Tactica Interactive and partners Klinic Community Health Centre, the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP/ACPS,) and the Winnipeg Suicide Prevention Network (WSPN) are launching a new mobile and web app designed to help its users manage stress.
Calm in the Storm is a digital stress management tool that helps users understand, assess, and manage their stress. The app also shows people how to create a safety plan if they have thoughts of suicide.
“With over 100,000 healthcare apps on the App Store today – but well under 1000 addressing mental health – we applaud Klinic’s vision in creating an app people can carry in their pocket that can give them tools to achieve better mental health outcomes,” said Tactica Interactive CEO Kevin Glasier.
Using audio and video cues, Calm in the Storm users can quantify their stress levels and follow along with meditation methods proven to help reduce those levels. They can save their settings and track their stress development, allowing them to monitor progress on a stress-reduction initiative and achieve a baseline of stress over time.
“While everyone sort of accepts stress, they’re somewhat complacent about it. They sort of feel, ‘Well, that’s just the way that it is’,'” said Tim Wall, director of counselling services at Klinic, in an interview with CBC. “What we want people to do is to really recognize that stress has a very serious impact on our health and to be proactive.”
Funded by the Government of Manitoba, The Winnipeg Foundation, and Western Financial Group, the app is immediately accessible on web and mobile web. An iOS version will be available in early 2015.