Once again welcome to the programme and thank you for being here!
Starting therapy with an app can potentially feel overwhelming, confusing, or challenging.
To help you get started, we prepared some tips.
First, a little bit of background about the Alena app.
As a part of your early access to Alena app, you're getting access 3 main features:
- Home: evidence-based therapy exercises with regular progress check-ins
- Recharge: short and simple exercises to help you recharge or soothe anxiety in the moment
- Community: our new Community space where you will find surveys, resources and reflection prompts, and space to make suggestions or ask questions
How does the therapy work?
The full course of therapy has 12 exercises, which work best if completed in the order that you will see them appear on your homepage. It covers the full course of therapy for social anxiety that you would go through with a therapist in face-to-face setting.
You will only see 3 exercises at a time, to help you focus and lightly guide your journey. If you would like to re-do any exercises, you can always click 'See all exercises'.
This programme is self-paced.
We trust and honour that you follow your intuition and that you use the app in the way that feels best and most useful for you.
You can do the exercises on your own (each takes around 10-15 minutes), take your time with the reflections and reading, and come back and repeat any that feel helpful to you.
We do recommend leaving 1-2 days between exercises so you have time to incorporate what you learn into your everyday life.
Feel free to use the Recharge page and Community as much and often or as little as you prefer. These are to help you manage difficult emotions that may come up during the therapy.
Progress Check-Ins
From time to time, you will see 'How is it going' exercises on the Homepage. They are short check-ins to help you reflect on your progress. They are also very helpful for us to know if Alena is helpful to you.
Please be honest and take those moment as an opportunity to be kind to yourself, regardless of your results.
Here are a few tips for getting started in a sustainable way:
- Pace yourself. This programme is not about finishing everything in one sitting. Please make and take time for your growth and learning to be natural, and take breaks when needed. It can be helpful to remember that therapy is challenging by definition, and paying attention to how your body and your emotions feel as you go is helpful.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for support. Therapy is not always easy, and the Community is there to support you. If you feel comfortable, please try to share your challenges as you will likely find others there who might be working through something similar.
- Stack habits: try to create a habit of using Alena in combination with existing habits. If you have tea in the morning or a shower in the evening, might you be able to set a reminder to use Alena for 15 minutes afterwards?
Links to download the app if you haven't yet:
Here is the guide to downloading the Alena app: LINK
Here is the link to the Testflight app: LINK
And here is the link to the Alena app: LINK
If you feel comfortable, please feel free to share any questions you might have below.
Thank you again for being here and taking part, you are helping us improve Alena and help other people improve their mental wellbeing as a result. It's an honour to work with you on this.