App

Lifejacket

Your Personal Resource For Managing Stress in the Moment

The Dóchas Lifejacket is a free app to help you regulate your emotions and manage stress. With just a few swipes, the app gives you personalized strategies based on how you feel in that moment that you can use to calm down.

Everyone has stressful moments pop-up in their lives, and it’s easy to forget the tools we’ve learned to help ourselves re-regulate after something triggering occurs. The Dochas Lifejacket app makes managing stress easier. It does the thinking for you when you can’t think. It’s something to hold onto at the moment, like a lifejacket, so that you don’t sink.

Unlike other mental health apps that require daily use, costly subscriptions, or commitment to a routine, the free Dóchas Lifejacket app is there for you, with personalized strategies specifically targeted for you whenever you need it.

Take the stress out of

stress management.

We’ve all been there… moments when we’re either too overwhelmed to think straight, and we’re freaking out, or we are too done to care anymore. And what do you do when you’re in it? When you’re losing it, and you can’t reach anyone… when you’re alone and fed up… when all you want to do is lay in bed and forget the world (and eat a couple of bags of Doritos all to yourself. Just me?). I’m one who likes to feel like I’m in control and can take care of crap. That I can manage on my own until the horribleness passes. I need something to help take the thinking out of it when I’m not ok, though, because I can’t think clearly when I’m not ok.

That’s where the Dóchas Lifejacket app comes in.

Simple, using insights about brain development AND therapeutic experience, and tailored to you by your current choices.

The app is your personal resource to help you through whatever is happening so you can get back to you and your life.

Here’s how it works

1.

Download the Dóchas Lifejacket app from the Apple Store or the Google Play Store

2.

Open the app and create a username and password. Then, you follow the instructions on the screens

3.

You’ll be prompted to swipe up or left depending on the screen

4.

Finally, it loads the list of your recommendations.

Don’t like any of them?

You can swipe back to change some of your choices. If you don’t like them, something doesn’t fit.

For example, I’m usually touch for my emotional brain, but sometimes I want to listen to something. I might have chosen “touch” from the previous screen. If I go back and change it to hearing, I get different choices that might “sense” better for what I need at that moment.

The cool thing is, as you use the app more and more, it almost creates a shortcut in your brain, so when you are feeling “off,” the brain will remember some of the strategies you’ve used before that have worked, so taking care of yourself when you are most vulnerable might even become a bit reflexive!

In the Dóchas Lifejacket App you’ll practice accessing your three brains

Three brains?

Ok, not physically, but the brain developed in three sections. The reflexive or hindbrain (the oldest and body-based), the midbrain or emotional brain (next most aged and besties with the hindbrain), and the forebrain/frontal lobe. This is the youngest part of the brain and is responsible for thinking and regulating the other two brains.

The other reason to know about the three brains is how they respond under stress (and even good stuff happening is stress on the body).

Ok, here’s an example:

Let’s say you just got the most fantastic news ever. Like when I passed a significant exam so I could finish my psychology training, I collapsed in my kitchen, sobbing. It was good news, but my system was overwhelmed with relief, so I couldn’t function. What happened was:

1. My body was holding all the tension, and my heart was racing.

2. My emotional brain was holding all the fears about disappointing anyone, having to study, never having a life, etc.

3. These two parts of the brain were sending chemical signals to the frontal lobe, which would check things out and send chemicals back, saying, “Look peeps, we don’t have the info, so we’re still good, ok? Chill out.” So, I was managing.

Then I saw the score, which caused the body and emotional brain to flood the frontal lobe with the chemicals – like a tsunami. So, d) happened, where my frontal lobe drowned in the chemicals and had to let them flow through a bit before it could come back online, leaving me a crouched-down, sobbing mess on my kitchen floor.

Emotional brain

By now, you’re probably saying it doesn’t sound like the app would’ve helped there.

YOU’RE RIGHT! No app would help. No strategy would help when you’re completely flooded!

But, if I had been paying attention and noticing my heart rate (which, yes, breathing would’ve helped) and used a strategy for my emotion or body brain, which was going berserk because I was on the cusp of flooding, a lifejacket would’ve helped keep me afloat longer. AND I probably wouldn’t have taken the rest of the day to recover. And that was from a POSITIVE event!

So What?

So why should you care?

Well, often, I was told to “just breathe” when I had difficulty coping. May I say that can be crap advice?

If my problem is a racing heart, breathing might work (it might also make things worse…). If my problem is racing thoughts, giving me a body strategy won’t necessarily be the best thing (it doesn’t hurt, but it’s not getting at the target, especially quickly). You want to match the strategy with the part that’s gone haywire.

This is one of the differences in our app from others. It will ask you for your strongest senses. This is for your emotional brain, which is most responsive to the five senses. In fact, music can be one of the fastest ways to connect with your emotional brain and move through stuff. For me, it’s touch, so baking or creating something is awesome. This is one way the Dóchas Lifejacket is more tailored to fit your individual needs.

Ready to Start?

Plus: Your Lifejacket provides a way to save your favourites, personalize your emergency contacts, and access our social media sites for some extra cool information in one location!

Take the stress right out of managing your stress!

Have fun with it! And most of all, feel free to give us feedback. We want to improve your experience, so it’s what you need at the moment you most need it (which is right before or after things completely slide off the rails!)

App