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- 1. SMS Intervention: Operation Relaxation By: Gina Lacagnina NTR 598
- 2. The Idea • Will a daily text message prompting one to relax have an effect on stress levels? And what is more effective: simple reminders, or descriptive, guided messages? • The Message ▫ Control: “Take a moment to relax.” ▫ Intervention: “At this moment I invite you to stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, breathe deeply and let any worries pass away.”
- 3. The Experiment • 12 participants • The daily afternoon text was sent, followed 1 hour later by the question: ▫ “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how stressed did you feel today?” • All participants filled out a post survey
- 4. The Results • Overall, both groups had low stress levels throughout ▫ Control had lower average stress levels in 5/7 days, but by a marginal amount • High compliance rates, but was the behavior itself effective? ▫ 58% said stress level decreased for a short amount of time ▫ 8% said stress level decreased throughout the rest of the day ▫ 33% said they didn’t notice any effects on stress
- 5. Survey highlights • Majority said the message was helpful • Control group interpretations ▫ “I simply took a deep breath and opened myself fully to the present moment” ▫ “I tried to make a conscious effort to sit and ruminate on a positive thing in my life for at least one minute” ▫ “concentrated on breathing more and closed my eyes to block out distractions”
- 6. Next Time… • Account for some of the confounding factors • Revise the design ▫ Tailor intervention so the relaxation message is sent out when it’s most needed ▫ Incorporate personalized messages based off of post-survey info ▫ Measure stress level before and after the intervention
Editor's Notes
- How can we better communicate to help people relax and deal with stress. Why? Chronic stress is very damaging to health. I’m interested in learning about ways that people cope with stress. Through yoga practice and voice lessons, I’ve learned how to breathe better and use deep breathing to both relax/let go and open myself up to the present moment. This is not something I am conscious of all the time though. I was curious if sending a simple text message about relaxation could have any effect on one’s stress levels from that point on in the day.
- Participants were randomly chosen to be in either the control or intervention groupPost survey allowed for further insights beyond the stress interval levels
- Seems to be effective for short term stress relief, but not long term. Also, was it really a valid measure? Stress fluctuates throughout the day, and even if the behavior did help, the participant could have had a really stressful morning (before the text as given) that contributed to stress level
- -only if feeling stressed at time of message-this is already a habit for them-already programmed myself to do this type of thing throughout the dayControl group interpretations were similar to what I was trying to get at with the intervention.
- -For example, circumstance of response: my parents were on vacation during the intervention (which I didn’t realize) so this affected the average stress levels, time zones (brother is 3 hours ahead), also make sure the measure is valid for the behavior. Since stress is short-term intervention, question needs to be asked shortly after. -for example, it wasn’t effective when my brother was already relaxed (i.e. on Saturday playing video games when I sent it)-One of the questions I asked was “how do you normally deal with stress,” and I got some amazing responses, I would really like to incorporate some of their answer into the message, to personalize it and be most effective for them. For example, if someone said I try to focus on positive thinking, reach out to family member or friend-Or at least measure the stress level from when they completed the behavior until when I asked the question (not the entire day) –I didn’t initially because I wanted to see if I could get more “honest” or natural responses, w/out them being conscious about how it was affecting their decision (I though this could introduce bias, especially because they were friends/family)