Research summary:

Problem area: despite existing anxiety management strategies & methodologies, many people still struggle from anxiety's effects on their lives. How can we use UX methods to address these strategies in a way that produces positive behavior changes in users?

-what's anxiety and why does it matter:
Anxiety disorders happen when healthy fear gets out of control, to the point that the sufferer's mind can't handle it rationally. 
Because of the irrationality, and having fear in contexts where it's unhelpful, people with anxiety disorders struggle to accomplish everyday tasks, and live and enjoy a "normal" life. 

-ok so what do you do when you have an anxiety disorder:
Therapists will often utilize a combination of prescription(s) and talk/thought/action based therapies. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has a long track record of success, is a technique where the patient reframes their anxious thoughts to try to correct the root of them (i.e. thinking they might fail and embarrass themselves in a social situation could be reframed as "what if I succeed and make a new friend.") However, it requires a lot of practice to retrain the brain to think in these more positive patterns. 
Many other anxiety management techniques exist, most based around identifying and transforming unhelpful thought patterns, or breaking large/scary situations into smaller, manageable steps.

-ok so what does this have to do with UX?
Anxiety is not completely curable, but it is manageable. Most of the ways that exist to make it manageable depend on consistent practice and small victories, as well as reminding the patient of past successes. That fits well with the snackable, portable nature of devices and their interfaces. 
Additionally, there is a lot of shame involved in having anxiety, and people fear inconveniencing others by needing help. The privacy and personal nature of one's own device would be pretty powerful at combating that. Here, UX is a tool to help yourself. 


Stuff I need to do more research into: 
-more specific actions for anxiety management
-nudging behavioral design and how it works in the ux framework
-weaknesses of UX that are specific to this project...
-headspace app/those online therapist delivery things


Particularly pertinent sources (more in this post):
Pramana, Gede et al. “Using Mobile Health Gamification to Facilitate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Skills Practice in Child Anxiety Treatment: Open Clinical Trial.” Ed. Gunther Eysenbach. JMIR Serious Games 6.2 (2018): e9. PMC. Web. 14 Oct. 2018. https://dx-doi-org.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.2196%2Fgames.8902 
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/