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Edina teens launch new app to track emotions
How are you feeling today? It sounds like a simple question, but Edina teenager Taara Verma found it was a tough one to answer honestly. After tracking her emotions in therapy, she had an idea.
EDINA, Minn. (FOX 9) - How are you feeling today? It sounds like a simple question, but Edina teenager Taara Verma found it was a tough one to answer honestly. After tracking her emotions in therapy, she had an idea.
"I feel very grateful to have had the privilege to be in therapy, but I know there are so many kids who don't have that privilege and I wanted to do something to make these techniques that were useful to me more accessible," said Verma.
She teamed up with her good friend, Siena Pradhan, and "Feel Now" was born, an app aimed specifically at helping teens become mindful of their feelings.
"By looking at the trend over time, it might help you realize my mood has been on this constant decline maybe something is wrong?" said Verma.
The goal of the app is to make tracking your emotional and mental health as simple as possible. So simple, in fact, it only takes a few clicks on your phone.
Once a day, users are prompted to track their emotions at that very moment. They can choose from multiple different emotions, like happy, peaceful, angry, sad, and disgusted, and can also adjust the intensity of those emotions.
According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 7 kids ages 10 to 19 experience a mental health disorder.
Verma says it was a priority to include a feature on the app that would remind kids they aren't alone. Users are able to see if their friends have used the app that day, but they aren't able to see the exact emotions their friends tracked. It's that sense of community that Verma hopes will keep users coming back.
"If people get in the habit of at least thinking about their emotions on a regular basis, it might make it easier for people to talk about and express their emotions as well," said Verma.