Anxiety disorders are the most common reason for mental health struggles all over the world. But what can be done about it? Comfy gadgets might be the solution.
Are anxiety disorders becoming the fad diagnosis of our time? It might very well be due to the current state of the world that mental health problems are becoming more prevalent, with depression and anxiety disorders leading the way. While in 2017 between 2.5–7 % of the world’s population was affected by anxiety disorders, the WHO now reports a rapid increase in depression and anxiety disorders by up to 25 % – during the first year of the pandemic alone. Anxiety disorders are thus the most common mental health or neurodevelopmental disorder worldwide. Young people and women are particularly affected.
“The information we have now about the impact of COVID-19 on the world’s mental health is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This is a wake-up call to all countries to pay more attention to mental health and do a better job of supporting their populations’ mental health.”
In addition to therapeutic and medical treatment, specific tools could be used to help calm anxiety at home. “Therapy is costly and pharmacological interventions often have undesirable side-effects. Healthy people also regularly suffer periods of anxiety. Therefore, a non-pharmacological, intuitive, home intervention would be complementary to other treatments and beneficial for non-clinical groups,” said Alice C. Haynes et al. in their recent article on tactile treatment for anxiety disorders published in Plos One.
In addition to auditory and visual home-based interventions, such as guided mediations, tactile and other sensory aids – like weighted blankets or breathing pillows – could help combat anxiety disorders.
Weighted blankets are said to help with anxiety and sleep disorders. The blankets are weighted by sewn in glass beads or plastic balls. The blanket’s weight alone is said to have a calming effect and its pressure seems to help people relax. In a medical context, weighted blankets were first used in the therapy of autistic children. However, this did not prove to be a great success.
Currently, there are just a few studies on the effects of weighted blankets in the therapy of anxiety disorders, but a systematic review is cautiously positive. “Weighted blankets may be an appropriate therapeutic tool in reducing anxiety; however, there is not enough evidence to suggest they are helpful with insomnia,” the review states. Other studies, however, show that weighted blankets significantly improved symptoms of insomnia, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder and ADHD.
One potential alternative to weighted blankets are tactile pillows for patients to hug and hold. “The tactile domain is relatively under-explored, but we suggest that there are manifold physiological and affective qualities of touch that lend it to the task. In this study we demonstrate that haptic technology can offer an enjoyable, effective and widely accessible alternative for easing state anxiety,” states the current study on tactile pillows for anxiety therapy.
Five prototypes were developed. Each of the pillows had a different feature – for example, they mimicked breathing, purring or heartbeats. “Ratings indicated that the ‘breathing’ prototype was most pleasant to interact with and participants described this prototype as calming and soothing.” This prototype was then used to build an ergonomic pillow with a built-in pump that imitated human breathing.
In an experiment, 129 participants were then exposed to a spontaneous stress situation in the form of a math test. Subjects who had a pillow available were shown to reduce pre-test anxiety, compared to subjects without a pillow. “This reduction in anxiety was indistinguishable from that of a guided meditation. Our findings highlight the efficacy of this interface, demonstrating that haptic technologies can be effective at easing anxiety,” the researchers conclude.
It seems that certain anxiety patients might benefit from haptic and tactile aids. However, evidence is very thin in each case and current studies yield mixed results. Researchers see a slight positive effect, but are cautious in their prognosis. More research is certainly needed to work out clear advantages and disadvantages, as well as to determine, which population groups might actually benefit from such aids – and in what cases it might even be counterproductive.
Given the ever-increasing number of people suffering from various forms of anxiety disorders, this is certainly an area with great potential – provided further research can confirm a benefit.
Image source: visualsofdana, unsplash.
