If you’re one of the many people who suffer from OCD, you know how difficult it can be to manage your symptoms and live a normal life. But there is hope!
Meditation has been shown to be an effective tool in managing OCD symptoms. Here are six tips to help you get started:
1. Choose a comfortable place to sit or lie down. You may want to close your eyes and focus on your breath.
2. Start with a few minutes of meditation each day and gradually increase the amount of time you spend meditating.
3. Be patient and don’t expect immediate results. It can take some time to see the benefits of meditation.
4. When you have intrusive thoughts, try to observe them without judgment. Accept them as part of your experience and let them go.
5. Practice mindfulness in your everyday life. Pay attention to the present moment and your surroundings. This can help you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings.
6. Seek professional help if you feel like your OCD is severe and impacting your quality of life. A therapist can provide you with additional support and guidance.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James
“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” – Amit Ray
“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” – Buddha
OCD.app gives users short 15-second meditations on supportive and helpful thoughts. These brief relaxation moments conclude the daily exercise and reinforce the learning while allowing your brain to wind down.
People who deal with OCD can often feel the urge to check. Constant checking can become a ritual.
Checking comes in many forms: making sure the door is locked, checking body temperature, monitoring relationships and checking to see if harm was done to self or others.
Due to the nature of constant checking, people who are diagnosed with OCD are advised to resist the urge to check. However, when treating OCD with CBT, or when self-managing OCD with a CBT based app, users are sometimes asked to take a self assessment that “tests their OCD” – in other words, take an OCD test.
The question that arises is therefore: is it advised to take the self-assessment and “check” my OCD? Or does it have the potential to negatively affect our ability to deal with OCD and improve?
Professor Guy Doron, co-founder of GGtude and the expert behind GG OCD app, says that it’s OK to take the assessment when advised by a professional psychologist. However, re-doing the OCD self assessment is unhelpful. “As a guide, just complete the assessment and go on to complete the daily exercises,” Prof. Doron adds.
Living with OCD is challenging. But thankfully, it’s also a treatable disorder and professional help can be an effective way to reduce checking and checking urges.
In the past, people coping with OCD who were looking for solutions had limited options. You could go see a psychiatrist, whose tools are psychotherapy and medicine. Later on, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) introduced new protocols that proved to be effective for OCD.
Nowadays, the gold standard for OCD remains CBT therapy, however there are new tools that use this methodology remotely or digitally. More often than before, people who want to solve a problem often search for an app that solves this problem. For example, if you want to improve your physical fitness, you may use an app for that.
Apps have great potential as e-learning and training tools, because they are accessible, immediate and relatively easy to form habits with.
So, when looking for an app to help deal with OCD, what should you look for?
The 4 OCD app “must haves”
1. Evidence based
There are many products that promise the world, but not many of them are researched using academic methods and peer reviews. You want your app to have at least some sort of research backing and credibility. If possible, it should have actual on-product studies that are published in well known academic journals.
2. Beyond articles and videos
The power of apps is that they “applications” – meaning that they actually do stuff and not just serve as a browser. We are bombarded by information, but apps have the ability to transform the most relevant information into practice using daily tasks and activities.
3. Great user experience and customer support
You don’t want an app that someone uploaded to the app store ages ago but doesn’t provide support for. Search for apps that are being updated regularly, that provide with easy to use and intuitive user interface and that help you do what needs to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
4. Privacy minded
The last thing we want is that someone will use our private information for any purpose other than help us improve our coping with OCD. That’s why it’s important to use apps that clearly label their use of user data and their tracking policy.
Most credible mental health apps know that and respect user privacy, but it’s always a good idea to check out this information. By the way, if an app uses anonymized tracking codes to drive downloads via marketing channels, it isn’t necessarily a problem. What is important is that the data isn’t shared and no identifiable user information is being shared across apps and platforms.
Living with endometriosis involves managing not just physical symptoms, but also significant psychological challenges. As a chronic condition affecting approximately 10% of reproductive-age women, endometriosis can profoundly impact mental well-being…
Living with OCD during the Holidays: Ruth’s Story I never realized how different my holiday anxiety was until that Christmas morning three years ago. Standing in my kitchen at 6…
Introduction Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a complex mental health condition that affects millions of people worldwide. With increased access to information online, many individuals have turned to self-diagnosis as a…
Foreword The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for a rapid transformation in many sectors, with digital mental health emerging as a promising frontier. As the world grappled with lockdowns,…
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
