit

More Resources: https://www.nih.gov/health-information/emotional-wellness-toolkit-more-resources

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.

Emotional Health and Self-Esteem

Beth W. Orenstein, a freelance writer for Everyday Health, lists “10 Ways to Boost Your Emotional Health Through Improving Your Self-Esteem.”

She writes, “Taking care of your emotional health is as important as taking care of your physical body… These strategies will help you stay resilient through everyday stresses and when larger personal issues arise.”

See: https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/10-ways-to-boost-emotional-health.aspx

ECoWeB Project – App for Mental Health of Young People

ECoWeB Project

The ECoWeB Project aims to develop and disseminate a mobile application (App) to provide engaging and personalized tools and psychological skills to promote emotional wellbeing and prevent mental health problems in adolescents and young adults.

The app and corresponding tasks are designed to help monitor emotions, learn what can influence emotional responses, and develop new emotional skills.

The project team comes from eight European nations (the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Greece, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Switzerland) to improve mental health care and access for youth.

The project actively seeks to establish research and application partnerships with important actors in the health, education, and employment areas (such as government and community agencies, health insurances, self-help groups, parent associations, school and employer organizations).

For info: http://www.ecowebproject.eu/