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Comment by jontayesp | Hacker News Reader

I just tried that app, but actually felt more stress because of the time pressure to find the one "good" guy vs the one "bad" guy (they only appear for a split second).

It would be more interesting to initially see one good guy surrounded by many bad guys. As you focus on the good guy, you are rewarded by producing more good guys and bad guys disappear. Instead of gamifying the experience, show the user that focusing on the good guys creates positive momentum.

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This app seems to be designed by psychologists based on several studies to treat anxiety, it is not a stress-release tool. The original article also mentions the goal is to retrain your reaction / attention to negative stimuli, which may explain the quick reaction time needed.

[meta] Your comment is solely about yourself and adds very little to the conversation.

[meta] The first part of the comment was about themselves, but the second part was a suggestion to improve an app which is absolutely a positive contribution to the conversion.

Parent commenter edited out most of the post after I made my comment.

Also, learning something new or changing a learned behavior is stressful. Following an established cognitive path feels easy, while going down new or little used pathways is straining. You're really not actually learning anything unless it feels difficult.

The first sentence on the page says it reduces stress and anxiety.

In the longer term perhaps? You could say psychotherapy reduces stress and anxiety but not necessarily during...

Most therapeutic (rather than pharmaceutical) approaches to treating anxiety that have a long-term impact, require you to focus on (or at least acknowledge) the stressful stimuli repeatedly in the short term:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy requires that you focus on stressful thoughts to "pick them apart."

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy requires that you experience a stress-trigger and "pass through" the initial phobic reaction to get to the point where you can neutrally observe that the stimuli isn't dangerous.

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