BearHugs Support

Introducing BearHug, a mental health app that offers features such as an AI chatbot, a mood tracker, & calming exercises. BearHug breaks the barriers people with mental health issues often experience.

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Inspiration

Our goal is to break barriers involving access to mental health and encourage people to reach out for help. During the pandemic, youth depression and anxiety rates have doubled, with 1 in 4 adolescents globally experiencing elevated symptoms of depression and 1 in 5 adolescents globally experiencing elevated symptoms of anxiety. This could be due to a number of reasons, social isolation, financial issues, school disruptions and more. Youth need a place to vent, to express themselves, and with the pandemic causing social isolation, they have lost a valuable place to confide in; friends. What we hope to do is create a safe application where they can express themselves and develop healthy habits to check in with their emotions and create healthy mindsets.

What it does

Introducing BearHug. BearHug is a mental health app designed to assist you through your highs and lows. Whether you’re having a rough day and no one seems to be understanding you or you feel like you’re on the top of the world, BearHug is here to help. We offer multiple features, including an AI chatbot, a mood tracker, stress relieving exercises and many more. Breaking difficult barriers people with mental health conditions often experience in the overwhelm of the world, it’s a family friendly app designed to offer people the mental health support they need. With a cozy color theme and cute hand drawn bears, BearHug is an inviting app for all. How do we work? BearHug has a multitude of features, the first and most prominent of which are the stress relieving exercises. From MentalHealthFirstAid, studies have shown that practicing breathing and mindfulness exercises can help ease stress and depression, improve moods and lead to better mental health overall. Bearhug offers exactly that, compiling a list of different exercises designed to aid you, with things like panic attacks, practicing gratitude and box-breathing. While we don’t have the entire thing coded, we have a few examples to show how some of the features would work The app also locates your nearest community center, and your local support lines like the Suicide Hotline, KidsHelpPhone, Mental Health Crisis Line and more. An article in the New York Times talks about how intense feelings are typically the work of your amygdala, which handles your fight or flight response. Its job is to figure out whether something is a threat, devise a response and then store that information away for later in case the threat reappears. When you get stressed, the amygdala takes over. U.C.L.A research shows that talking about your feelings, also known as “affect labeling”, can diminish your amygdala’s response to things that are stressful. If talking to a human being isn’t your cup of tea, BearHug also offers an AI chatbot that is there to listen and respond to any issues you may have. Research from Southern Methodist University shows that writing about traumatic experiences or venting your feelings left positive effects on patients’ health and immune systems. Negative thoughts will occur either way and by keeping them to yourself, you’re putting in more work and effort to suppress them. Talking to a person about your issues can be troubling for some which is why Pookie Bear exists. Being judged by others is a big fear for some people and while the people on the support lines will not judge, some users might still want a second option. Pookie is there to do exactly that, allow people to vent while responding with words of affirmation and other kind thoughts and pieces of advice. Recording your thoughts is also a feature that BearHug has, using a digital journal to store any notes or thoughts you might want to jot down with an image cover that can remind you of the event or just add to the comforting aesthetic. University of Rochester Medical Center states that finding a healthy way of expressing yourself is vital to maintaining a healthy mindset. The benefits include managing anxiety, reducing stress, coping with depression and more. This journal could be used as a gratitude journal, each entry for something you are grateful for. BearHug’s multiple forms of emotional expression include a mood tracker, which is great for expressing yourself as well. Checking in with yourself is crucial to maintaining your mental health and by using a mood tracker, you can check in and record your emotions on that specific day. Mood trackers also allow you to reflect on your day and consider what you and others could have changed to make it better. How do we work? BearHug has a multitude of features, the first and most prominent of which are the stress relieving exercises. From MentalHealthFirstAid, studies have shown that practicing breathing and mindfulness exercises can help ease stress and depression, improve moods and lead to better mental health overall. Bearhug offers exactly that, compiling a list of different exercises designed to aid you, with things like panic attacks, practicing gratitude and box-breathing. While we don’t have the entire thing coded, we have a few examples to show how some of the features would work The app also locates your nearest community center, and your local support lines like the Suicide Hotline, KidsHelpPhone, Mental Health Crisis Line and more. An article in the New York Times talks about how intense feelings are typically the work of your amygdala, which handles your fight or flight response. Its job is to figure out whether something is a threat, devise a response and then store that information away for later in case the threat reappears. When you get stressed, the amygdala takes over. U.C.L.A research shows that talking about your feelings, also known as “affect labeling”, can diminish your amygdala’s response to things that are stressful. If talking to a human being isn’t your cup of tea, BearHug also offers an AI chatbot that is there to listen and respond to any issues you may have. Research from Southern Methodist University shows that writing about traumatic experiences or venting your feelings left positive effects on patients’ health and immune systems. Negative thoughts will occur either way and by keeping them to yourself, you’re putting in more work and effort to suppress them. Talking to a person about your issues can be troubling for some which is why Pookie Bear exists. Being judged by others is a big fear for some people and while the people on the support lines will not judge, some users might still want a second option. Pookie is there to do exactly that, allow people to vent while responding with words of affirmation and other kind thoughts and pieces of advice.

How we built it

BearHug is coded on Appy Pie. Appy Pie is a software company that provides the tools to create custom applications, chatbots, and more. Our main application and Pookie Bear (Chat Bot) was created through Appy Pie. We were able to customize our chat bot with AI, using a GPT API, and add personalized pages and features to our website. Graphics and designs were drawn by hand through Sketchbook, and some features were coded separately with Processing and have yet to be integrated into the mobile app.

Challenges we ran into

Initially our team wanted to code our application through HTML from scratch. We started a basic application with a navigation bar when we realized that this was just unachievable given the time constraints and small capital of just two people. Instead of following through with a crude project, we researched software tools with application creating tools and came across Appy Pie. With this, we overcame our challenge with the preliminary time consuming HTML code and began using Appy Pie instead for a functional application that works through a mobile device.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our team is proud of the fact that we were able to publish a beta version of this app. While some of the features are not entirely integrated yet, they do work separately. For example, our local help section works and when a contact is clicked on, the number will be dialled. Unfortunately we did not have time to code the AI chatbot and breathing exercises into the app but they work separately and we are proud of it given the time constraints.

What we learned

We learned a lot on how chatbots and how API’s connect different applications which could be very helpful for any future AI related projects we have. We also learned more about Processing animation with different functions and commands. Most importantly we learned the importance of time management and how planning ahead can have a big impact on our project’s development.

What's next for BearHugs Support

Moving forward we will work to fully integrate features like the Mood Tracker, AI Chatbot, and more. Further down the line, we hope to create a published BearHug Supports application available through the App Store/Google Play and a world where people suffering from mental health conditions can break through some of the barriers they experience using BearHug.

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