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Journal Article 1: Tucker, I., & Goodings, L. (2015). Managing stress through the Stress Free app: Practices of self-care in digitally mediated spaces. Digital Health, 1.

Abstract: In this paper we are concerned with the question of how we feel when living in concert with multiple technologies. More specifically, we are focused on the influx of digital apps designed to manage psychological wellbeing. We draw on empirical work exploring one such app, StressFree, and focus on the experiences of stress and technological tools designed to lessen stress. Our concern is with the way that technologies become part of the experience of stress as opposed to solely understanding the app as a tool aimed to reduce the occurrence and severity of stress. This involves taking a theoretical journey through philosophies of technology that provide valuable resources for conceptualizing the relational characteristics of digitally mediated stress. Our wider interest is to speak to broader concerns with the movement to ‘digital care’ and the implications for how we conceptualize technology, self and care therein.

Journal Article 2: Sharma, M., & Rush, S. (2014). Mindful-based stress reduction as a stress management intervention for healthy individuals. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 19, 271–286.

Abstract: Stress is a global public health problem with several negative health consequences, including anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, and suicide. Mindfulness-based stress reduction offers an effective way of reducing stress by combining mindfulness meditation and yoga in an 8-week training program. The purpose of this study was to look at studies from January 2009 to January 2014 and examine whether mindfulness-based stress reduction is a potentially viable method for managing stress. A systematic search from Medline, CINAHL, and Alt HealthWatch databases was conducted for all types of quantitative articles involving mindfulness-based stress reduction. A total of 17 articles met the inclusion criteria. Of the 17 studies, 16 demonstrated positive changes in psychological or physiological outcomes related to anxiety and/or stress. Despite the limitations of not all studies using randomized controlled design, having smaller sample sizes, and having different outcomes, mindfulness-based stress reduction appears to be a promising modality for stress management.