App to help deal with stress and anxiety during Covid-19 pandemic

Team Udayavani, Apr 5, 2020, 2:18 PM IST

Covid-19 pandemic is spreading all over the nation, it is normal for people to experience anxiety, worry or fear.

In order to help people with anxiety during coronavirus, researchers have developed an app named ‘PanicMechanic’.

The app is said to work at any time and in any location, it uses the camera of a phone to measure the body’s panic response, using an approach similar to photoplethysmography.

Ryan McGinnis, Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont in the US, and a co-developer of the app said, “Activating the app, then holding your finger against the flash can give you an objective measure of your reaction to stress,”

It adapts biofeedback-like monitoring which means the process of gaining awareness of many physiological functions of one’s body by using electronic or other instruments. Its goal is to be able to manipulate the body’s systems.